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Published: January 2nd 2009
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After landing in Santiago from Easter Island, we were going to stay the night at the airport and wait for our 5 am flight to Punta Arenas. What we didn´t realise was that Lan have, in the meantime, changed the flight to 11 am and apparently tried to contact us about it. Looks like you need to check your e-mail regularly, even when on holiday. Oh well, stayed in a hostel then, which was rubbish......but at midnight we were a bit confused and went with a guy who was also finding a place for the night. I was a bit annoyed with the whole thing but glad I checked the flight as opposed to just waiting around, as we´d have been even more annoyed in the morning.
Flight to Punta Arenas was about 3 hours, very windy at landing so a bit scary, thought I´d end up in the ocean! But hey ho, we´re in Patagonia! In all honesty, we were a bit naive in thinking it would be warmer. You really shouldn´t rely on international weather forecasts as they clearly don´t account for the wind. It may be 18 outside but with the strong winds blowing, it´s more like
5!!!
A bus ride later, we arrive in Puerto Natales, a small town in Seno Ultima Esperanza, the Last Hope. It´s just that. Small, fairly touristy and not very interesting. It´s got some good restaurants though, a very good pizza joint off the main square and lots of ridiculously overpriced tourist shops. If you´re going souvenir hunting, do it in Punta Arenas, things are half price!
In any case, we arrived at 10 pm and at the bus station were offered accommodation by a hostel owner waiting so went with her. Hostal Chorillos, highly recommended, clean, cozy and quiet. We immediately booked two tours, Torres del Paine the next day and Perito Moreno the day after.
Getting up at 6 is not easy but after a nice breakfast we managed to get out and into the minibus with some 6 other people to go visit the national park. The tour was actually really good. The bus driver stopped everywhere, whenever we saw an interesting bird or animal, it was like a safari! Lots of nandu (type of ostrich), guanacos, condors, sheep, horses, hares etc. He explained everything, although in Spanish, I managed to understand some things. The
ride to the park is about 2 hours the long way, through the desolate landscape of Southern Patagonia. The only thing alive that you see for most of the journey are sheep. They´ve got a hectare of land per single sheep. We saw a couple of carcasses, decimated by a puma some time ago.
Eventually we got to Laguna Amarga, which is the entrance to the park. You pay 15 000 pesos entrance and it´s valid for 3 days. We saw a few hikers along the way but realised that we weren´t equipped for it so probably won´t be able to do it. It really was so very windy, I thought I would get ill. In any case, the day tour was so good and you can get to most viewpoints by car that you really don´t need to do the three day hike unless you want to climb to the Torres or go to valleys not accessible by car.
I didn´t know where to look first, it´s so beautiful. We had nice weather, a few clouds to add drama to the photos but no rain. My favourite place has to be Lago Pehoe and the Salto Grande
waterfall, from where you have amazing panoramic views. I was quite jealous of the people who were camping there coz it´s such a lovely setting and there´s a grill there, as well. I could only imagine what the sunset must be like overthere. We slowly drove via Lago Toro to Lago Grey to see Glaciar grey. It got very cold and windy there, walking along the beach to get a view of the Glaciar. I was glad for my silly hat but was missing a scarf and gloves. And this is summer. I donçt even want to know what winter is like here. Itçs crazy English weather taken to an extreme.
On the way back we stopped at Cueva Milodon, a prehistoric cave that used to house some strange animals, including a giant sloth, the Milodon. It was a nice wind shelter, carved out over the centuries by wind erosion.
The daytour ended at 7:30 pm and was very satisfying. It is so bright outside though you forget what time it is and we finally managed to get some dinner at 10 pm, thinking it is still 8. It really gets properly dark after 11. Coming back to
London will be a shock, I think....
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