Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Puerto Natales - Punta Arenas

The Navimag finished in Puerto Natales, which was pleasant enough but was a bit closed down for winter. It took a long time to find a hostel, but eventually I went to the Erratic Rock hostel, run by a weird american guy, and with a nice cat callen Canello. A few of the guys from the Navimag were there too and we met up with some of the others for dinner in the evening, but we struggled to find a bar that was open before 9pm.

The next day I went on a day trip to the Torres del Paine National Park. This was really amazing. The weather just about held all day. The tour set off early and there was some great views of the mountains at sunrise. The first stop was at the Milodon cave. Then we headed towards the park and had some great views of the Torres del Paine and the Hornes del Paine. There was also a trip to a waterfall and a two hour walk along a beach on a lake to where icebergs float down from the glacier. Again this trip was really great, but the photos will give you a fat better idea than anything I can write here. We also so a few animals, including Guanacos (llama like creatures), rheas, condors and a fox. No pumas though, sadly.

The guys that were in my hostel had a bit more time, money and energy and headed off for 4 days hiking in the park, so I was the only one in the hostel that night. I met up with two Australian guys from the boat for dinner, and I travelled on to Punta Arenas with them the next day. The only reason I went to Punto Arenas was that I wanted to go to Ushuaia in the Tierro del Fuego, but the bus was full, so we thought we might be able to get a connection at Punta Arenas which was a bigger town. Turned out we couldn't make that connection so had to spend a night there. I had a lot of trouble finding a hostel that was open there so ended up paying a little bit more for a hotel room. The 2 Aussies I was travelling with didn't have time to go to Ushuaia because of the extra day, so I headed off the following day by myself on a 13 hour bus to the end of the world.

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