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

Yes, on that trip my wife and I just rented a car at Punta Arenas and set off visiting the surrounding sights on our own. We didn’t bother with a guide, being armed with a guide book that devoted a couple of short sentences (at best) to most sights. A great way to see places, liberating, and all at your own pace – but definitely at the cost of ignorance. For only much later, when reading much more about the history of a region that had definitely captured and entranced both of us on that first visit, did I realise what Port Famine really had been. And that the central person of the expedition, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, had been a larger-than-life character, a true Renaissance man.

Pedro Sarmiento Voyages to Magellan Strait

What was amazing, and infinitely sad, was that Port Famine, and the pitiful remains today, was the last stop of a monumental venture by the Spaniards to secure the Magellan Strait from infidels like Francis Drake, who sailed through the Straits in 1578 to the shock and fury of the Spaniards, who considered the Pacific Ocean their preserve. At this point in time the Magellan Straits were considered the only route to the Pacific, as the more southerly route past Cape Horn had yet to be discovered. The Portuguese had control of Cape of Good Hope, so King Philip of Spain was easily convinced to mount an expedition to do the same with the Straits of Magellan. This expedition, consisting of 3,500 men and 23 ships, was of another scale compared to the few hundred men who accompanied Hernan Cortes to Mexico or were with Francisco Pizarro for the conquest of Peru.

Unfortunately, for this lesser goal of securing a questionable supremacy, the gods deserted the Spaniards completely. Everything proved a complete disaster, and right from the start. Five ships sank while leaving Cadiz, fever struck, and in the end, despite extra reinforcements from Spain, the expedition that entered the Straits in early 1584 had been whittled down to 529 soldiers, colonists and sailors in 5 ships – still much more than either Cortes or Pizarro had led. Sarmiento created the first colony, Nombre de Jesus, close to the Atlantic mouth of the Straits, and then marched with another party of settlers 240 miles along the northern shore of the Straits of Magellan, finally stopping to create a second colony, Rey Felipe, where conditions seemed better, after the starvation they had endured along the barren shore.

"It was now the beginning of winter, and I never saw a more cheerless prospect" (Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle )

Neither colony survived long. Winter very shortly arrived at Rey Felipe, it snowed for 15 days without stop, and Pedro Sarmiento quickly ‘jumped ship’, in this case involuntarily as he was on board the one remaining vessel when its anchor was torn out by a sudden storm and expelled from the Strait and into the Atlantic. Sarmiento went off to seek rescue for the colonies – and was destined never to return. Meanwhile 200 soldiers were sent from Rey Felipe to Nombre de Jesus, only to disappear en route. The remaining survivors from Nombre de Jesus trekked to Rey Felipe, and the last survivor of Rey Felipe, Tome Hernandez, was picked up in January 1587 by the British privateer Thomas Cavendish who was passing through the Straits. It was Cavendish who then re-baptised Rey Felipe as Port Famine.

Pedro Sarmiento

What of Pedro Sarmiento? This was just one, admittedly sorry, episode in a life whose motto must have been ‘carpe diem’. Born in 1532 in Spain, he was a soldier before heading out to the New World in 1555. He arrived in Peru 2 years later and spent seven years researching the history of the Incas, writing a history that can be bought still. As part of this research he claims he was told by Inca Tupac Yupanqui about 2 islands to the west; he promptly raised a large expedition and set sail, discovering the Solomon Islands. These islands, to the east of Papua New Guinea, are almost 14,000 km from Peru, a staggering distance away and – one suspects – not quite the islands Tupac Yupanqui had in mind unless he had another motive in mind.

Afterwards Sarmiento played a key part in persecuting rebel Incas, and captured Inca Tupac Amaru close to Vilcabamba in 1571. During this time Sarmiento had fallen foul of the Inquisition, the first time for claiming to own a magic potion for love letters to seduce women. Following Drake’s shocking transit through the Magellan Strait, the ViceRoy of Peru selected Sarmiento to head the expedition to the Straits, as much a different world as the Solomons. And then, shortly after Sarmiento found himself on the last vessel blown out to sea from the Magellan Straits, the ship was intercepted and detained by the English. In England Queen Elizabeth gave him a letter of peace (just before the Spanish Armada) for the Spanish king, never received in time as Sarmiento was this time caught by the French Huguenots who further detained him until 1590. He then spent several years in Spain writing and editing poetry before finally being appointed as an admiral, dying on board en route to the Indies.

When we visited Port Famine and its few unexciting monuments, we were totally unaware of all this background, of the monstruous effort that lay behind the whole endeavour, of the scale of disaster that ensued. Of the incredible bravery – and unwitting folly – of pioneers trying to survive in an environment not only cursed with extremely harsh weather, but also at a time when the region was overrun with hostile indians. Ironically it was just a few years later, in 1616, that the ‘easier’ route round Cape Horn was discovered, rendering futile the expedition’s whole objective. I will be visiting the Magellan Straits in the next 2 months – and this time, a visit to Port Famine will be both mandatory and far better appreciated!

(Chile Discover organises Patagonia tours, and we will be pleased to add visits to Fuerte Bulnes and Port Famine.)

Living in Costa Rica (paradise!), but trudging to boarding school in the UK (wet, but not wild) to do the International Baccalaureate course, travelling is one of those things that really help break up what I consider a hectic life (packing as a family pre-trip may be an exception – tempers are explosive, tantrums abound, and crockery gets casually thrown about). And as to travelling, I have to admit that Chile is by far my favourite country (in the World!). And Atacama is one of the most amazing places I’ve been to.

Walking across salt-encrusted Lake Tuyjato in the Altiplano

Chile has a wee little bit of everything – from the icy South in Antarctica’s direction, to its geological and climate opposite, the North, where the driest landscape on Earth is to be found, namely the Atacama Desert.  And of course a fair amount of rain forest and other such routine stuff sprinkled in between. Unfortunately, I had only three weeks to attempt to satisfy my zest for Chile. But  those three weeks made more of an impression on me than entire years in other countries.

Arriving in the capital, Santiago (surprisingly clean, and well-planned, in comparison to other Latin American capitals), we took a car to the North, and zoomed through the countryside, which became ever less populated. Here we ascended to what would become a place which (sorry for the dreadful mix of clashing clichés) I will hold in my heart till the day I kick the bucket – Atacama and the Altiplano.

Looking at the salt at Lake Miscanti in the Chile Altiplano

Desolate and unpopulated for as far as the eye can see, few life forms are visible excepting the lone vicuña or alpaca munching on the tough and hardy vegetation. The landscape is of yellow-brown Andean grass-patches dotting the smooth and rolling hills that embrace the massive and imposing saphire-blue lakes, second only to the Dead Sea in saltiness, and not broken by a single ripple. These bodies of water are encrusted by white or multi-coloured salt (edible, and tasty) which constitute the edges of these dead lakes.

With sand-brown mountains in the distance, the only sign of human interference in this perfect environment is the thin, broken gravel road which winds its way through this orderly wilderness, to vanish on the horizon. Ever since, I have wanted to settle down here in one of those traditional adobe huts, topped by a thatched roof, on the summit of one of those rolling hills on the altiplano, and live there as a hermit, cultivating vegetables. A touch misanthropic, but there we go.

And, as we drove on, it only got better. San Pedro de Atacama was the next stop – uniformly made of adobe, and painted in a different hue of brown and yellow, similar, yet different to the Altiplano we passed through just hours back – going from the faces of the cheeky children grinning from behind the corner of the squat mud-brick buildings, to the dusty sand roads criss-crossing the town (in no particular pattern), and the mountains towering at a distance as they guarded the settlement. What an atmosphere!

Incredible mountain biking at Death Valley, Atacama, near San Pedro

With cool, dry nights, and hot, even drier days, one finds that as soon as you head a few hundred yards away from the safety of the town, all that comes to meet the eye are tall, rolling sand dunes, distant dusty peaks, the arid, sparsely vegetated floor matted with tough desert grasses, and the perfectly blue sky above, illuminated by the unforgiving and omnipresent sun. Its inhospitability and the incredible vividity of its colours are what make it so overpoweringly beautiful.

Visiting El Tatio geysers, Atacama, at the crack of dawn

On one early morning, I was rudely awakened before sunrise by my travel partners, kidnapped, and taken by car to the El Tatio geysers. With the sun slowly beginning to stir, and eventually rearing its headand peeking over the desert peaks, it was still ice-cold, which contrasted greatly to the magnificent and enormous pores which belchedout boiling-hot jets of steam and vapour out of the Earth’s depths, on an enormous plain. Around eighty of these earthy orifices litter this vast expanse, the plumes of steam making it a beautiful yet dangerous minefield.

Hard to put into words, the beauty of Chile’s barren north reflects positively on its creator, and tickles the minds and imaginations of those who experience its isolated, God-forsaken beauty. Yet this is merely the North!