Today was the day to explore Punta Arenas and how it came to be.  We had a two hour city walking tour in the morning where we learned a lot about the background and history of the area.

History lesson for the day: Patagonia means “people with big feet”. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagon which was used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native tribes of the region, whom his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed that the people he called the Patagons were Tehuelches, who tended to be taller than Europeans of the time. The big feet part comes from fact that they wore animal skins on their feet, making their feet seem larger than normal.

The Magallanes region, where Puerto Arenas is located,  is considered part of Chilean Patagonia. Magallanes is Spanish for Magellan, and was named for Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer sailing for Spain. While circumnavigating the earth for Spain, he passed close to the present site of Punta Arenas in 1520. Early English navigational documents referred to this site as “Sandy Point”.

In 1843 the Chilean government sent a ship (Ancud) to claim the area and established a penal colony here. In the late 1800s immigrants from (especially) Croatia, Germany and other European countries settled here looking for gold, fishing and farming.

The fact that there were so many Croatians here really surprised me. Having Croatian ancestry myself, I wonder what my life might have been like had my grandfather come to Chile rather than Gary, Indiana!

Between 1890 and 1940 this area became one of the largest producers of sheep in the world. Also, because of the coal deposits in the country, Puerto Arenas was a booming port in the early 1900s as ships stopped to refuel with coal and wood. That came to a sad end when the Panama Canal opened.

Sheep farming is still a big part of the economy; there are 3.5 million sheep being raised here and export to China is a huge market for them.

In the 1960s the government encouraged Chileans to migrate here by offering 120% salary bonuses and it virtually doubled the population over the last 50 years.

You cannot get to Puerto Arenas except by air, boat or driving from Argentina. There are no roads heading north in Chile because of the ice fields and mountains.

It was quite “breezy” this morning and our guide, Marcella, said it was always windy here. Other times she said it gets windy and you must lean into it to walk. As we had to climb a series of stairs to get to a viewpoint she taught us a new way to climb stairs that minimizes the effect on your knees. She called it “side walking”. Basically you climb one (or several) steps walking sideways to the left, then pivot 180 degrees  to do the next series of steps going to the right. Trekkers use this technique in the mountains.

Marcella pointed out famous landmarks and history  as we walked the city streets near the downtown area. We ended the tour in a jewelry store that featured the country gemstone, lapis. Chile is only one of two countries in the world that has it (Afghanistan is the other). A round of pisco sours were available for those who wanted one-no purchase necessary!

The rest of the day was free unless you signed up for the optional tour of the local, somewhat cemetery and an outdoor museum that held full size replicas of the Victoria, the ship captained by Ferdinand Magellan, the Beagle, captained by Charles Darwin and the Ancud, the ship sailed here in 1848 to establish a penal colony. We were alive to climb aboard and see what life was life on ships of that era. As I can say is that those people were crazy to sail the world’s oceans on ships that small and rudimentary.

The visit to the cemetery was enlightening as it reminded me of the cemetery in Buenos Aries, but not as elegant. I did see the many grave sites with Croatian names.

A group dinner was held at the hotel but not until 8PM as that is when the restaurant opens for dinner. A bit late for most of us but we prevailed.

Tomorrow we held north into the wilderness that characterizes Patagonia. We have been warned that internet may be non-existent so this may be the last communication for a while.