Day 9 – Flight to Southern Patagonia

Friday, September 20, 2019

We had breakfast at the hotel at 7:30 am and met our driver and guide at 8:30 for a trip to the German museum in Frutillar.

We followed the coast of Lake Llanguihue to Frutillar as our tour guide showed us some of the farms, houses and salmon farms along the way.

The museum consists of 4 original buildings from the 1800’s and early 1900’s when German settlers had immigrated into the area and colonized it.  There were 4 buildings.

There is a typical family home,

There is also a mill ( left ), a blacksmith shop ( right ) and a round storage building (not visible on the picture below),

A typical kitchen used in the early 1900’s,

A typical bedroom,

One unique aspect of the house is the bowling alley.

There are unique artifacts, such as phonograph players.

There is also an automobile on display.

They have an old threshing machine.

And there are many other machines that they had for cooking and farming.

We spent an hour looking at the displays and then went to a local cafe for some coffee ( or hot chocolate ) with some “ Kuchen “ ( cakes with fruit ).

We left at 12 pm and arrived back at the hotel at 12:30.   Kathy and Peter went into town for a little shopping while I worked on my blog and Fr Richard rested.

By 3 pm, Arturo, arrived at the hotel to take us to the airport for our flight to Punta Aranas.   When we arrived at the airport, we checked our bags and waited for our flight, which was coming from Santiago. At 4:30 our plane had arrived and shortly after 5 pm we were on our way.

We arrived in Punta Arenas at 7:30 pm, picked up our bags and met our driver.   The temperature was 4 C ( 39 F ) with sleet and snow as we exited the airport.

We drove about 30 minutes south, from the airport to the town and arrived at our hotel by 8 pm.   We checked in, dropped off our bags and met for supper at the hotel restaurant, before going to bed.

Chile has a 6000 km ( 3800 miles ) coastline from Peru to the tip of South America and averages only 170 km ( 106 miles ) in width .  We are now almost at the southern tip of Chile and not very far from Antarctica.

I was surprised to see that the town of Punta Arenas has a population of approximately 100,000 people.   The temperatures are cool and stable, averaging between -1 C ( 30 F ) in July and 14 C ( 57 F ) in January.