Blown away by Punta Arenas

After a week of roasting in the sun in Valparaíso and Santiago (we have the sunburns to prove it!), we flew down to Patagonia on Friday. Punta Arenas is the southernmost city in Chile, a town of about 130,000 sitting on the Strait of Magellan.

The Strait of Magellan as seen from the edge of town.

Punta Arenas is definitely a port city, but also has some cool architecture, courtesy of families who made it big during the wool boom. (Yes, you read that right: sheep estancias were big business in Patagonia a century ago!)

The Sara Braun mansion, right in the center of town.

It is not as cold as we expected here--probably in the 60s--but it is seriously windy. You get very tired walking around just from leaning into the wind. We have been told to expect this throughout Patagonia, which means hiking with our packs on should be... interesting, to say the least. Also, the sun never sets! We were dead tired after waking up at 6am for our flight, but just could not go to bed when the sun was still so high in the sky.

The streets of Punta Arenas at 10:00pm--just about time for sunset!