Though the area around Puerto Hambre (Port Famine) is beautiful, the story of the area is bleak. All that remains of the Spanish outpost of Rey Don Felipe is the ruins of a church, which was originally built in 1584 by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and his 300 Spanish colonists, who arrived in Chile after a long and disastrous voyage from Spain. After settling the outpost, the colonist's only remaining ship was battered and blown to sea in a storm with Sarmiento de Gamboa on board, stranding the remaining colonists in this icy part of the Straits of Magellan. They either froze or starve. When British captain Thomas Cavendish landed here in 1587, he found just 18 survivors and renamed the area to Port Famine. A plaque was added to the site in 1968 after it was declared a National Monument. It's possible to arrange tours from Punta Arenas to Puerto Hambre and nearby Fuerte Bulnes.

Ruin

By Karen Nagy

Karen Nagy is a staff editor/writer at V!VA. She studied travel writing and learned the joys of Mediterranean island-hopping in Greece, and went on...

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