Day 12 - Friday, December 1, 2023 - Traveling back to Punta Arenas

By Ellen Outten

 


An easy day today. We left the national park at 10 am heading back to Punta Arenas.  It's a total of a six hour drive.   We stopped in Puerto Natales to stretch our legs and have lunch.  

For the brief two hours we were in town, we had sun, wind, hail and rain.   If this is Spring, I can't imagine what winter is like.

A stop in a town requires a visit to the local church.  It was just a quiet, small church but it had a lovely calm feeling.




Monumento de la Mano
A huge sloth!  

A cave was discovered nearby with the skeleton on a huge sloth Inside.   For whatever reason,.there is a monument to the sloth as you enter the town of Puerto Natales.

Our lunch stop...they are feeding us so much.  Lunch had three courses, as usual!  The soup was very good, carrot soup. The main course was salmon and abut of barley with carrots.  If call it a barley stew.  I'm not sure what dessert was...a type of flan.  I passed.  Maybe it's for the best, I'm getting tired of eating.

Our restaurant for lunch today and views from the restaurant.










We arrived at Punta Arenas at 5:30 pm today and met for dinner in the lobby at 7:30 pm.  It was a 2 block walk to our restaurant, Jerkus.   Dinner was really good.  Chicken soup, followed by a really good salad and this bbq of various meats brought to the table.  There was chicken, steak, pork, sausages, potatoes and sauteed peppers and onions.   The flavors and presentation was great.



This is just an overnight stay. We leave for the airport at 11 am tomorrow morning. We have a 1:30 flight to Santiago and arrive at about 5:30 pm.  From what I can discern, Santiago Chile has its problems.  We won't be seeing a beautiful bustling city.

Sunday we have a tour of Valparaiso, not far from Santiago and Monday we are more or less killing time with a visit to an art museum before being taken to the airport for our late night flight home.




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