Punta Arenas: Gateway to Patagonia and Antarctica

Punta Arenas is perhaps best known as a gusty pit-stop on the way to Antarctica, Tierra del Fuego and Torres del Paine National Park (via Puerto Natales). Reasons to linger include a lively and diverse nightlife, grand/impressive colonial/, neo-classical mansions, a duty-free zone, a historic cemetery and Magellanic penguins, wales and ? compelling colonial boom/bust/reinvention story /rags-to-riches backstory