Sir Earnest Shackleton slept here. This house is in Punta Arenas.
That name may mean nothing to you, but the story of his and his crew´s heroic failed effort to reach the South Pole in 1914 has enthralled millions over the last century. Those who know of it know why I took this picture. He stayed here while organizing the rescue of the crew men he left behind on Elephant Island. Do yourself a favor and look up the story on Wikipedia. Go ahead, do it now. I´ll wait.
Better still, go to Barnes and Noble and look at ¨Endurance. The Incredible Journey of Sir Earnest Shackleton¨ by Alfred Lansing, or any of the other many books with the photographs taken at the time. A couple of the pictures on the Wikipedia site are worth noticing. One is of Shackleton on South Georgia Island after two years stranded in the Antarctic. He was only 42 at the time. Also look at the picture of the James Caird, the lifeboat in which he crossed Drake´s Passage between Antarctica and South Georgia Island (no tropical paradise itself). Another lifeboat left behind at Elephant Island was named the Stancomb-Wills after Janet Stancomb-Wills, a tobacco heiress who helped fund his expedition. I didn´t know that.
I´m sure 90% of you are now bored to tears.
I rode part way back here to Puerto Natales with an Antarctic researcher who, now that fall has arrived and it´s cold, was returning to deal with all his data. So all that stuff is fresh in my mind and imagination. That was an interesting conversation.
It´s not exactly balmy even here in southern Patagonia. It´s the wind that gets you. It never stops.
I just returned here after seeing Myung off to northern Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Her flight left from Ushuaia in the Argentine portion of Terra del Fuego. It´s the southernmost city of any size in the world and real pretty. Here´s a overview and some pics from the ¨beach¨.
The next day after getting Myung off, I went for a nice 14 km walk in the nearby national park. It was rather nice out, considering. I have a couple of nice pictures. The second is of a huge beaver dam. I didn´t see any beavers, though they say they are around. The people say, that is. I didn´t stay around long. Too windy.
It´s interesting how when you travel alone you talk with different people. I like talking with Myung of course, but couples naturally talk to each other a lot and less than they would with others. I walked in this park with a chemical engineer for a US Air Force subcontractor. I learned more about the plusses and minuses of US and other air forces planes than I ever knew before.
That kind of brings me up to the present. I came back up here to Puerto Natales thinking of walking a popular 4-5 day hike, but have thought wiser of it. I´ll take the bus tour. After this, I´ll head north again. There are no roads through southern Chilean Patagonia, so it´s a two or three day haul around to Coyaique. From there I´ll take the supposedly scenic Carretera Austal road to maybe Puerto Montt and Chloe. I don´t know about after that. There is a beautiful four day ferry ride from Puerto Natales to Pueerto Montt, through the remote glaciated fjords of the Patagonian archipelago. I had thought the ticket was almost 700 USD, but I find out it´s only 336 USD. Unfortunately the ship sails tonight. So I was thinking of taking it the other way around and coming back here yet again from Puerto Montt. The price even goes down to 300 USD after April 1, for obvious reasons. But there are some other places I want to see north of Puerto Montt. Oh well, everyone should have to face decisions like this, right?
I don´t know when I´ll be done with South America. I´m toying with the idea of just taking busses all the way up to the States. More likely I´ll burn out down here and fly to Korea. After that?… We´ve entered into negotiations.
That´s about it for now. Be well, all of you.
Here´s a last shot from the ferry across the Straights of Magellan. Many passengers. About 20 of us were human. That´s three levels of sheep in that truck. baahhh
