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Published: December 25th 2008
Puerto Natales
Shot at night, from the Navimag shipI left El Calafate by bus early on Thurs 11 December to travel across the border to Puerto Natales in Chile. The journey to the bus station was a little traumatic as I still felt ropey from the persistent stomach bug, and was a little worried about running the gauntlet of the local dogs who hung around the road into town as a guy from my hostel had been bitten quite badly by one of them the previous night. The dog had been described as 'alsatian-like', which accounts for pretty-much the entire local dog population, so I just walked as fast as possible and just a little faster whenever any dog looked like approaching.
Several hours later, I was in Chile and enjoying the sights of Puerto Natales for a few hours before boarding the Navimag ferry at 9pm that evening. Just as I arrived, however, I realised I had no Chilean currency and absolutely no idea what it was worth, so was pretty clueless about how much to withdraw from the ATM. And then I saw a fetching pair of underpants for sale in a shop window for 1,000 pesos, and so I figured ten underpant´s worth of cash
Church in Puerto Natales
Spotted while waiting for the boat would do me for now (exactly a tenner).
And then a small miracle happened - I was mustering up the courage to buy some food from somewhere (you all know by now my struggle to find vegetarian, edible food) when I came across a cafe in my guidebook which was British-run, and vegetarian!! And even better, I was standing a block away from it. I think I spent about 3 hours there in the end, devouring fresh orange juice, latte in a mug, veggie burritos, carrot cake etc etc - absolute heaven, and it only cost me 6 underpants.
At 9pm, I boarded the ferry and found my home for the next 4 days - a tiny bunk with a curtain along the side, reminding me of something you might see in a crematorium. I was later very grateful for the curtain, as the bunks were in open corridors, and it saved the rest of the passengers from seeing you at your very worst after various red wine/vodka sessions.
And so what of these terrible rumours of bingo, bad chefs and Smash for dinner? Nearly all true (the chefs weren´t too bad) and it was great! The
Train in Puerto Natales
Now just an ornament in the town square boat is a mix of cargo ship, ferry, cruise liner and institution. Every day a timetable of activities were posted up and, just in case you weren´t aware of where you should be at any given time, a voice on the tannoy would soon pipe up "Passengers, your attention please. It is 6.30am and we are currently travelling through the blahblah channel, which is 80 metres wide. You are invited to stand on the deck and witness the manoevre..." (6.30am, stand on deck, what the f....?!?!)
Days on board were spent attending meals (more Smash - yum!), watching movies, sitting on deck when weather permitted, sitting indoors reading/sleeping when weather/hangover did not permit anything else, drinking, sleeping and gawping at mini-icebergs. The evening entertainment was provided by a middle-aged man on a keyboard, who we later discovered worked on the ship in some seemingly important maritime capacity. I was trying to imagine his job interview at Navimag, where he´s solemnly laying out his shipping qualifications, thinking the job is in the bag, and then someone trundles out the old Casio keyboard and the job isn´t his until he can prove he can play 'Black Magic Woman', 'Hotel California', etc
Puerto Natales door
I loved all the layers of colours on the buildings and doors etc...
We finally reached Puerto Montt, 5 days and about 1500km later, and I was rather sad to disembark. I think the two crates of cattle on board were totally delighted though as they didn't have a great deal of standing room (but then they were spared the glaciology lecture and the bingo...)
Now I´m going to get on a bus and hop back over the border to Argentina for a few days in Bariloche before the arse-numbing two day journey to Tucuman in time for Christmas.
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Jane
non-member comment
Amazing ... so envious!
Happy Christmas to you wherever you are! Only just logged on to day so lots of reading to catch up on. Am now redundant officially - so Central America beckons! Will write more to you in a few days time when am mother free after x mas! much love xxxxx