Puerto Natales

Day 1 – Another Travelling Day

Getting up early yet again we went downstairs to breakfast which was quite basic and they don’t have milk for their cornflakes, you have strawberry yogurt to mix into it instead.  So we ended having a bit of toast and a coffee before getting a taxi to the airport.

On another trip we had already been to the Patagonian part of Argentina so we thought we would like to check out the Chile side of it, which meant another flight. Unfortunately the airport in Puerto Natales only opens in high season, which meant we had to get a 3 hour flight to the nearest town which was Punta Arenas.

During the flight we were suddenly passing over snowy mountains, glaciers and what looked like the Arctic, this created great excitement in the cabin with people rushing around the aisles from side to side trying to get photo’s.

Arriving in Punta Arenas we then had to find our way to the coach station for the next leg of the journey.  After trying to find a mini-bus into town and failing we opted to get a taxi to the bus station as we wanted to ensure we caught the earliest one we could.

Along the way the lady taxi driver we had, attempted in broken English, to point out some landmarks around the town (not a lot going on in this town by the look of things!).  We arrived at the coach station and went to get some tickets to Puerto Natales, luckily for us there was one departing in around an a hour.  So we walked down the road and found ourselves a café, which turned out to be pretty much an English tea shop, although they didn’t produce the milk until I requested, which I think they found a bit odd (No milk?, we’re the world’s most famous tea drinkers, WITH MILK!).

We then boarded the coach for a 3 hour journey that would take us to Puerto Natales, although the coach was comfortable the temperature on board was freezing.  Some 11 hours after we left Santiago we eventually found ourselves at the destination bus station.  Another 15 minutes dragging our bags along the freezing cold streets and after a bit of searching we found the hostel we had booked.

On checking in we were told that our room was in their sister hostel a couple of doors down, so we followed the receptionist down the road where he showed us to our room.  It was small but felt quite cosy so we unpacked and then went back to the reception to find out what trips we could do here.

The trips on offer was a day coach tour around Torres del Paine (the national park) and/or a hike up a mountain to get a closer view of the iconic mountain peaks. So not sure whether we wanted to do a full day’s hard hike we booked the coach trip for the next day and told him we would let him know later on whether we wanted to do the hike the following day.

Once this was all sorted we went to the ATM to get some funds out and found that our card still wasn’t working, which meant transferring some money to another bank account so we could draw money out to eat tonight.

It was now early evening so we went looking for a bar, however they were harder to find than you would imagine so we ended up in a nearby hostel that sold beer.  Whilst having a beer we just decided to have food here and we ended up just having homemade hamburgers and crisps, not quite the Chilean fare that we were hoping to get.

The food and drink there turned out to be quite expensive (UK prices) so we thought we would try out a little café/bar right next to our hostel, this turned out to be very popular with the locals and a bit more lively (also cheaper) so we stayed there for a couple of drinks before we returned to our hostel for the night.

Day 2 – Torres Del Paine

Today we were doing a tour of the national park and were told to be ready and outside for 7.30 which again meant another early start, which would have been fine if the coach had been punctual.  We waited until 7.45 before going to the reception to find out what happening, a brief conversation in my broken Spanish then I was put on the phone to the coach operator, she told me that the coach would arrive between 7.30 and 8.00.

So we were still standing outside freezing outside and feeling despondent at 8.15 we sat inside and waited inside the hostel, then around 8.30 we were informed by the receptionist that we had been given the wrong time and the coach was due at 8.30.

It then duly arrived and we boarded a coach full of local tourists, we were the only English people on the bus.  When the tour guide started wobbling on in Spanish we thought that was it and we would just have to appreciate the scenery without the commentary, but then he repeated himself in English (although it appeared to be the abbreviated version), so we were going to be OK.

We drove along for around an hour and then we pulled up at a restaurant for a coffee/toilet break, it was quite interesting as it was right on the Argentinian border, which appeared to be just a gate.  Inside we just about had enough to buy ourselves a coffee (due to card problem), it was very cosy there with all the chairs covered in a sheepskin and a log burner in the middle of the room.

Back on the bus, as we drove along we started to spot Guanacos, a sort of Chilean Lama but part of the camel family.  The Guanacos roam free across the national park and do not belong to anyone When we came to a largish group of them next to the road the driver let us off the coach for a better look.

You could walk fairly close to them and get some nice photo’s with a mountain backdrop, well you could until one of our fellow tourists strode right up to them to get a selfie at which point they scattered (some people!).  We were also lucky to see what I thought was an Artic fox scavenging nearby, it actually turned out on investigation to be a grey fox.

Carrying on for a while we passed plenty of Guanacos and also spotted the Chilean version of Emu’s before we pulled over at the first scenic look-out point.  The view we got off the coach for was a large lake in front of some beautiful mountains, but what was more impressive were the large Condor’s circling overhead.

After a 10 minute stop, it was freezing with a biting wind off the coach, we carried on for a while before stopping once again at a lookout that had a panoramic view over the lake with the iconic mountains that we had come to see in the background.

A little further down the road (or should I say dirt track) and we were stopping again, this time to look at a waterfall with the mountains once again in the background.  The scenery we were looking at was quite breath taking.

We then entered the park proper and had to pay the entrance fee of around £20 each before we could carry on.  Once again we were taken to another viewpoint that was a lot closer to the mountains and again there were Condor’s circling nearby, once again stunning!

Next on the itinerary we got off the coach and had to take a short walk (in the biting cold wind) to a viewpoint where there was another larger waterfall, so we could get yet more photo’s of the vista on offer.

It was now time for a lunch break (that you had to provide yourself) and we were taken to a lovely picnic spot on the shore of a lake with the whole of the mountain range behind it.  Shell and I had manged to get some rolls, ham and butter from a supermarket the day before so we managed, despite the wind, to fashion some sandwiches for our lunch which we ate whilst admiring the view.

After lunch we travelled further into the park and then pulled up and got out to do another longer walk.  Crossing a swaying foot bridge we then walked for about 15 minutes through some woods until we reach the basin of a lake.  From here we could spot icebergs in the distance so we headed across the dry lake bed to get a closer look.

We walked to the edge of the lake and in the distance you could see the Grey Glacier which the icebergs had broke off from, but from this distance we could not see if it was as impressive as the ones we had seen in Argentina a few year previously.

Following the edge of the lake we walked over to where all the icebergs were stacked up close to the shore so we could get some nice close up shots with the mountains as a backdrop.

The icebergs were practically like sculpture and once again they had this fantastic almost electric blue colour to them which made for great pictures, though as usual I don’t think the photo’s do them justice.

Shell and I sat there for a while enjoying the views and then it was time to return to the coach, for what was to be our last stop on the trip.  An hour or so later and we were stopping at a cave where they had found remains of a prehistoric bear.  The entrance fee for this was not included in this trip, so as we had to be careful with our money (due to card problems) and the fact we have seen plenty of caves on this trip we decided to give it a miss.

Twenty minutes later and the rest of the tourists returned to the bus (they didn’t exactly look awe struck) and then we were heading back to Puerto Nateles town.  During the journey back we had time to have one last look at the mountains before getting back to town around 7:30pm, quite a long day!

Back at the hostel, we tried to call the bank to sort out our card (our only one for our main account as mine had been cloned and cancelled in Java), but incredibly they do not have a 24 hour phone support for when you are abroad!!  So, we had to transfer more money to our secondary account so we could draw some money out.

As it was quite by now we just headed to the café next door for a few beers and we did not bother with dinner.  It was pretty full in there as it was a Saturday night and judging by a table full of local girls who were all dolled up for a party, people come here for a few cheap beers and some stodgy food before hitting the clubs (if they have such a thing in this town).  We just enjoyed our drinks and not feeling the need to go out partying headed later on to bed.

Day 3 – Rude Awakening

I forgot to mention although our room was quite cosy it had a very loud heating system (that you could not turn off) that kicked in and woke you up intermittently throughout the night, this combined with the loud Spanish chatter coming from reception (we were at the top of the stairs just above it), meant we got very little sleep here.

Taking the above into account we were not very impressed when the receptionist came banging on our door a 8.00 exclaiming that our coach was here.  It appeared that the guy we had booked the first trip with had decided that he would book us onto the second trip, despite us not asking too and not paying for it.

It took some time to try and explain to her that we hadn’t booked anything as my just awake brain seemed incapable of coming up with the Spanish words and I was just confusing us.  However she did go away after a while, maybe just to escape the sight of me in my stripy long john and hairstyle like Edward Scissor Hands and nothing to do with what I said to her.

After we tried to get a couple more hours sleep we got up but unfortunately Shell wasn’t feeling great so we decided she would stay in the room and either sleep or do some internet research on the next place we were going to, whilst I went to sort out our coach tickets for the next day and have a little stroll around town.

I took the short walk to the coach station where I managed to get us a pair of tickets to Puerto Montt for early the next day.  After this I then headed back to the town where I got us some 3-in-one coffee mixes, because as it turns out they seem adverse to supplying milk with their hot beverages in Chile.

I thought I would let Shell rest/sleep for a while so I had a little wander around the town then tried to see if I could find the tourism office and after getting a few vague directions and going round the block a couple of times I found it on the coast road.  It would have been useful apart from it was closed, undeterred I knocked on the door and after a while someone opened it.  Although he told me the office was closed today I did manage to get a bit of information concerning the connections we needed in Puerto Montt.

Walking slowly back to the hostel I checked out a couple of nice looking restaurants with a view to going out for a nice traditional meal in the evening.  On returning to the hostel Shell still wasn’t feeling 100% so we just chilled out for the rest of the day doing some blogging and research.

In the early evening after discounting one of the restaurants due to bad tripadvisor reviews we headed to the other restaurant I had seen in the nearby square.  On entering the restaurant it was very cosy with quite a few locals in it which was a good sign.  Also there was a lamb being roasted against a fire in the corner which added to the ambience.

Looking at the menu we decided just to go for the main course of the spit roasted lamb with some side dishes and a bottle of the local and highly revered wine.  However on looking around we noticed that a lot of people were drinking the local Pisco Sour, which is the local rum with lemon, so we thought we would have one as an aperitif, a good choice!

When our dinner turned up it was a full plateful of rustic lamb which was delicious and the wine too was excellent, we have now found our drink of choice in Chile!

It was our best meal for quite some time and whilst we would have liked to relax there for the rest of the evening, it was quite expensive so we did not feel we could justify buying another bottle of wine, especially with our cash/card problems at the moment.

We left the restaurant and went to the café/bar next to our hostel for a quick nightcap before heading home as we had yet another early start in the morning.