Punta Arenas Revisited

We were back in Punta Arenas a couple of days ago. The weather had improved, a little. It was sunny but there was an icy cold wind down by the sea. I took some photos of the tin houses that most people live in there. I walked down to the sea again to one of the most run down areas. There were houses with old cars out the front, sometimes just one, more often several, sometimes in a pile. I saw piles of car batteries, scrap metal, half a van and old car parts. One house had a sports car under a white tarpaulin out the front.

I saw a young guy working on his car, and it struck me that I had come all the way down to the bottom of the earth, nearly all the way to Antarctica, to see something remarkably similar to what one would see in council estates all across England. It seems that some things don’t change much, regardless of place or culture.

Our ship the Norwegian Crown over the colourful buildings of Punta Arenas

Down near the sea in one of the poorer parts of town

Typical tin houses

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