Puerto Williams

March 16, 2023

Puerto Williams

Puerto Williams 7th March to 10th March

Arrived at 8am and wandered up the road to the accommodation for about 1km dodging the horse dung (wheeling luggage) on the road. The horses seem to have the run of the town along with a reasonable number of dogs. The town itself is in a very scenic spot on the edge of the Beagle Cannel with mountains, beech forest and tussock tops. Reasonable Air B&B with the host Alba, very helpful though we needed google translate to find anything out. She feed us breakfast when we arrived even though we weren’t due to book in until 2pm. During the next few days we used the local bus to go to either end of the island – East to Puerto Coleta Eugenia. This cost 1000 pesos return each, so cheap as chips. The west end trip – Puerto Navarino, the driver knew the locals in the only occupied house there so in for a chat and a cuppa – bonus. They were doing up the ferry slipway and there was a naval and custom facility there for when they had the ferry to Ushuaia, Argentina. We guess the ferry will be re-introduced when the slipway is completed. The Beagle Channel separates Chile from Argentina – so we were able to see across this channel to Argentina. It is just 4 km away at its narrowest point.

We had the coolest experience with meeting our friend Cheryl off her cruise ship from Antarctica that had made port in Puerto Williams. Who would have thought we would be able to catch up there. Cheryl had a trip of a lifetime and has got us very interested in an Antarctic cruise hopefully one day – they are very pricey.

We climbed the Cerro Bandera Hill behind the town in the national park, great views from the top but a bit of a grunt up. At the carpark they had a little forestry office and we meet some staff and fire fighters. Limited communications due to the language barrier but got some photos.

We visited Omora Ethnobotanical Park (link here) and our guide Alex explained the local area and the fauna and flora. The Omora Park is a research, education and conservation centre for the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve. Stories about introduced North American beavers mosses and lichen. The beech forest is very much like the NZ beech forest with 3 different species. Some of the trees also had the beech galls a malformation on beech trees that in NZ are made into bowls by turning on a lathe. All very interesting, though the park management are having difficulty with the locals respecting it as a significant ecological area allowing their cattle and horses to wander through. The locals don’t like change and you can understand that at the bottom of the world. (More info link).

On the walk back from the park we had a quick look at a historical site - Bateria Robala, an old military defence spot. Chile and Argentina had a bit of a stand-off a few years back called the Beagle conflict and they established a gun battery at the site. There is still a significant Chilean naval presence at Puerto Williams. (Info here link).

Along with the Navy and tourism there is a local fishing fleet. Talking with the locals it seems to be mainly crab fishing however it was not the fishing season and the crab pots were out of the water.

When we intended to leave Puerto Williams we had planned to boat across to Ushuaia, Argentina and got a bit of a surprise to find that it was no longer an option by ferry (since the pandemic) or flying direct so we hastily made a change and bought flights back to Punta Arenas not wanting to be stuck in Puerto Williams for a further 7 days.