We really weren’t much impressed when we visited Puerto Hambre ( = Port Famine) a couple of years back, on the northern shore of the Magellan Strait and 64 km away from Punta Arenas. To learn that Pedro Sarmiento tried unsuccessfully to establish a colony back in the 16th century, and that virtually all the colonists died from starvation, just had us thinking “well, why on earth pick this spot, what can you expect?”. The nearby remains of a timber fort, Fuerte Bulnes, built 2kms away in 1843 as a later attempt to achieve a similar goal, at least offered a touch more to see. And a beached shipwreck not much further away seemed infinitely more arresting.
Magellan Strait map of 1635 showing location of the colonies
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