Punta Arenas, Chile

CHILE

Punta Arenas

Arriving in Punta Arenas from Ushuaia was again a relief after another long grueling bus journey. The bus was cramped and the roads weren’t great and again we needed to go through passport control which took a long time as everyone had to get their luggage off, put it through the machine, get their stamps and get back on the bus. 

At arrival to our hostel (Hospedaje Costanera) I couldn’t help thinking (where are we!) the houses and buildings were all very small and many looked like tin shacks and on entry to our hostel it appeared as though we were literally entering someones house with family photos on the walls, people cooking and ironing and two young twin boys entered at the same time (the grandsons of the hostel owner) so it was a very homely and family oriented place. From the outside it seemed very small but in reality there were probably a good 30 people staying there so there mustve been around 12 bedrooms. The owner was lovely, Teresa was her name and although she didn’t speak much English, she did all she could to make us feel welcome. 

We were supposed to be staying there for just 2 nights as we had to be there to catch a flight although after waking up after the first night Steve told me the news of the huge earthquake that had hit Chile, with theepicentre being Conception and the surrounding areas of the shock including Santiago the capital were also badly affected. This was obviously terrible news as it was the biggest earthquake for 50 years in Chile and at 8.8 on the richter scale, this was a huge shake, bigger than the recent earthquake in Haiti where a quarter of a million people were killed although their infrastructure was much weaker. There was also an immediate tsunami alert for countries in the pacific ocean including Easter Island where we were supposed to be heading to on Tuesday. So far 700 are said to have died and millions of homes are said to be damaged or have collapsed completely. The damage included the airport building at Santiago’s main airport so we have been stranded here in Punta Arenas for 4 days now with no information of when we’ll be able to get out of the place. The time here has meant that I was at least able to see the city (not that there’s a lot to see) where there is some nice colonial architecture and a nice square but that’s about the extent of it! I also was able to go and see the penguins at the beach which was just an hours drive away which was great as I not only saw penguins but flamingoes, ostriches, guanacos (like a type of llama), a skunk and some condors. Unfortunately, our hostel was a 20 minute walk into town so it was necessary to make this trip every time we wanted food or anything else we may have needed including information about our two flights that we were now obviously destined to miss! Strangely, the airline offices were closed the day after the quake as it was a Sunday (you’d think they’d make a special exception to be open due to the volumes of people who needed information and guidance about flights) but no, we had to wait until Monday morning to try and get some sort of information. Unfortunately our flight wasn’t even with the Chilean national airline LANChile (well the one to easter island was) but the one to Santiago was with the budget airline company called Skyairline. Back at the hostal we were staying at, there were many American students who were all on placements with their universities in the catholic university of Chile so they were all stuck in the same boat as us. One of the guys who was a particular character from North Carolina was quite an amiable and interesting chap studying photojournalism and actually got interviewed on skype by ABC news at the hostel about the whole situation. He was a nice guy called McKay Glasgow (perhaps the most Scottish name of an American you’ll ever hear!) and was a rather cheery guy who helped lift the spirits in the camp. The rest of the guys and girls probably about 10 in total were a nice cheery bunch too, very chirpy, excitable and typically loud Americans, all from California so they knew all about earthquakes but not of this magnitude. Also at the hostal were a couple of nice Spaniards, they were old friends from school who were travelling SA and I got quite friendly with them and was told that my Spanish was good which I was quite chuffed about! The nicest guys in the hostel however were an Irish couple, a really really nice pair of people and it was a shame they were only there for one evening as I very much enjoyed chatting with them about premier league and international football (even the girl knew loads which was amazing) ,EU legislation (they both worked for NGO charities) and the global financial crisis whilst sharing some fine Chilean red wine.

McKAy was with us too so obviously it was difficult for him to join in about the premier league topic but he knew a surprisingly large amount too! Turns out the Irish couple had gone to the very same River Plate game as us and they had met the legendary ex Colombian international footballer Carlos Valderamma there(still with his big long blond curly perm and black tash) and were showing me pictures they had taken with him! I was gutted I had been there but not been able to get my picture with him!! After a good long chat and some good laughs, we agreed all to get up early and head for the airline offices to get some info so I agreed I’d walk with the Irish pair to the place in the morning. So up we got early the next day to get some information about our flights but after waiting for a couple of hours in a long queue, we were just told they couldn’t help us, we wouldn’t be flying today but maybe they’d call us tomorrow! Lucky for the Irish (luck of the irish I guess) they had a flight to Puerto Montt that day so we said our goodbyes on return ing to the hostel. Hopefully I’ll run into them again one day! I got their e-mail addresses anyway! Returning back to LANChile later that day I was amazed to see that the queues were stretching all the way down the street with possibly 1000 people queueing to get into the office! This was the final straw and Lee, Steve and I were so fed up of waiting around that we decided just to bus it to Rio Gallegos a city in the south of Argentina we had stopped off at on the way down to Ushuaia and from there we would fly to Mendoza. Although we’d be missing out on Santiago and Easter Island, at least we’d be getting out of Punta Arenas and at last heading back up north!

Overall the mood in Punta Arenas was strange, being in the country where the one of the largest earthquakes ever had just hit but not being affected, you didn’t quite know how to react or how the Chileans would react. The mood on the street was obviously a rather somber one although many were putting on brave fronts and almost acting as if it hadn’t happened after all life mustgo on. You couldn’t get away from it though, every televeison in the city was the news of the earthquake, every newspaper had pictures back and front of the catastrophe. I must say that I felt especially guilty trying to find somewhere with skytv so that we could watch the Chelsea v Man City game but we finally found a big tv in a great western hotel but watching that brought us down even more as we lost 4-2 at home and had 2 men sent off!

As the time went on, I was constantly feeling guilty though as being so close to this global catastrophe I felt like I should help in someway but we couldn’t even get to Santiago to help. We just had to count our blessings that we hadn’t arrived in Santiago the day before we were due to be there as we could well have been buried under a pile of rubble! 
Punta Arenas wasn’t the nicest, prettiest or exciting of places to be stuck but the people were all very friendly and there were lots of things worth snapping just walking round the city including a nice view at the top of the hill overlooking the city and the sea.

It also had a very nice and large graveyard (I know it’s not a great selling point of a city) but it was a nice experience going in there where there were even guided tours going on! One thing that got a little annoying about the place was the contasnt strong gale force winds (it even warned on wiki that the wind can sometimes be strong enough to blow you over!) and the cold.

It could almost pass as England for it’s weather! It’s a shame that it’s the only part of Chile we’ll see but that’s the fault of an earthquake and nothing else. I just feel so terrible for the people affected, the families of those people who are dead, those injured or those who had everything they owned destroyed. We can’t moan and we shouldn’t!

Now on the bus heading back up north to Rio Gallegos and back to Argentina. We say goodbye to Chile but I’d like to return again one day and see it in different circumstances. I’m absolutely gutted to be missing out on Easter Island but there’s not much we can do about it!