Patagonia miscellaneous

En route to the penguins yesterday, we got lots of random information about Punta Arenas and Patagonia.

1. There are a lot of Croatians here. They immigrated during the gold rush in the 19th century, but when that ended, either they liked it here or they couldn't afford to go home. Amid all the Spanish street names, you occasionally encounter one with way more than its fair share of consonants. Of course, one of the founding fathers of Chile is Bernardo O'Higgins, so they are clearly cosmopolitan in their European connections.

2. Life outside Punta Arenas "in the countryside", as our guide put it, is very isolated and on the edge of survival. If someone comes to your door, it is considered very rude to ask what they want. Custom says you must offer three days hospitality, no questions asked, after which the guest should either leave or ask for a job. "Turning someone out into the countryside, particularly at night during the winter, would be the same as killing them," she said.

3. I don't know if it's common, but we've seen half a dozen rainbows here, bright and complete, some seemingly ending within a stone's throw of the ship. The wind is constant, but the sky goes from gray overcast to bright sunshine almost hourly. It's the equivalent of our August here, maybe summer is having a remainder sale.

4. Punta Arenas is very proud of being the southernmost city in South America . "Yes, we know Ushuaia claims that honor, but they are on an island. We are on the mainland of South America," our guide proudly informed us. They have their own flag, bright yellow and blue, that flies beside the red, white, and blue Chilean flag, and our tour info handout says they consider themselves Magellanic first and Chileans second. The immigration building we passed through when we left the ship is so affirmatively yellow and blue that one of my fellow passengers said she was expecting to see an IKEA sign on it.

5. To alleviate the isolation of life in the countryside, the guide told us there is a radio program every evening at 8 pm that broadcasts messages. She said no one in the countryside goes to bed until after they hear that program. It might just have general news or weather forecasts, but it will also have messages for individuals, from the estancia manager telling his sheep shearers that they should report to the shearing shed the next day, to a lonely woman in town telling her gaucho lover she's tired of his broken promises and she's leaving him for another man. Sounds better than many soap operas I've seen.

6. Huge fortunes were made in Punta Arenas before the Panama Canal provided a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Other huge fortunes were made during various natural resource booms, though less by those seeking to find the ore than by those selling food and supplies to the seekers.

7. Both Ushuaia and Punta Arenas started out as penal colonies. Sort of like Australia: if you've got people who you would just as soon not have to deal with, send them off to the end of the world and forget them. And then they and their descendants turn around and build their own world.

8. As we drove to the penguins yesterday, at one point we had to stop the bus to let a couple of mounted gauchos and their dogs drive a herd of sheep past us along the road. Those dogs really knew their business, including one who was clearly working with only three good legs. They were not clearly identifiable breeds -- just mutts smart enough to make a living bullying sheep. I noticed a lot of stray dogs around town as well, usually traveling in packs of two or three and looking, if not sleek, at least reasonably well fed. Unclear whether town strays find their way to jobs herding sheep or herder dogs decide to give up country life and wander into town.