It took a long time to say goodbye to everyone this morning. We had to chat with Bernie and Sam now that they are back from the hike, and say another set of goodbyes to Max the Aussie cyclist, and of course a last stop at the local internet cafe. But we were eventually on our way, heading to Punta Arenas one of the gateways to Tierra Del Fuego.

Just out of Puerto Natales we came upon a shrine with hundreds of plastic bottles. This is probably the most impressive ? of the many of its type that we have seen. These shrines are in memory of some woman who followed her husband to war and died of thirst in the desert; all the bottles at the shrine are offerings of water.

The road was good concrete all the way to Punta Arenas. The country side was flat grass land with patches of trees that seemed to diminish in size and frequency as we went further south. There was a fierce westerly wind blowing all day.

Punta Arenas is a service center for the areas fishing, petroleum and tourism industries and it shows. There are lots of truck yards, and industrial buildings on the outskirts. At the center is a nice Plaza De Armes with a tourist information center that did not help very much; we found out from them about the campground but their directions seemed to be completely wrong.

Tourism wise, Punta Arenas is famous for Magellanic Penguins and we had debated all day whether we would take the 5 hour boat tour (for a 1 hour walk among the Penguins) to the large rookery on the Island (Isla Magdalena) or drive ourselves to a smaller population at Seno Otway.