Punta Arenas has a tax free shopping zone, Zona Franca, so we decided that we would see if we could by a small compact, waterproof camera to take on the tramp in Patagonia. By all accounts, the weather is very changable and it would be easier to take pictures in the howling wind and rain with a small camera rather than the large DSLR we have.

Zona Franca was only a 10 minute bus ride away, but we were a little surprised once we arrived. It was more like an industrial park and the range of shops wasn't huge. Most shops sold everything and nobody really specialised in anything in particular. Eventually we found a mall with some smaller specialist shops inside. We were looking for a Canon D30 and were pleased to see a Canon dealer. They didn't have one in stock, but were getting some arriving in the afternoon. But, it would be more expensive to buy the camera 'tax free' than it would be buying it in the High Street in Auckland so we decided against it. Maria did manage to find some good gloves and a hat to take tramping so the shopping trip wasn't totally wasted.

We took a colectivo taxi to the market to meet Carlee and Andy, who arrived yesterday, for lunch. All the restaurants on the 2nd floor of the market offered pretty much the same except for one in the middle. They were selling Empanada de Centillo, which is a deep fried King Crab pastry - a highly recommended dish to try in this part of the world.

It was therefore an easy decision which restaurant to eat at, we all wanted to try the King Crab empanadas. They arrived not long after we ordered our meals and for a starter they were slightly on the large side, but totally delicious. Maria ordered some salmon which came with chips and salad while David chanced his arm on the Paila Marina. It's a local dish made with broth and full of shellfish without their shells, which made it quite interesting trying to identify some of the things. There was one, actually a quite a few, which was like an orange marble with two little devil horns on it. According to David, it was actually quite nice.

After lunch we took a taxi to the Austral Brewery but we couldn't take a tour, we discovered that you need to call ahead to arrange it. We walked back down the hill to the cemetery only to discover that there was an entry fee of 2,000 pesos per person, which we were not going to pay. After much animated discussion between ourselves the guy waved us in for free. There was quite a mix of standard graves and mausoleums, but not quite on the same scale and excess as we saw in Santiago.

We continued to walk downhill, towards the coast, to the Magellan brewery. It's a small micro-brewery, but we'd heard it had won some awards and therefore worth a tasting session. The brewery was really small, about the size of a small house, and there was no tour as such, nor was there any tasting because it didn't have a license. David did manage to buy a 3 pack of their beers to taste later.

The beer was a little on the warm side so it was dropped off at the hostel and put in the fridge for later. We headed backed into town once again, this time to buy bus tickets for the trip to Puerto Natales tomorrow. With the transport sorted out, we could now finally go in search of a cold beer. Bars in Punta Arenas seemed to be few and far between, but we had read about the Shackleton Bar in the Jose Noguera Hotel. It had an old English style theme and steeped in history about Sir Ernest Shakleton's Antarctic expedition. The waitress showed us a special bottle of whisky, which was recreated using one of the original bottles from the 1916 expedition. As good as the whisky smelt, David couldn't bear to part with 25,000 pesos (about $50) for one small measure so he opted for a beer instead. Maria decided to try the Calafate Sour, like a pisco sour but with the juice of the calafate berry.

We went looking for another bar, but in the end had to ask at tourist information. As we thought, there weren't too many bars, but we were pointed in the direction of two. The first was the Taberna Club de la Union although tourists are allowed entry. It was more expensive, but a nice setting in the catacomb basement of the Sara Braun's palace (she was widow of Jose Noguera who was successful businessman and one of the pioneers in the area).

After a couple of drinks, we went in search of the other bar, Santino, which was just around the corner. It was a much cheaper and very popular bar, which probably had something to do with the happy hour. We had some pisco sours and beer until the happy hour ended before calling it a night. The rain had started while we were in the bar, but wisely we had brought our rain jackets so the walk home wasn't too bad and we knew the heating would be on to have everything dry by the morning.