Punta Arenas

is the capital of Chilean Patagonia and the closest city to the South Pole. I've already been in Punta Arenas since many expeditions to Antarctica start exactly here. However, this time there was no rush and I was able to explore the city's life more closely. There were mayoral elections that day and we visited a voting place to look at the process.

The first thing that catches your eye is a great number of various monuments. I think the city has the biggest density of sculptures per capita.

The city has a very sport-oriented waterfront. When American culture came in Chile, local people lost their heads from fast food, as well as their physically fit. So now the government strongly invests in a healthy lifestyle promotion:

Here are places for street workout:

Here's a jogging track and a track for bikes:

There are concrete seats with backs built to last a lifetime:

Here you can see local graffiti:

There are many parking columns for bikes, but I didn't understand how they work.

There are signs for the blind on the waterfront:

Pedestrian crossings are marked with bright fluorescent signs:

Many bus stops are made covered and glazed, in order to protect from the bad weather:

However, they do not protect from vandals:

Cars in the city serve as city shuttles, they ply in certain directions.

I found such interestingly trimmed trees. At first it seems that it is a conception or some designer's decision...

...but then you notice fully trimmed trees and realize that someone was simply too lazy to carry the work to completion:

This is a local

cemetery

. It looks like a park:

Here's a park in front of it. It looks like a cemetery:

Here you can see the city boulevard and kissing couples:

Here are local young people.

Punta Arenas

is located on a hill, its top offers splendid panorama of the city:

Here's an interesting building in a glass "sarcophagus":

At that the city has a lot of old (I mean shabby) buildings:

Of course, this is not Venice or Amsterdam, but you can also find canals here. I hope you can see the water there at least sometimes:

There are also many strange signs in Chile. If here you can guess that it's about some museum...

...than here it's harder to understand what's going on:

What does it mean?

Here you can clearly see where to run in case of the tsunami. They say you can find the same signs in Thailand:

We were there on the day of the municipal elections and we went to one of the voting places:

Voting is already over and counting is being in full swing:

They were counting the ballots as follows: the woman opened the box, pulled out one piece of paper and read out the result showing it to the press and observers. Such a full transparency:

Even boxes are with transparent walls, you can see everything: