Arriving at the museum (a large field, part of the Institute of Patagonia) we were first entertained by some local musicians and dancers wearing traditional dress. A lot of people simply walked past them without glancing (knowing the people on our cruise many were probably already looking for a toilet or somewhere selling coffee or both) but we waited a while to appreciate the effort being made and grabbed a few photos.

The open air museum consisted of a large number of old houses or forms of transport or pieces of equipment from the last century or so in the region. Almost all the buildings could be entered, in which there were bits of historical memorabilia around. Our guide was taking those interested in hearing about the various places through the buildings and showing them highlights but we were free to wander off on our own and take photos or explore at our leisure before returning to the coach at a designated time.

I wouldn’t say it was the most interesting of places to visit and we’ve certainly seen better museum pieces, open air or not, but it was enjoyable enough. It was also something a little different from a standard museum or a visit to a church, etc. Whenever we go on cruises we like to try to mix our excursion types up as much as possible so that we’re not stuck seeing the same sort of place over and over again. To give away just how nerdy I am I usually prepare a spreadsheet with lists of excursions and types of things in each so that we can plan for the greatest variety every time.

As with other places that we visited in South America on this cruise there were a number of dogs, whether stray or simply part of the scenery. They seemed well looked after and content.

As a group we stayed with our guide and I made sure to not wander off too far when snatching photographs of the attractive cemetery. While the grounds weren’t huge there were quite a lot of tour groups shuffling around and looking at the Chilean national monument and it would have been quite easy for me to lose track of which particular gathering of coat-wearing Americans and Australians (for the most part) I was with.

Both La Recoleta and Punta Arenas Cemetery feature in a list of most beautiful cemeteries in the world compiled by CNN Travel.

Before the coach deposited us back at the port where we would be able to take the tender boats back to the Star Princess cruise ship we pulled in at a viewpoint overlooking the Chilean city. We had enough time for the majority of people to browse the stalls set up by numerous vendors while some of us grabbed a few photographs of Punta Arenas from the high vantage point. The city was quite colourful under the mostly clear blue sky and it was great to see our cruise ship just off the shore.

There were many incidents of spotting culturally different behaviour during our cruise around South America but it was also interesting to see that the habit of people attaching locks to railings appears to be a global one.

I’m quite fond of street art and love seeing the different styles when I’m abroad on travels. The street art we saw in Punta Arenas was less abstract and more realistic than that we’d seen elsewhere, with some even being in the form of trompe-l’œil.

We spotted a rather disquieting sign indicating that this area of Punta Arenas was a tsunami hazard zone. This made sense on account of the number of volcanoes that were in that region of South America.

The maritime monument marked the northernmost point along the Punta Arenas shoreline that we reached as we were conscious of just how much time we had left in the city.

The walk along the seafront area of Punta Arenas produced plenty of opportunities to take some photos with interesting compositions thanks to numerous straight lines in the form of collapsed piers or tram lines. The flat sea conditions helped a lot too.

Later that evening we would hear one American woman remarking how amazing it had been to see all the penguins along the beach. They weren’t penguins. They were cormorants and they were in abundance as we walked back towards the city’s dock to catch the tender boat back to the Star Princess. Quite how she thought they had got up onto the wooden pillars or how she hadn’t seen some of them occasionally flying off in exactly the way penguins don’t completely escaped us.

We liked seeing the chess boards set up along the shoreline. We imagine it would have been a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon in Punta Arenas.

The port area had the usual collection of souvenir shops and information points but we didn’t find anything of interest to us there and headed straight to where the tender boats were pulling up and ferrying passengers back to the cruise ship.

It’s always nice when you can sit up top on a cruise ship’s tender boat and we were lucky enough to get this chance as we left Punta Arenas and made our short trip back to the Star Princess. This gave us some lovely views of the other vessels in the port, the numerous other tender boats moving between the land and the ship, and the ship itself.