Lazy day today. I woke up late and had breakfast in the Cafe Tierra del Fuego in my hotel. This Cafe happens to be the most happening cafe in town. Spend an hour here and you will see all walks of life come and go conversing over coffee, drinks or food. I recommend eaves dropping as a way of learning a language as it trains the ear to the cadence of everyday conversation. I properly identified 5 or 6 words that I had previously been butchering even before my coffee arrived.
After finishing up my sedentary and highly caffeinated late morning I took a long walk to the cemetary which I was told yesterday was very important here. Cemataires are always important places to people for obvious reason but what struck me was that perhaps 98% of the graves had fresh flowers placed on them in the dead of winter. They were less holes in the ground and more like shrines that are visited weekly at the very least. This in itself was much more impresive than the grand and yet decrepit mausoleums of Ricoletta in Buenos Aires. It's interesting that even in death there is a socio-economic divide, you have the grand mausoleum and then the glass boxes on a shared wall for the plebes. While the plots of the well to do wool boom families were impressive the commoners glass boxes containing an urn for ashes and personal affects were far more touching. What struck me as curious was the many crypts that contained Slavic names or bore names in the Cyrillic alphabet. Aparently the Croatians were a major imigrant force here in Chilean Patagonia. I think they came over for an overhyped but non-existent Gold Rush in early 18th century and remained focusing instead on Wool. Most of them did pretty well from what I gathered in looking at the real estate they currently occupy in the cemetry. Afterwards I walked to the Zona Franca or tax free zone and bought some things I neither needed or wanted and afterwards felt really good that I didn´t pay any tax on them. From there I went to the Agriculture Museum which was interesting becuase the terrain here is so completely unforgiving that seeing the primitive machines they used to manage the soil down here was a testament to the spirit of farming.
The logistics of travel in Chile are a little tough. There is no train and the Pan American Highway stops a few hours past Santiago as the land mass gives way to an endless archipelogo and fjords. I think if you laid Chile sideways it would more than cover the distance from New York to LA. However Chile being the sliver of country it is, it seems you are never not moving North or South. I bring this up because it was quite a haul to get down to Punta Arneas which is arguably the southern most city in the world. I say "Arguably" becuase the possesion of this title that is currently being duked out with neighboring Argentina´s board of tourism. My initial plan was to connect via bus down here and head the end of Argentina while avoiding crossing the Andes again. As fate would have it I was abducted by two girls on Friday night and kept out way later than my bed time and subsequently missed my bus the following morning. I was told there would not be another bus to Ushuai, Argentina until the following Wednesday. Big Oops. While I realy did appreciate that these ladies had taught me how much I do like to dance to Cumbia and Reggaeton´ music I now had to redraw my plans. As always roll with punches.
While eating a late breakfast downstairs in my hotel the waiter introduced me to his friend who just happened to work in a local travel office. I explained to him my previous plan and what I wanted to experience in Patagonia. He infromed that my missing the bus was a blessing because my previous plan was crap. Inside of 15 minutes I had a whole new itenerary that was bullet proof. I would now take the bus up to Puerto Natales and visit what is purported to be the most beautiful place in Patagonia - Torres Del Paine. Being stranded in Punta Arenas was not such a bad thing. I rather liked the town. Historically, it began life as Penal Colony for military insubordinates and other reprobates and looked like it could be a set for some obscure David Lynch movie. Additionaly there is a small wooden diorama in the center of town honoring Antoine de Saint-Exupéry which I just thought was too cool. Although he is best known for writing The Little Prince. He was responsible for pioneering the first air mail service in Patagonia. His book Night Flight is based on a harrowing trip from Punta Arenas during a storm. Besides that the staff at the hotel had taken a liking to me and there was always the prospect of more dancing.
I have posted some pics of Punta Arena
HERE
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