Puerto Natales, Chile

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Yes the weather forecasts were correct!! A nice blue sky morning as we head for Torres del Paine (the Towers of Pain). We had been hearing from people that had been tramping while the weather had not been good and they could not see the mountains. It had been cloudy and rainy for the past five days!

The ride out turned up 20 minutes early and put us in a bit of a panic. While we raced to clean our teeth the van left to pick up some others. Finally aboard and on time!! We drove out of the very picturesque Puerto Natales. I thought it was a lake!! I learned the error of my ways when we caught a ferry here a few days later.

The van driver and a good portion of the passengers got all excited when we came across some sheep being moved along the road. For us the interest lay in the gauchos that were on horseback working the mob.

I little further on and we paused to view some Condors. These are magnificent birds with a three metre wing span.

Next stop was a large flock of guanacos. Apparently large numbers had come out from the national park and moved down to the farmland after a very large fire the previous month. A little further on and we saw the destruction the fire had caused. We were told by a fellow hostelier it was the result of an Israeli tramper burning his toilet paper! Typical of bureaucracy the world over the park is now full of ‘light no fires’ signs.

As Torres del Paine came into view we marvelled at this magnificent geological feature. It seemed very aptly named. I could not imagine climbing these vertical towers but people do. A little further on we took a walk to view a glacier in the distance.

Our accommodation was interesting to say the least. The hostel (Yagan House) seemed to be made out of second hand materials by someone that did not have a level or a tape measure. Nothing was square or seemed to quite fit. The 2009 cleanliness award was a thing of the past. The shower roof had a nice crop of ... I’m not quite sure what it was!

When we returned from Torres del Paine the lock on our room would not work. I had a 6:00pm work call and it was 5pm. Luckily Eileen came up with the idea of loading Skype onto my cell phone at 5:40. Much to my surprise this was easy and it worked! I was still without my work material but at least I could talk! So much for trying to deliver a seamless service. Eventually our door was unlocked one and a half hours after the five minutes we had been told.

To make up for the inconvenience we were upgraded to an ensuite room. This turned out to be a mixed blessing. At midnight we were woken by a child clumping around in what seemed like clogs. Then at 4am the child was screaming outside our door for 15 minutes. It seemed that the night staff slept in the foyer outside our door with their child. Hmmm... on balance not the best choice of accommodation.

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