The Trip to Palmer – Step 5: Punta Arenas, Chile

After an arduous flight schedule, and adding a few new members to our group, we arrived in Punta Arenas. Punta Arenas is a slightly gritty seaside town on the edge of the Straits of Magellan.

The city itself is fairly unremarkable. It serves as a port city for southern Chile and sees a fair bit of tourist traffic from Antarctic cruise ships and the like. It does boast having the “Southest most Golden Arches” [sic] in the world (Hi Mom!).

Most of us stayed in the same hotel in the city, which was also close to the pier where we would go the next day to board the ship. Prior to boarding the ship, however, we had to go through the process of getting our gear issue. This experience was quite a bit different than what it’s like on the other side of the continent. Due to the warmer maritime climate of Palmer, one needs far fewer articles of extreme cold weather gear and more rain gear. All-in-all, the process was relatively pain free.