Puerto Natales - Janaury 8th

Today we moved north to Puerto Natales.  This is a little village on the romantically named Seno Ultima Esperanza (it’s not as romantic in English, Last Hope Sound; it is more like desperately named).  All it is really famous for is as a stopping off point to the Torres del Paine national park, which is the highlight of the southern part of Chile.

The journey here was a fairly straight forward 3 hour journey on very good roads.  The roads in this part of Chile are much better than the roads on Tierra del Fuego.  The view was also a bit more varied this time, and I got to see a lot of Nandu (Rhea) out the window.  Dorota saw none of this, as she slept from about 5 minutes into the journey until we arrived.  I did doze off but not for long.

We had decided to revert back to our old tactic of getting accommodation at the bus station, partially because wikitravel said it could be done, partially because the bus at Punta Arenas was like that, but mostly because this is cheaper, and this part of the world is not a cheap place to travel in.  The tactic worked because we got a decent hostel, if slightly away from the centre (10 minute’s walk) run by a mad woman who seems to always be on the move trying to drum up business.

The rest of the day was spent booking our trip to Torres del Paine (more about that tomorrow) and looking around the town.  As said there isn’t really much here.  The highlight for me was taking a picture of the giant milodon (an extinct type of sloth).  Dorota sat this ‘highlight’ out by taking a coffee in a local coffee shop.  Other than that and the supermarket where we stocked up on supplies for the trekking trip tomorrow, there is very little to write about Puerto Natales, although we did have a very good meal in a restaurant recommended by the landlady (the second time we have asked landladies for a good restaurant here in Chile and got a good result).