Today I took a tour to “Park of the Strait of Magellan- Fort Bulnes”. I took this tour because the other ones I was interested in were full.
It was an interesting tour with great views but I”m spoiled because I’ve had English speakers on other tours. This time the tour guide only knew Spanish. I’m sure he was a very good guide. He talked the entire hour drive to the park and then talked during the hour and a half walk around the park.
I was bummed because I only understood a few words- vamos (time to go), a la derecha(on the right), cementerio (cemetery- see picture below), aqui (here) and some place names (Punta Arenas, Magellan, America- not sure if it was America, American or South America).
The last stop of the tour was a museum and the guide said to meet back at the bus at trece(13) but I understood tres(3). Since it was only 12:15pm I was surprised to learn we had until 3pm to visit the museum. I watched the other folks on the tour and when they went back to the van so did I. Then I figured out what happened- we were to meet at 13 o’clock e.g. 1pm. Trece and tres sound the same to someone that doesn’t really speak Spanish.
Finally figured out why Fort Bulnes was so important when I purchased a map of the area that had a few paragraphs about tourist spots. Fort Bulnes was the place where Chile made claim to the Patagonia/Strait of Magellan area. It was the settlement which was moved to another location and became the town/city of Punta Arenas. The reason it was moved is because it was very cold and it was difficult to grow food. Even today, it was rainy and windy at Fort Bulnes but nice and mostly sunny in Punta Arenas.
I met TIbor when he came in from his Patagonia hiking trip. He had a great time and hiked/walked over 100 miles!
