It was only a 3hr bus ride from Puerto Natales to Punto Arenas, where I had a leisurely stay of 8 days. I had planned my trip there to coincide with the arrival of my cousin Alan, who lives in Canada. He was to be the naturalist on an Australian boat going to the Antarctic. As an added bonus, I was to meet two South Africans (Hendrik and Ingrid), who where on a cruise down the Chilean coast and also going to the Antarctic. Sheer joy, and much sadness when they had all come and gone. With Hendrik and Ingrid I could only have coffee, a long chat and a walk to a viewpoint of the city and Strait of Magellan, as they only had a few hours ashore.
Alan stayed for a couple of days, and we managed to do a hike in the Reserva Nacional Magallanes, a fascinating forest a few kilometers out of the city. It is eerie in some places, fairy like in others. There was evidence of thick old trees that had been harvested years ago, their stumps often covered with bright green moss. I love the musty smell of decaying wood and leaves in a forest and the sponginess of the ground. I visualize the new growth springing forth from the graveyard of the old, and I’m reminded of the inevitable cycle of life and death. 
The trees in this area are mostly lenga, ñirre and coigüe (beech). There are edible berries all over – it was a first for me to be told “eat the berries”! I had calafate, murtilla and chaura.
There were a variety of exquisite plants and flowers, some very small. The flower in the next picture is a quarter of the size of my pinkie nail. The red beauty in the following one is no fun when it is dry. It clings to your trousers or socks, and when you touch it to remove it, it disintegrates and each of those seeds have to be removed individually.
Alan is an ornithologist, so needless to say we saw many birds, including a Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle and a Rufous-legged owl. I was treated to a few dinners and many good conversations – very happy to visit with my cousin and sad to see him go!
I treated myself to a full day tour to Tierra del Fuego to see the King penquins at Pingüino Park and other interesting sites, crossing the narrowest part of the Strait of Magellan by ferry. Our first stop was at Estancio San Gregorio, a sheep farm dating back to 1876, owned by José Menendez. He had 170 000 sheep! Needless to say, he was the richest man in Patagonia at his time, and the complex was more like a village, with about 300 people living there. He also owned a fleet of 100 ships, two of which are stranded in the Bay of San Gregorio, where the farm is. The Clipper, a four masted sailing ship built in 1869, and the Amadeo, the first steam powered ship to sail in the area, built in 1884.
The penguins are a small colony of about 120 who established themselves there 12 years ago, originally just with a few pairs. An interesting fact that I was unaware of, is that after raising the first chick, the female decides if the male was a good enough father or not, and based on that, she will either call for him the following year, or she will mate with another male. Unfortunately it was raining, and they were a bit far for good pictures.
We returned to Punto Arenas via Porvenir, from where a two-and-a-half hour ferry trip took us back accross the Strait of Magellan. At Porvenir we visited the Hain viewpoint, a site where the Hain intiation ceremonies of the Selk’nam are commemorated. During the initiation the young men would paint their bodies according to the spirit they wanted to represent. There were three spirits:
- Matan – the dancer, known for his vertical jumps
- Ulen – spirit from the north of the island, known to be fast and agile (body red and dark with white horizontsl lines)
- Kotaix – the main spirit from heaven (white body, red stripes and mask covering the head and neck)
The Selk’nam were the ancient terrestrial hunters from the continent who had inhabited this part of Tierra del Fuego for 11000 thousand years. When the settlers started arriving in 1881 there were about 4000 of them, all systematically murdered by the farmers who were given a reward of one sterling pound for each male that was shot, one-and-a-half for each female, and a half for each child.
A famous Chilean sculptor, Richard Yasic Israel, was comissioned to make sculptures representing the Selk’nam in 2004. These are made of reinforced concrete and exhibited on a square in Porvenir.
This concluded a wonderful time in Patagonian Chile. I was quite amused when I was met with a blank stare by someone when I mentioned that I had been in Patagonia in Argentina. For the Chileans, Patagonia is in Chile. As was pointed out to me: the whole of the southern part of South-America should have belonged to Chile, as they had won it during one of the wars, but the eastern part was given to Argentina after negotiations. Eastern or Western, Patagonia is uniquely beautiful and inspiring and the tranquil lifestyle suits me perfectly. All that has ever been written or said about it is true – I will return (I did eat a lot of calafate berries, so it is inevitable).
Mella Madness 