Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas seems to be the perfect antidote for everything (for me J). I came here without a hostel reservation (and almost missed my bus to start with) but very luckily I met 2 people from my Ushuaia hostel on the bus – Meryl & Forrest. They had a reservation at Erratic Rock – Punta Arenas. They had stayed in the Puerto Natales branch previously and had only good things to say about it. We all got a shock J. The "hostel" was basically an apartment above a bakery that we shared with the family!

But the proprietor was lovely – and clearly desperate for business, so we stayed anyway – even though it felt a bit uncomfortable with the family all in one room while we had the run of the kitchen.

Punta Arenas is a cute little town with brightly coloured roofs and bustling streets. It felt like coming back to civilisation – there was even an ATM in the supermarket – I haven't seen an ATM in a supermarket in 2 months! Cafe Montt is a sweet cafe on Pedro Montt with wifi and a very nice latte macchiato. I chillaxed there for an hour or so (the wifi wasn't working in my "hostel"J). I also visited the cemetery – which has really amazing mausoleums.

The cemetery made me quite sad. There were a lot of graves with English inscriptions – and other languages too (French/German/Italian/Dutch among others). Most of the graves referred back to the deceased's home country. If I die, I want my remains to go back to Ireland! Haven't decided between burial and cremation yet...