November 20, 2024 - Wednesday - Punta Arenas, Chile

November 20, 2024 – Wednesday                 Day 56 of this journey 

Punta Arenas, Chile 

We are sitting off Punta Arenas when we wake this morning. We are supposed to be docked by 8:00 am. Then there are numerous tours ashore today. We opted for an “included” tour. We should be off the ship for about 3 hours.

Well after 8:00 am, the Captain came over the PA system, to advise that there will be a delay this morning. Punta Arenas requires that a local pilot be on board for docking as well as requiring that 2 tugboats be standing by. Neither were available yet, and until the pilot is on board, we’ll be sitting and waiting. 

This will delay all the off-board activities this morning and the Shore Excursion team will keep us informed when our tour becomes available. 

Our tour was to leave the dock at 9:00 am. I think we pulled out about 10:30 am. Just one of things that can happen periodically on a cruise. And Viking is very adept at rolling with it and making it as easy as they can for their guests. 

Driving through the City of Punta Arenas leaves us a little underwhelmed. It’s dingy, a lot of it looks to be in disrepair. And there was quite a bit of graffiti. Our first stop is at an outdoor museum. A local carpenter has built replicas of Magellan’s ship, the Nao; The Beagle, and a couple of other ships. This is a very quirky little museum, and the ships are somewhat interesting. But it all looked somewhat amateurish.

 

Tall and skinny. I can't imagine how it handled
rough seas.

37 men lived on this. No bathrooms.

Our guide said she has lived here 30 years and this wreck was here
when she moved here.

The second stop was a museum in town that was put together over 100 years ago by a catholic priest. There are a lot of stuffed examples of local fauna. The taxidermy was done over 100 years ago, so everything was faded and looked like it was about to disintegrate into a pile of dust. Other dioramas of the indigenous peoples were presented from the very biased viewpoint of the catholic missionaries. Obviously, we were not impressed. 

In the town square is a statue of Magellan

These Golden Rain trees were gorgeous

We were glad to get back to the ship and find lunch. 

To compensate for the late arrival, we were told the departure would be at 8:00 pm instead of 6:00 pm. This was later changed to 10:00 pm as the promised bunker ship for refueling was unavailable and we had to rely on trucks. It takes at least twice as long to refuel from tanker trucks as it does from a bunker barge. 

But we are told it will not impact tomorrow’s plans. Tomorrow we are supposed to have a zodiac landing near a glacier.