Sunday bird blogging

A pair of kelp geese on the shore in Puerto Williams, before we set sail for South Georgia.

Saturday reflections

The Magellanic cormorant nests in the Beagle Channel at Puerto Williams.

Sunday bird blogging

I left Santiago early this morning, and flew to Punta Arenas, and then to the improbably named Puerto Williams, a city on the Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego.

Now I'm on a ship heading to South Georgia, and then the Antarctic Peninsula. A few weeks ago when I was so sick I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do this but here I am, with the familiar soothing sound of the waves outside and that rumbly, rocking motion under my feet.

We were only in Puerto Williams long enough to board the ship and have our safety briefing before sailing, but I already saw three new birds.

This is one of them—the Magellanic cormorant, also known as the rock shag. They were nesting on some old posts in the water near where the ship was anchored. I have a better picture of the adults, but I love that in this one, one of the fledglings (those grayish lumps that look like large dust bunnies are actually baby birds) has a foot poking out of the nest.

Saturday reflections

I took this picture from my hotel room in Santiago, so that's presumably my hotel in the reflection (and a teeny-tiny Kathleen with a camera in there somewhere.)

I have to be on a bus to the airport at 6 am, so I'm glad I scheduled an extra day to just rest up and enjoy the last of the warm weather for a few weeks. I already saw most of what I'd like to see in Santiago when I was here in 2018, so apart from walking to the mall to buy a case for my Copacabana sunglasses, I mostly sat in the beautiful gardens and did as little as possible.

In Loving Memory

This one works better in black and white: William Baybut, who died at sea in 1927 aged 37 years.

Framing a life

I loved these niches, each one a little window into a life. There were the usual saints and flowers and photos, but also toys, medals, souvenirs and a surprising number of Santa Clauses.

Familia Sharp

The names of this family are their own story, with Jorge Sharp Corona, Miss Florence Mildred Sharp Call, Raquel Mildred Sharp Corona, and Florence M. Call Voa de Sharp.

More names

About that cemetery

It really is worth the visit, if you happen to be in Punta Arenas anyway.

I've mentioned before that this trip to Chile made me aware of just how little I know about South American history and culture. For example, we think of it as Latin America, because most of South America is Spanish-speaking, just as most of North America is English-speaking. And though I knew that Argentina in particular had many immigrants from non-Spanish speaking countries, I was still struck by the names in this cemetery, where Familia Matheson-Villan is next to Familia Nicholls Sanfuentes and Familia Douglas-Tolentino.

Chile actually had fewer immigrants from non-Spanish speaking countries** because it was on the other side of the Andes and hard to reach, but Punta Arenas was a port. And as noted below, it's a long way from the rest of Chile.

**But the George Washington of Chilean history, the great Libertador, was named Bernardo O'Higgins. So at least one Irish immigrant made it over the mountains.

You could be anywhere

In the Plaza de Armas in downtown Punta Arenas, there's a park with a statue of Magellan, surrounded by large trees and vendors selling handicrafts (not surprisingly, there were a lot more warm hats for sale than you usually find in the summer.) The old mansions around the square are now mostly private clubs or museums.

Away from the center of town though, the streets look like this -- you could be almost anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Tourists pass through Punta Arenas on their way to the Patagonian parks, or Tierra del Fuego, or Antarctica, but there's no reason to linger. As one of my shipmates put it, “When the number one attraction on Trip Advisor is the cemetery, you know there's not much to see there.”

It does feel very far away from the rest of Chile. I went to the supermarket looking for cough drops -- I had a cold -- and fruit. I found cough drops, but the limited selection of fruit was a shock after the lush produce for sale everywhere in Santiago and Valparaiso -- tiny shriveled apples and brown bananas. Even at the hotel, the fruit on the breakfast buffet was all canned. Chile sends so much produce to North America during our winters, but somehow can't manage to supply its own south coast.

Punta Arenas

I posted a few pictures of Punta Arenas while I was there, four months ago now, and I'm finally getting back to it.

Here's a look at the Strait of Magellan in the evening, as the sun prepared to sink behind the islands of Tierra del Fuego. I had walked -- briefly -- along the beach that afternoon, but it was too windy to be enjoyable.

And when I say it was windy in Punta Arenas, I mean the sort of wind that accompanies a really bad nor'easter or mild hurricane in New York, or a sail through the Lemaire Channel in Antarctica, not wind so much as a full body punch that can literally knock you over if you're not careful. I read somewhere that in the winter there are ropes along the city streets so people have something to hold on to against the winds.

I can testify that they'd be useful in the summer as well.

Battle of Iquique

I have a few more pictures from Valparaiso, but this monument in Plaza Sotomayor makes a nice segue to Punta Arenas.

It commemorates the Battle of Iquique in 1879, a turning point in the War of the Pacific, which Chile fought against Peru and Bolivia.

You've never heard of the War of the Pacific? Neither had I. Like, I suspect, most norteamericanos, I am woefully ignorant of Latin American history. In school we covered the Incas and the Aztecs, and maybe Simon Bolivar, and that was it. I knew very little about Chilean history before this trip; about Chile's history prior to Allende and Pinochet, I knew, well, nada.

Chile lost this battle, by the way, but ultimately won the war. The date of the battle, May 21st, is a national holiday, Dia de las Glorias Navales. And Arturo Prat, who lost both his ship and his life, is a national hero -- he's the figure at the top of the monument.

Some street art in Valparaiso

The main market

And for comic relief

Here I am trying not to drop an unexpectedly heavy watermelon in the market.

Bounty

The corn looks lovely in the previous entry, but you can't tell how enormous the ears are, so here's a photo of my lovely guide, Vanessa, hoisting one of the ears. Plus some gorgeous banana peppers.

Mercado

Today was the first day I could go outside without a jacket, which means that it in a week or two everyone will be complaining about the heat.

But it makes that warm summer day in Valparaiso seem less long ago and far away, so here, as long promised, are pictures from the markets.

Urban poetry

There wasn't much in Valparaiso that wasn't urban poetry.

But I did love the patterns these power lines made, draping across the streets and around the buildings like gritty confetti.

Street minus reflections

Another look at the street from Saturday's picture, this time from outside so no window reflections. Valparaiso is a major Pacific port, and many of the buildings in the hills are repurposed shipping containers. The shipping containers became houses and shops, the old houses became hotels and cafes and galleries, and everything is crayon bright in the summer sun.

If you're not crazy about funiculars...

You can always take the stairs.