Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales

Most visitors to the area are going to fly into Punta Arenas, though that may change as more flights are scheduled to Puerto Natales. My flight from Santiago was full of Americans on various tours to Antarctica or headed to Torres del Paine. I originally thought I was going on an extreme adventure to the ends of the earth, then realized my flight was full of retirees paying ten grand to sail to Antarctica. (As an aside, a hiker I met on the O took a cruise to Antarctica from Ushuia, another major jumping off point. He said the seas were so bad in the Drake Passage that fewer and fewer people showed up to each successive meal, with only about 20 out of 200 sitting down to dinner on the first night. And it was worse on the way back. As someone who gets motion-sickness, no thank you.)

I think two nights in Punta Arenas is plenty. As I detail in the logistics section, one of our backpacks was lost on the flight from Santiago to Arenas and this seems like a fairly common occurrence. Six other people lost their bags on our flight, including a woman who was due to start her hike the next day. Our bag was found within about five hours, but I would really feel more comfortable having at least about one day as flex time, just in case a bag doesn’t make it. Most flights land in the late morning or early afternoon so using the rest of that day to explore the town, then the next day to complete the Mount Tarn and/or Faro San Isidro hike, with departures on the following day, should be plenty of time in Punta Arenas.

There really isn’t much to see in the town, and that’s okay! Not every town has to have a cutesy, instragrammable downtown vibe. Arenas definitely does not. It feels a little bit gritty, a little rundown, and just about the perfect place to walk along the waterfront and process how close you are to Antarctica after flying for 24 hours. Having said that, we spent four nights because we couldn’t line up cheap plane flights and camping reservations for the O, and that was definitely (at least) one night too many.

Windswept is an overused adjective, but it fits Punta Arenas.

To be honest, I was pretty much done Arenas by the time we left. There is is only so much walking around town I can do, and aside from the hikes out of town that require a rental car, there wasn’t much else. The food was not all that great and I wish I could recommend some restaurants, but I can’t. The seafood market is only open during the day, but it’s worth a visit for lunch.

When we landed, we took a taxi from the airport to our hotel. In other Latin American countries I’ve traveled in, especially Mexico, you do not solicit taxis from the guys standing in the airport. Instead, taxis should be booked from official stands inside the airport (taxi sitios), or alternatively, one should use Uber. When we landed, there was a small stand for taxi sitios, but it was empty. We also tried to use Uber, but there were no cars available at the airport, though Ubers are sometimes available in the town itself.

After dealing with our missing baggage, we got a taxi after two drivers tried to entice us with competing offers. There is a very small sign in the airport that says trips from the airport to downtown are at a fixed price of 11,000 CLP, though the competition between the two drivers at the airport led them to a price of 10,000. After we got in the taxi, I made sure to confirm that it would be 10,000 CLP. This is important as another taxi ride from the airport didn’t work out as well.

We were dropped off at our hotel and spent some time chatting with an agent at LATAM. Eventually they told us that a bag matching our bag’s description had been found and was ready to be picked up. Our hotel called us another taxi, which we took back to the airport (about a 20 minute ride) and we got our bag, then took the same taxi back to our hotel. From there we walked to a bar and had dinner. The next day we walked around town. There is a decent sidewalk along the waterfront with monuments and some other interesting sights, though it’s nothing all that spectacular. We ate at the seafood market that was somewhere between okay and decent, but the market iteslf is a cool experience. It was crowded, and it was hard to know which restaurant to choose among the competing options. Our choice was more or less random. Afterward, we walked through the cemetery which is worth a visit, and also visited the hill park, called Cerro de la Cruz, which offers decent views of the town.

One of the monuments along the waterfront.

The day after, we took an Uber to the airport to pick up our rental car. We spent the entire day hiking Mount Tarn and to the lighthouse, then drove back to the airport at night to drop the rental car off. It was about 8pm and there were no flights landing, so there was only one taxi waiting. I asked him about the price and he said he’d turn on the meter. Well, the same taxi ride that cost us 10,000 CLP when we landed was 25,000 CLP on the meter. I argued with the guy as he was obviously trying to rip us off. He said he wasn’t an airport taxi, despite the fact he was sitting at the airport. He very generously gave me 5,000 CLP back after arguing with him, so it only cost double what the first trip cost.

Our last day in Arenas we walked around more, went to the Zona Franca, which is a shopping mall with some sort of tax discounts on goods. There are a few outdoor stores here so we bought a gas can for our hike; other outdoor gear is available. We just didn’t have a lot to do on this, our third full day, in town.

Punta Arenas From Cerro de la Cruz, a small park on a hill.

Magellan monument in downtown Arenas.

Puerto Natales

Natales is a nicer town, and closer to a cliche “backpacker” town. It’s smaller, there is more of a downtown area with stores, restaurants, bars and the like. The food was certainly better, even if it was mostly pizza and burgers rather than anything approaching “Chilean” though there are some restaurants which serve lamb dishes and seafood. Puerto Natales is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, mostly because it’s full of tourists doing touristy things and preparing to travel to the park.

We were in Natales for four nights; one night was before we left for the park and just had time for dinner and a a short walk after arriving on the bus. That night we stayed at a small hostel that was quite enjoyable (see below). The second night was when we returned from the park and again, just had dinner. The third night we walked and did some shopping, saw what few sights there were to see (the cemetery, the dock area), and the fourth night was supposed to be after my fishing trip, which was canceled due to high water. Because I was supposed to be fishing that last day, I really had no idea what to do in town. The weather was bad anyway, and I had absolutely no desire to walk around town in the rain after having spent the last week doing that in the mountains. Three nights would have been more than sufficient, and even two nights, pre- and post-park visits, would be just fine.

For the nights after our hike, we stayed in a relatively upscale hotel as a reward to us that was a bit outside of town, but definitely walkable from the town center. Our hotel allowed us to store a suitcase there for the week we were hiking which was nice as we didn’t have to go back to our hostel to get it, and we didn’t have to drag it into the park.