The 3rd Windiest City in the World

We knew we’d be spending a bit of time around this city, which coincidentally grabs the title of second windiest city in the world. We were still waiting on some new mattresses for the van which we had ordered on Amazon, and we were also excited to go shopping in Chile again. Argentina had been expensive and restrictive, so we were excited to once again be able to buy beer and finally some different vegetables! Lee also wanted to go visit the doctor as he had been in some pain that wouldn’t go away.

Being in Chile not only gave us access to better supermarkets, but better shopping in general. Argentina is not a place to buy anything really, except Malbec. If you need any kind of product, Chile is the place to go. Tyres, plastic boxes or electrical parts, Chile is the place. As we had spent the last three months in Argentina or very remote parts of Chile, we were excited to hit a proper city. Not only that, but Punta Arenas is a ‘Zona Franca’, meaning that it is a tax-free zone for shopping.

We headed off to window shop in Recasur, a huge shop that sold lots of supplies for off-grid living. I had mainly gone to buy a new solar connector; our solder joint had failed in Ushuaia, resulting in me balancing on Matt’s stepladder trying to solder it back together with a blowtorch while both him and Lee tried to hold up pieces of cardboard to shield the flame from the gale blowing through the campsite. Of course, as soon as I stepped into the shop I was instantly distracted by all the other new shiny things and only just remembered at the end to buy my $1 part. We debated buying another water pump for the van, but decided to think about it first as it was quite expensive.

We went shopping in Unimarc and spent all our money there instead as we walked around picking up a new thing every few minutes to show the other person.

“Oooo look!” I waggled a packet enthusiastically at Lee. “THEY HAVE MUSHROOMS!”

He managed to spare me a minute to nod enthusiastically from where he was standing engrossed in the craft beer section.

It’s the little things.

There was very little in the way of camping here. We had opted for a spot near a small local park; it wasn’t the nicest but it was the only place where we felt that we could safely let the cats out. For that, we tolerated the amount of rubbish and toilet paper dumped around us. We needed a safe base to stay while we got Lee some tests at the doctors.

Another bonus of Chile is easy access to healthcare. And so the following day we headed to RedSalud, a private clinic that was supposed to be good. We bounced around a bit, but it didn’t take long to get an appointment with an English-speaking doctor. He set us up with the paperwork for some tests and we got appointments for those. Everything was very quick and, compared to the cost of private healthcare in the UK, incredibly cheap. With tests booked, we had a few days to hang around.

At this point we were in desperate need of a shower and so we drove out of town to a local truck stop where, for around £1 each, we could get a proper hot shower. When the weather was cold like this, it was not the time for cold showering or outdoor washing.

Some old friends had recently got in touch with us. Sean and Mercedes were about to arrive here in their camper. We had first met back in Costa Rica, just outside of the capital, and since then they had left and returned to Peru, Mercedes’ home country, where they had bought a small van. Now our paths were about to cross again, three years later and on a different continent. We invited them to our toilet roll campout. It may not have been pretty, but it was free and sheltered from the wind and to us that was the most important thing.

Generally speaking, it was also a quiet spot too, although we had two nights that were not. The first was the police, warning us to leave and that it was dangerous here. While we thanked them for their advice, we didn’t really feel we had many other options and, seeing as no one had bothered us yet, we stayed. Of course that meant the next night we got hassled.

We had parked on a short dead-end track leading out of the turning circle at the end of a dead-end road. It meant that we weren’t disturbed by any passing cars. It also meant that if a car drove in behind us, we couldn’t leave. Totally fine when it was our friends dropping in for a catch up, but weird when it wasn’t.

The car that turned up in the early hours of the morning did that odd thing that people seem to do around campers. They parked incredibly close and did nothing. They pulled up to within a few metres of our bumper. Headlights blazing. Engine running. You would then expect them to do something. Start up their enormous sound system normally. But they didn’t. They didn’t turn off the lights, they didn’t turn off the engine and they didn’t get out. This is a little unnerving as we lay in bed waiting.

Most likely it was just a couple looking for a quiet spot; the used condoms on the floor could attest to that. But then, why drive up right behind us? Why not just park at the end of the road? Still, Lee sorted it out pretty quickly. Pissed off at being blinded by their headlights at 1am, he went downstairs and shone our brightest torch straight through the windscreen. A few moments later they backed up and left us alone. If only it was that easy to get rid of the normal party goers.

While we waited for Lee’s CT scan, we decided that we’d go visit the Carretera Austral brewery, Chile’s southernmost brewery. We’d reserved our tickets the day before to ensure we got an English tour. While we can pretty much understand the Spanish, sometimes we miss the little details and so we prefer to go with English still when possible.

It was a relatively small group of people, and we walked around the fermenters, labs and mills of the brewery. We hadn’t really done all that many beer tours. While we were pretty familiar with the process, it was still interesting to view the setup.

At the end, we got a generous tasting, including their iconic beer made with the local calafate berry.

The next day, Lee went for his scans and got his test results. We took all of this back to the original doctor we’d seen so he could look over the results. Turns out he’d got a kidney stone. So after several hundred pounds’ worth of tests, he was prescribed painkillers and water. Still, he could now at least put his mind at rest that nothing was seriously wrong.

Things had fallen into place quite neatly in fact as our Amazon order was now ready for collection. We headed over to collect it from John, a local who had reached out to us after our WhatsApp request and kindly let us use his local address. He also gave me an in-line fuse for free which I’d been searching for to replace the one in our solar controller cable. Our current one being a melted horrible mess. Now all I needed to buy for Ruby was a new air filter for my ongoing project to change out the air filter which I wasn’t happy with. John pointed us in the direction of a filter shop and with our new mattresses loaded we set off.

Now came the challenge of buying an air filter. I had spent two hours sitting in a waiting room waiting for Lee and in that time I’d researched all possible options for paper filter elements that I could fit in our existing airbox. I had a shortlist and so now I just needed to see what was available.

The only challenge is that you’ve got to explain yourself, because normally when you want a part in these countries you either bring the old one with you or tell them what vehicle it’s for. It is not a normal thing to walk into a shop with a list of part numbers and ask if they have any of them without telling them the car. After a bit of explaining though, they were very helpful and I left with a new filter ready to continue my project.

This concluded our business in Punta Arenas and so we decided to leave the city that afternoon in favour of a new and more scenic spot. While the season was turning and we really needed to be heading north, we were determined to visit the most southern point of mainland Chile and so, for the last time, we set our sights to the south.