{"id":90,"date":"2010-03-19T09:11:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T16:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/?p=90"},"modified":"2010-03-19T09:11:29","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T16:11:29","slug":"punta-arenas-land-of-wind-sheep-estancias-and-11-penguins-on-the-strait-of-magellan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/2010\/03\/19\/punta-arenas-land-of-wind-sheep-estancias-and-11-penguins-on-the-strait-of-magellan\/","title":{"rendered":"Punta Arenas, Chile – land of wind, sheep estancias, and 11 penguins on the Strait of Magellan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Punta<\/a>
Punta Arenas on the strait of Magellan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Total Miles Traveled: <\/strong>9,304<\/p>\n

<\/strong>From Torres del Paine, we traveled by bus about 5-6 hours, stopping briefly in Puerto Natales before arriving in Punta Arenas which overlooks the strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego. \u00a0It is the southernmost city in Chile (about 150,000 residents) and departure point for Antarctica. \u00a0The weather can be severe here, being nice and sunny in one moment and then cold, windy, and rainy in another. \u00a0 Apparently, Richard Gere spent almost a month here while waiting for the weather to clear up so he could travel by boat out to Antarctica.<\/p>\n

Outside of getting to Antarctica, Punta Arenas is known for its sheep farming and its penguin colonies at Seno Otway and Isla Magdalena. \u00a0The latter is said to have a population of 150,000 penguins, while the former has about 6,000. \u00a0Well, in our case, it was more like 11 penguins, that we could see at least. \u00a0But, we arrived late in the season and supposedly they were already migrating north to Brazil. \u00a0 It would have been cool to walk amongst thousands of penguins, but alas, that was not the case. \u00a0Still cool to see them up close and in the wild though.<\/p>\n

\"Magellan<\/a>
Magellan penguins on the beach at Seno Otway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One final note, we stayed at a rustic B&B tucked away in the forest called Casa Escondida. \u00a0Again, an interesting story to be told. \u00a0The co-owner, Luis, was a character. \u00a0At 17, he had bought a round-trip ticket from Venezuela to Houston, Texas to see Pink Floyd in concert. \u00a0He made it to the concert but didn’t take that return flight. \u00a0He returned to Chile some 11 years later after working in Houston near where I grew up (Greenspoint Mall) and studying music in Atlanta where he was a bass guitarist in a band. \u00a0 Then, he got a degree in English education and became an English teacher in Santiago, Chile before starting the B&B with his wife in Punta Arenas. \u00a0And get this, he built all of the cabins and furniture by himself. \u00a0It took him the better part of 2.5 years full time… \u00a0Here’s a photo of the sauna he built:<\/p>\n

\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Want to see more photos? <\/strong>Click here to see a slideshow on Flickr<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Total Miles Traveled: 9,304 From Torres del Paine, we traveled by bus about 5-6 hours, stopping briefly in Puerto Natales before arriving in Punta Arenas which overlooks the strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego. \u00a0It is the southernmost city in Chile (about 150,000 residents) and departure point for Antarctica. \u00a0The weather can be severe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisaandtony.com\/travelblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}