We slept in a little but both had a bad night’s sleep due to my coughing fits. I also got a terrible neck ache from the too-large pillow and had some digestive issues as well - not a great start to the day. We ate breakfast at the hotel and then walked around town some more, this time with some goals: finding a pharmacy to get more cold medicine, looking for a geocache, and visiting a recommended souvenir/craft store. As we walked, one of the numerous loose dogs in town seemed to adopt us, following us from one location to another for quite a while, breaking off occasionally to interact with other dogs.
Unfortunately the pharmacies did not open until ten, so we spent a while in a sizable supermarket seeing the different sorts of things that are available in Chile. One interesting thing we found was that Chile seemed to have its own version of dulce de leche (which absolutely dominated desserts in Argentina) called manjar. Apparently manjar is less caramel-y and creamier, and usually has a thicker consistency. Once the pharmacies opened we got some decongestant and cough drops, then we tried and failed to find a geocache hidden in an old locomotive in the town square.
Then we headed out to the waterfront to take in the scenery and fail to find another geocache, but the views were nice.
Julie found another shirt in a souvenir store, then the tour group met in the hotel lobby for a long briefing about our upcoming cruise and its boarding process, then we had lunch. After lunch we got in the bus and headed about three hours south to Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan. We had some time in Punta Arenas before boarding our ship, so we walked up a hill to a nice overlook where we finally succeeded in getting a geocache near this silly collection of distances and directions.
Our ship was docked across from an important ship: the Laurence M Gould ice-breaker which is operated by the United States National Science Foundation. As mentioned on the Wikipedia page:
The Gould acts as a resupply ship and does long term environmental research in the Drake Passage and the Antarctic Peninsula, shuttling between Punta Arenas, Chile and Palmer Station, Antarctica.
Boarding the ship did deserve the long briefing before lunch: there was a security screening and we surrendered our passports since we would be disembarking in Argentina. We had dinner on board the Stella Australis as we sailed away from Punta Arenas.
