Ninety seconds on Puerto Bories
Walking through the brick halls of the old sheep-freezing plant on the fjord north of Puerto Natales, you see the machines that kept Patagonia's meat cold for export, still standing where the workers left them.
Puerto Bories was built in 1915 to process and store sheep meat, fat and hides for export, and it was once the largest meat-processing plant in the area. Its long brick and timber halls follow an English industrial style, and the machinery inside is kept in its original layout. The plant worked until the 1990s and is now a national monument.
Two kinds of machine explain the whole place. The generators made the heat and electricity for the complex, and the compressors, working with ammonia, made refrigeration possible. Both are still on show, kept where they worked.
At its peak the plant processed 250,000 sheep a year. Its meat, fat, skins and wool were loaded onto ships at its own dock and sent to Europe.
From the road, you enter through the old woolshed, the long hall that leads to the machinery rooms. Placards in Spanish and English explain the work done in each building. The rooms to find are the boiler room, the engine room and the steam locomotive.
Part of the plant is now a hotel, and its guests pass through the same machinery rooms on the way to their beds. Ask at the hotel which rooms are open to you before you wander, especially if you are not staying there. If you want the parts the placards do not reach, the guided tour is the way in.
The guided tour goes beyond the museum rooms to the condensers, the blacksmith's shop, the turnery and the centennial dock, as well as the boiler rooms. It is a beginner-level half-day outing of about two hours, and the ticket covers transport and a mountain bike.
It runs only with at least two guests booked, so if you are travelling alone you may not be able to take it.
Morning light falls on the fjord, so photograph the water and the dock early and leave the halls for later in the day. The brick reads best once the sun has moved round onto the facades.
Across Patagonia, October and February tend to be less windy than the months between them. That matters on the tour, which includes a ride on a mountain bike, so bring a windproof layer whatever the month.
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