Punta Arenas

A hundred thousand pairs of Magellanic penguins breed on this small island. Visitors follow a roped path and the same boat takes them off an hour later.

Cypress clipped into squared walls lines the avenues. Graves of immigrants gather by the country each family came from.

Full scale rebuilds of the ships of Magellan and Darwin stand here. Visitors climb onto the decks and walk the narrow cabins.

From the hill behind town the coloured roofs and the strait appear together. When the air clears the island across the water shows as well.

A family enriched by wool built this house in 1905. Furniture and wallpaper were shipped from Europe and remain as they were.

The ferry takes vehicles across to the island of Tierra del Fuego. The current runs hard, so the boat crosses at an angle.

A log fort of 1843 was rebuilt on its original ground. Wind off the strait dictated low roofs and thick walls.

King penguins settled on the island across the strait, the only place in South America to see them. The group is small, so only a set number are let in.

Touching the toe of the Magellan statue is said to bring a person back to this land. That one spot is worn bright and stalls set up around it.

The iron ribs of a vessel that ran aground in the strait still stand on the mudflat. Only at low tide can a walker get out close to it.

Wool magnate Mauricio Braun and his wife Josefina Menendez built this mansion in the 1900s; it became a museum in 1983 and is a national monument. Its salons keep their original furnishings, and the servants' basement shows how the region was settled.

Salesian missionaries opened it in 1893, and every floor is crowded with mounted Patagonian birds and mammals. Selk'nam and Kawesqar tools and photographs share space with Antarctic exploration material. The old glass cabinets feel like a school specimen room.

Open-air grounds at the University of Magallanes' Patagonia Institute, with pioneer-era timber buildings, old cars, steam engines, horse carts and ranch tools set out on the grass. It is on the way north to the duty-free zone, so many combine the two.

A small museum on Pedro Montt street on the navy and the explorers who sailed these southern waters. The centrepiece is the 1916 rescue of Shackleton's men from Elephant Island by the Chilean tug Yelcho.

Life-size bronzes of a shepherd, his horse and dog driving a flock of sheep. They stand on the green median of Avenida Bulnes heading north out of town. It honours the wool trade that built the city, and people pull over to pose among the bronze sheep.

A long walkway beside the Strait of Magellan along the town's seafront. Cormorants perch in rows on the stumps of an old pier still standing in the water, close enough to watch. Wind comes straight off the strait, and hats blow away even on clear days.

A forest reserve a few kilometres uphill and west of the centre. Trails wind through lenga and coigue, the southern beeches of Patagonia. Where the trees open out, the city and the strait are laid out below.

The southernmost tip of the South American mainland, topped by a large metal cross. It lies about 40 km on foot along the coast past the end of the road, with river fords, so the round trip takes several days. Fords depend on the tide; most go with a guide.