February 11, 2014, Monday
We arrived, painlessly, on Sunday, February 9, in Punta Arenas (Sandy Point in English) and then to the hotel. Hotel Carpa Manzano is a smallish place, on a rather desolate street about six blocks from downtown. The wi-fi system was down when we arrived, but working this morning. The accommodations are clean and simple. Comfortable bed. Chileans seem to know beds, they have all been good.
The town is mostly one-story buildings with an occasional two story home or a tall apartment building Lots of buildings in reinforced concrete art deco style with porthole windows and fins. The town apparently was a boomtown because of wool production 125 years ago and now is a petrochemical center. Wide streets, wide sidewalks. On Sunday evening it is dead. We’ll explore more of it before we leave today, but we are not expecting much. The guide books don’t rave ecstatically about any “must-sees” here. The multi-colored lupins along the road from the airport may be the high point.
We decided against dining out last night. We both were suffering from some internal distress, and decided on going to a Unimarc supermarket for some bits and pieces. We grabbed an empanada (once again of the cardboard exterior) and a milcao. The milcao is apparently unique to this part of Chile: “prepared by mixing both cooked mashed potatoes with raw grated potatoes and some lard” according to a Chilean cookbook, then it’s fried. Our milcao also had bits of cooked meats in it. We heated it in the microwave at the crowded supermarket (a bit higher class than a Dollar Store but not much, though much bigger and a much better selection) and did the same with the empanada, which had a meat (carne) interior. Neither screamed “Enjoy another.”
Groceries here, and the people too, could easily be transported to any North American city with a large Latino population. Not much difference, except the language and labels are in Spanish. Some mango piña cookies, and to bed. (Piña is pineapple.)
Monday, February 10, 2014. We had the hotel’s breakfast, a traditional Chilean buffet of small slices of salami, fruit, yoghurt, toast, and coffee con leche. Then we left our bags and went down to the center of town. We shopped a little and then walked around the central square, the Plaza Muñoz. We checked to see what time we could drop off the bags and register for the cruise, then walked back to the hotel to get them. Checked in quickly at 12:30 and headed to a café, Café Tostado,for a long leisurely lunch.
A couple of large salads, cappuccino for both, and a beer Kross for John. We looked at a group of tables nearby and tried to figure out if the francophones sitting there were Canadian or French. Turned out they were Canadians after John asked the tour guide: from the suburbs of Québec city on a tour. We took the long walk around town to the mirador lookout and then headed for the port.
There we ran into two friends from John’s days working for Senator McIntyre of New Hampshire 40 years ago, Bill and Jeannie, who’d done the tour we were about to start. They were headed to Valpo and Santiago on the Golden Princess, a huge cruise ship. Trading stories and restaurant recommendations, lots of fun. Meeting old friends many thousands of miles from home is a hoot.
Then we boarded the MV Via Australis for our five day trip. After the briefing on life jackets and safety, checking out how the jackets fit, we were off to dinner. We’re at a table with a retired French teacher and his wife (Michel and Monique), a younger Canadian art teacher from Peru (Alastair) and his Thai girlfriend, Jasmine, a retired travel executive, Alan, and his wife Heidi. He is English, she German and an executive coach, living in Sydney and us. Interesting group.
Food is excellent. Dinner last night was king crab salad, beef saltimbocca or sea bass, and a lovely crème brulé for dessert. The wine is acceptable—it’s a combination of carmenère and cabernet sauvignon for the red and a sauvignon blanc for the white. Chilean, of course.
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| The Via Australias is the little boat at the dock...carries 100 passengers |
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