Punta Arenas and Fort Bulnes, Chile.

After departing Ushuaia, we took a route towards Punta Arenas which took as through some of Chile's numerous channels. We passed five big glaciers and many small ones.

Punta Arenas is a city near the tip of Chile's southernmost Patagonia region. Located on the Strait of Magellan, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

We opened our shades at 6:30 AM to a beautiful sunrise.
We had quick breakfast and got of the ship to find our tour. Ricardo was waiting for us. We were only two people on this tour, but he told us later in the day he will pick a group of 6 people from another cruise ship.
Ricardo told us that it is a very safe city. And we felt safe walking during day time, although we saw burned building and shuttered glass from the bullets in the windows and lots of graffiti. May be it is all relative.

Meanwhile we drove for 5 minutes to reach The Nao Victoria Museum .There are four open full size replicas of the most important ships in the Magallanes Region. Nao Victoria, the only fleet commanded by Ferdinand Magellan completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. James Caird, originally a lifeboat Endurance that sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of Sir Ernest Shackleton 1916. Goleta Ancud, the ship, under the command of Manuel Bulnes, President of Chile, took the sovereignty of the Magellan Strait to Chile with the construction of Fuerte Bulnes. HMS Beagle, the famous British Navy ship under the command of Captain Fitz Roy raised cartography work of Magallanes Region. Aboard the boat was young Charles Darwin.
There were also three little dogs at the museum (they belong to the owner of the museum) that were named after commanders of the ships.
Very interesting open air museum and since it was 8:45 AM we were the only visitors. By the time we finished with a museum, the first tour bus from HAL arrived.

We drove to another pier closer to the city to pick a group of 6 people from another cruise ship. It was a British Cruise line ship Balmoral and all six people were from Great Britain. Very nice group of people.

Out next stop was Fort Bulnes. It is a Chilean fort located by the Strait of Magellan, 62 km south of Punta Arenas. It was founded in 1843. during President Manuel Bulnes Prieto.

It was reconstructed between 1941 and 1943 as a historic monument. The replica includes the church, chaplain's quarters, jail, powder magazine, post office and stables. It was declared a national monument in 1968.
The weather was perfect and the walk and the view were very pleasant.

We also visited museum of Patagonia that has scaled models of the most important ships that discovered and study this area, history of this ares. Very new and modern museum. Wish we spent a little more time there.

After that we drove back to Punta Arenas and somewhere half the drive we stopped for a bite of baked Chilean beef empanada and a glass of Chilean wine.

We continued driving to the city and stopped at the main squire with statute of Magellan. That was out last stop on the tour. We decided not to go back to the ship right away, but spend some time in the city. First we found a very nice coffee shop and had a great cappuccino. Than we walked all over the city, got some good chocolate and decided to walk back to the ship. We were told it is about 3.2 miles.
Then we got back to the main squire and found a shuttle from our ship. So we changed our mind and took a shuttle. We were glad we did it. It was at least 20 min ride back to the ship and not less then 6 miles.

We came back, changed and had a very nice dinner on the ship. The evening was warm and sunny and we enjoyed our lanai cabin very much. The sunset was way after 10:00 PM.
To see the pictures of the day please us link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/PZTaK4iPA2r76v446
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