24 hours in PUNTA ARENAS, Chile 🇨🇱 Best of PATAGONIA (travel guide)

For the next 16 days we are going to be calling the ship behind me, the Sapphire Princess Home, heading to some of the world's most remote destinations. Sailing down the Chilean coast to Punta Arenas before heading to Ushuaia, the gateway to the elusive 7th continent Antarctica where we will be sailing for 4 whole days before heading further north to the magical Falkland Islands and finishing up in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Let's do this. Day number 1 at sea. Good morning from the Sapphire Princess, a ship of over 2,000 passengers with 700 balconies and it is almost, almost the length of the Eiffel Tower. Yesterday we boarded the ship. Welcome aboard. And there were a few changes due to adverse weather conditions and we were supposed to be boarding in San Antonio, Chile at a beautiful passenger port but due to some very bad weather and some very high swells there has been a change of port. We are currently in Valparaiso which is a very beautiful city but unfortunately we are in a cargo working port. As if you can see right now, they have sort of continued into today. This is supposed to be, I say supposed, to be the calm part of the trip. The bit where you can relax by the pool, where it's not so windy, the waves aren't so high. We're not at the Drake just yet but as you can see it is incredibly windy and incredibly wavy right now. We have up to 40 knot, let me close the door, up to 40 knot winds and we're going to be at sea for the next 3 days heading down to Puntas Arenas. Before we get out and explore the ship we'll have to show you our stateroom where we'll be staying for the next 16 nights. So this is our balcony, very ruby and we will at some point get to enjoy it. Can you see the size of them waves? They're huge. The captain said I believe they were like 5 metre swells which in layman's terms is very very big swells. So this is our beautiful stateroom, we have a very big and comfortable double bed, we have our desk area, there are mirrors everywhere so you catch a glimpse of yourself absolutely everywhere. One of my favourite bits is this TV, don't know how well you can catch it on the camera but this is captains view and all you can see are them waves. We have a little storage area over here, I'm holding on. Now the storage is actually really really good here, behind the mirror you've got storage, we've got all our formal clothes hanging up and behind here it's like a secret portal, we have our shower and bathroom which is pretty roomy and we did also get left a bottle of bubbly. They did actually drop the bottle off to us last night and it's been sat in the little bucket doing this. Literally as the ship rocks that champagne is knocking, it is calling us. Here we go. We're rocking, please be careful. I'm being serious my eyes are covered. Ready? 3, 2, 1. I don't know why that's always so exciting isn't it? Let's pour it. I don't know if the camera picks it up but I mean we're rocking. Yeah like my legs, hopefully this is preparing me for my sea legs which will be needed on the Drake. Cheers. So after spending 48 hours in Santiago Chile yesterday we drove down to the port and we picked up our medallion. Essentially this right here unlocks your door for you if you're standing near it and with us because of our package we get 15 alcoholic drinks a day up to $20 a drink. It's going to be some challenge to drink that much in a day but we will try. So when you're at the bar this tracks you and they'll know exactly who you are or if you order a drink via the app. Wow it's really wobbly. If you order a drink via the app they can find where you are on the ship and bring it right to you but we're actually right at the very front of the ship which i think makes it a slight bit rougher. I think there are around 25 bars and restaurants on this ship and if i'm not mistaken it is actually the biggest or one of the biggest ships to go on this route that we are taking down to these remote locations. We better check out one of these restaurants and try and keep our sea legs steady. Literally the lift is wobbling right now which is pretty insane because this like Molly said is one of the biggest ships so this is the least the ship is going to rock going to Antarctica. If you went on one of them you'd be falling overboard. This is actually just one deck you can see how many bars and restaurants there are here on the interactive board and also you can scan yourself in and you can find out where exactly you are. So i'm this little green dot here. You shouldn't really get lost. I'm off to the pizzeria. Hello our favourite people on the ship. Thank you how are you? Good sleep now? Very good. A little rocky. A little rocky but i'm okay. I felt like a baby. Can we get um can i have a strawberry daiquiri with Bacardi rum please? Um Pina Colada. And a Pina Colada please. Thank you. Salama. Yes both with York rum. Rum yes yeah the best rum. Thank you. Thank you very much. A man with lots of skills to make this. And you're spilling it. Right let's see. I have tasted the strawberry daiquiri before. It's not my first rodeo. He makes them so good. We sort of bypassed lunch. We skipped our slice of pizza and went straight to our little secret spot that we found yesterday at the sail away party. We are leaving Valparaiso. It's quite magical leaving just before it gets dark as we start our 16 day journey. It's also the only spot that still has a pool open. The rest are closed due to the weather. So we can sit here drink as many cocktails as we want. Which i still don't understand how you can make them in such rough seas. Going for a cool down. Sounds like a plan. Two chili cheese fries please. And the burger with no lettuce or tomatoes. Burger with no lettuce. Yes please. Thank you so much. I think this could be me for the next 16 days. Go to the back of the ship. The little secret spot that doesn't get hit by the wind. Then come to the main pool promenade. Come to the tribal grill which basically is burgers, tacos, hot dogs, loaded fries and just pig out. Look at this. Pig out for the rest of the day. There is just snacks galore. Up on this main bit of the ship we have a pizza area. We have a bar. We have a grill like with burgers, hot dogs and chili cheese fries. We have an ice cream place. They're so good. Good morning. Day number two at sea. The sun has gone. But the wind and the high waves remain. I need some coffee. I need some breakfast. Then we need to go and check out the gym. It's going to be interesting. Good morning. Thank you. They are very hygiene conscious here. I actually love them. So this is the main buffet dining room which gets extremely busy in the morning but it's so worth it because their sausages and bacon are to die for. Good morning. Can I please have two cappuccinos? Yes please. Thank you. Room number? 1800. Thank you. That is a process. Get in a window seat at the buffet. You need to make friends with the workers but I have my huge sort of mix between an American and an English breakfast which I'm going to struggle not to eat every day. We've got cappuccinos on the way via our medallion. Omelette on the way. I don't really know how I'm going to be able to eat all of this. And then make it to the gym. But this. This bacon. That is one thing Americans do good. Bacon. It is. One thing I absolutely love about being on the princess premiere class is that we get our fancy artisan coffees and people that aren't on that can choose the basic coffee. This is harder than it looks. I am liking this gym. They've got like a full-sized multi-functional gym that you'd pay a monthly membership for. On board and the further south we go the calmer the seas are getting which is weird because it's a strange sensation. You lift the weight and if the weight hits you you can lift a lot heavier so it makes you feel very strong. So for the Drake if we hit the right wave we'll be lifting some heavy weights. We are doing well. Two days out of two in the gym. Before we got on board we set ourselves a task 10 times out of the 16 days. I don't know if we'll make it because we could end up in the bar or it's a little bit too rough. I don't know. Anyway two out of two is very good and also when I got in we had this tucked underneath our door which basically shows all of the day's activities. I think you can check it in the app as well but I'm a little bit old-fashioned and there's so much going on. You've got the snowball jackpot bingo, you've got a pub lunch which I think we're going to check out, a quiz which will be terrible at, formal portrait single and solo travellers. If Molly gets on my nerves I know where I'm going tonight but someone before it's even rough is feeling a little bit seasick and you're not you're not getting any sympathy from me. I'm not. I want to go to the pub lunch, I want to do some bingo, I want to get in a hot tub. Hello. Hello. I love this. You have so much. What beers do you have? Oh my god. If it's a British pub what British beer do we have? Do we have any British beer? Or Belgian? Guinness. It's close enough, I'll have a Guinness please. Thank you very much. Could I have a glass of it? It's okay? Yes sir. Thank you. This is like being at home, bangers, mash, fish, chips and a Guinness. Cheers. Cheers. Question number one, released in 1938, what was Walt Disney's first full-length feature movie? We are in the trivia, we have a team of five, I've answered one question and it's quite tense. Does anybody know? Yes it is, well done, we are nine for nine. Nine for nine, I feel like we have at least one right. You know this one. Chamber of Secrets. Over there, what is it? Chamber of Secrets is the correct answer, yes. 13, 14, 15, 16 or more. I'm just going to keep going, 17 or more, 18 or more. How many did you get over there? 18. 18 out of 20, anybody else? Wait a minute, I think we've drawn. Oh my God, it's a tie. We have two teams with 18. Is it going to be a bonus question? Oh no. So whoever is the closest will win the prizes. How many Starbucks are in the world? 10,000. I have no clue. That's a hard tiebreaker. I feel like if we guess the right amount, there will be little bit of space for them to get through. So the two teams, 35,000, you're right, yes, 35,711. No way. Oh my God. We lost on the tiebreaker. How could we lose with that? We lost. How did we lose? By the blooming tiebreaker. We got 18 out of 20, 18 out of 20. And we lost on the question of how many Starbucks there are in the world. Who's going to know that? It's just a complete guess. Everyone lost by over 30,000 stores, but we did manage to secure one of, if not the most in demand pieces of equipment on the whole entire ship. And that is one of the hot tubs. This is the indoor pool, the conservatory, the conservatory. And we are now just drowning our sorrows pretty much because we're fuming. I can't get over it. It's been a couple of hours now. I just can't stop mentioning how did we lose on the blooming tiebreaker. It is one of our two formal nights on board tonight. So I need to get changed into something a little bit fancier. That is a bit better. I've got to actually learn how to walk in hills on this rocky stretch of sea. We're actually heading to one of the two specialty restaurants on board. You actually get them included. Oh my God. Did you feel that? Oh, you didn't feel it, but you might've seen it. We're going to Sabatini's, which is actually the Italian and you get them included in your package. We are ready for formal night. And surprisingly, miraculously, the wind seems to have stopped and the waves, they're getting lighter. An amazing dinner and even a little dance party to end our second day on board the Sapphire princess. Unfortunately, seasickness took one of us. Someone has been sick this morning. Are you enjoying the, uh, the rollercoaster, the giant waves? Does my face look like it's enjoying it? You still look quite nice. You still look quite nice, but this is what we have this morning. It's not so windy, but look at the, if you're in them balconies, the size of these waves. So we spent the next day relaxing as we sailed into our destination of Punta Arenas. So most people will come through here and use it as a jump off point to see Patagonia, but we are up bright and early. It's 6.44 to see some penguins. Thank you very much. It's actually super early. So I don't even think the breakfast buffet is open right now. So we have a coffee from the international buffet, but it's really good because we are stuffed from our specialty dining at Sabatini's. Amazing Italian food. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our first time on land after like four days. And I don't know, my equilibrium is definitely off. I don't think I have sea legs. You don't, but I was, I was a little bit ill, I must admit. Um, but we actually have booked an excursion through Princess to go and see the penguins. It's a very quick hi and goodbye to Punta Arenas. We came on this side of the port and through security. And now we are walking back up to get onto our catamaran to go to Magdalena Island. It's around a two hour journey. We are going to see some of the world's most unique or fingers crossed world's most unique penguin. Thank you very much. Gracias. Thank you. Gracias. And about an hour and a half later, we have made it to the island of penguins about 22 miles off the coast of Puntas Arenas lies this fascinating part of the world. And there's already a little bit of a pungent smell. I'm not going to show you yet, but we are completely surrounded by penguins. And on the way, we even got a site of a couple of giant sea lions. This is absolutely amazing. We are surrounded by thousands and thousands of Magellanic penguins. Um, they're actually nicknamed jackass penguins because they're super noisy and you can actually hear them doing this weird cooling thing. It's basically them just shrieking into the air. This is absolutely incredible. And we're very lucky. So you can actually only come to the island a few months a year when the penguins come in and nest. But December only a month or so ago is when most of the babies were born. So if you can see just there, little fluffy babies, but we're surrounded. The whole island is just surrounded. Not only are they extremely noisy, but they're actually quite curious creatures. They are so intrigued as to why these... I thought they'd be scared. I thought they'd run away from us. They want to come and see what you're doing. So you do have to be really careful and mindful of where you're walking and try and avoid them because I think they can be a little bit nicky. I can see why they call them the jackass penguin. I never thought penguins make such a sound, but you're going to have around an hour to explore the island and you've got your route to walk with the lighthouse at the top. And I think it's about 1.8 kilometers, but everywhere you turn, every look, look, I turn around, a mom and a baby. We have made it to the summit and the lighthouse that was actually built in 1901. You'll see the two flags. There's not only the Chilean flag, but actually the flag for the region that we're in, they're very proud. This region hundreds of years ago would have been almost inaccessible from the rest of Chile. So it's sort of like its own country and they're proud of their traditions and their penguins. This is possibly the best moment of my life ever so far. Look at how close we are to these beautiful little babies. They're like cleaning each other. Wow. This is, uh, this is magical. So there used to be 40, 50, even 60,000 pairs of penguins on this island. But due to a new inhabitant, blooming seagulls came here a few years ago and the penguins fight with the seagulls. Apparently the penguins attack them a lot. And in the end, the penguins essentially got the hump, got fed up, determined to live with them and move to another island. So at the moment there's currently around 8,000 pairs. So 16,000 penguins. And there we have it, the penguin crossing. And we are back in Punta Arenas. If you ever do make it this far South, you need to make sure you do the Magdalena Island trip just to see them penguins. It is the number one thing to do in this town. The town itself hasn't got too much to see, to be honest. It really is a jump off spot for Patagonia, for Antarctica, but we do have a few hours to see. Well, we'll pretty much see the entire town. There's a few streets. Of course it has a plaza. There's Amos, but first we need to try some traditional Punta Arenan food. Matt definitely did his research. This is the most famous restaurant in Punta Arenas, and it's called Kiosko Bruko. Basically they serve two things, banana milkshakes and chorapan, which is a chorizo sandwich. And we're going to hopefully get both. This is amazing. It's giving me life of the Complitos restaurant we went to in Santiago. It's very small. It's kind of like a diner complex. It's just full of locals. All around full of locals and ladies cooking all the food. It's just really lovely. Thank you. Gracias. Thank you so much. Gracias. Oh, it's warm. Cheers. Oh wow, it is. This is the banana milkshake, I believe. It's just the cups that were warm. It's lovely. Super fresh, squished, mashed and drained banana milk. And I had to check what it was called, the chorapan, which is chorizo and cheese. I mean, you can't go wrong. Yeah. And these are 1000 Chilean pesos, which is, I can't think. I can't work it out. It's very good value. The chorizo is so smoky and the cheese is so creamy. I think we might need more than one. That has got to be the cheapest lunch you're going to find in the whole of Chile. For each of our sandwiches, $1. For the milkshake, $1.20. So we ended up getting four of them, but we are now walking around the plaza. There's Amas, where they have this statue of Ferdinand Magellan. And apparently, if you rub the foot of the indigenous statue, it will bring you some good luck. Have you got good luck so far? I mean, we found the sandwiches for a dollar, so I'm feeling lucky. Gracias. Thank you. Have a good day. And of course, we had to get a little handmade souvenir from the guy's wife. She knits them. How cute is that? Never judge a book by its cover. Punta Arenas might look like a small, little unassuming town, but we've tried some traditional food. We have our souvenir handmade by a Punta Arenan local, and we have now come to the hill above this tiny little city. And in the distance, you can see the Sapphire Princess, and it really does put into perspective how big of a ship we are on. And the route that we're doing on a ship like this, it is just so unique. But look at it, beautiful, multicolored houses. It really reminds me of Reykjavik in Iceland. But there is just one more thing that we need to complete this perfect day. And this is what we were looking for. We found the Shackleton Bar and Cafe. Obviously, we were only really looking for the bar. And we even had the local or have found local golden ale. I'm not going to try and pronounce it again. That was really, really good. And it's really nice, actually. So it's like a craft beer. The Punta Arenan beer. They have a stout golden ale. We tried all three. I don't know if I can manage all three. Who would have thought from circumnavigating the globe to becoming the name of the local beer here in Punta Arenas. But that brings an end to our first four days of this 16 day cruise around South America and the elusive seventh continent Antarctica. Punta Arenas is a really, really cool little town. Definitely explore it for a few hours. And if you can, make sure you get over and see them magic little penguins. But we have so much more to see and do. And we're going to be leaving the beautiful little town in the next hour or so and heading further south into a brand new country. So we will see you in the next one from Ushuaia, Argentina.