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We spent the day before Christmas eve in Puerto Natales, recovering from five days in nature. December 24 we took the bus to Punta Arenas, the southermost town on the South American mainland and relatively big to be in this desolate area (around 100000 inhabitants). Located next to the Magellan Strait with Tierra del Fuego on the opposite side, it should be a historically interesting place. In reality, we didn't really meet the history so much, but enjoyed some walks, including one to city centre where Anna had a raw hamburger and another one to the harbour. We found a 'casa de familia' type of place to stay the night and enjoyed a Christmas party with some nice folks from Australia and France. On christmas day it was about time to leave the house cats and find another more allergy free place to stay, but after having slept for too long (as usual...), we had to stay yet another day. A barbecue on the house was on the Christmas day menu. A stroll to the viewpoint (see above) offered some entertainment by a drunk chilean guy who was as outspoken and critical about the political system as one could expect. The next day we had to move on and managed to find the place that had a reputation to be loved by Eric and Carina. It might have been due to the extrovert and friendly hostess Montserrat. On the 26th of December we bumped into Eric who amazingly enough was about to take Carina to Ecuador for a change of climate. We chose to visit the penguins at Seno Otway instead. They were quite funny little creatures. They walked together in a straight line as if they were on their way to the court house. When reaching the beach they were just immensely happy to dive and swim in the water. We also got to see another strange type of bird on this trip, the nandu (or rhea, see bottom of page) who were a bit more serious. |
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