Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas is a place whose best days are long gone.

For a hundred years, ships goings around Cape Horn would stop at Punta Arenas, resupply, trade, and move on. The city exploded when thousands of men booked it as fast as they could during the California Gold Rush, stopping in Punta Arenas on the way.

Then, someone discovered the surrounding hills were perfect for herding sheep. Land owning families made fortunres when demand for wool grew as Europe and the US industrialized. Immigrants from all over Europe flocked to Tierra del Fuego.

Then, as soon as it began, Punta Arena´s fortunes ended.

First the Panama Canal made the trip around the Cape unneccesary.

Then, the massive increase in wool supply resulted in a global glut, and prices crashed.

Finally, synthetic fabric largely made wool a niche product.

And now Punta Arenas is a city without much of a purpose - people fly through to go north or south, on their way elsewhere. Package tours pass through town. The military bases supply a few jobs. And there´s still the wool industry, although its a shell of what it once was.

You can see the signs of the past - beautiful colonial architecture and gaudy graves.

Old school colonial architecture.

Used to be a busy place back in the day...

He remembers when wool was a big deal.

The board walk - for teenage girls and their kid brothers...

...and lonely women looking for sea shells.

The graveyard in Punta Arenas is an attraction all of its own - guides call it one of the most beautiful in Latin America.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Menendez family´s mausoleum - wool baron, sailor and settler.

Immigrants from Eastern Europe.

English immigrants.

Czech (i think?) immigrants.

If you can´t afford a mausoleum of your own, there´s room in the cubicles.

German names, Spanish prayers.

German names, German prayers.

A whole section is devoted to children's graves. The silence and the passing of time give the place an especially tragic aura.