Blogs from Torres del Paine, Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 31

Hey all! Just a quick blog because I'm stuck in Pto. Natales for another day before my quick two-day trek to Lago Zapata in Torres del Paine National Park starts. Seems that all the kayak trips for today were booked up when I tried to book yesterday, which, looking at the weather is fine with me. Does mean I'm a little at loose ends - turns out there's not a lot to do in Pto. Natales in a cold, windy and rainy day. (The tiny Museo Historico can eat up about and hour, if you really stretch it). Did discover two neat things - the tinest urinal ever, and the biggest bathroom sink as well. I don't know what it is about Patagonia, but everthing's in extremes here. Swear to god, you couldn't fit an apple ... read more

So, let´s see if we can get the photos working ... OK, they are!! Right now, I´m now in Chile!! Beautiful sunny day, and no wind! The border crossing was pretty good, although it took a while. Surprisingly, the Chilean border police looked inside all of our bags. Not for drugs, which I´d expect, but fruits and vegetables. They are very protective of their native fruits and vegetables. And meat. It took a while to go through 46 backpacks, suitcases and assorted boxes, as you can imagine. Puerto Natales is a lovely little town. I´ve got a few days to burn here before I go on my next trek into Torres del Paine (pronounced ¨Piney¨) and hopefully I can squeeze a short trek in before the long one (seven days of walking around the back end ... read more

Our journey to Puerto Natales did not go entirely as planned... We arrived in Puerto Montt (picture a port town with stripper bars and stray dogs) with every intention of booking a 4 day voyage on the Navimag ¨Magellan¨ boat to Puerto Natales. However, we were inclined not to book the voyage when confronted with its ridiculously expensive price tag! Instead we opted for the 24 hour voyage on Navimag´s "Eden" boat from Puerto Montt to Puerto Chacabuco. Whilst it was an interesting experience, we were glad to finally disembark from the boat... essentially a floating retirement village for frail (yet surprisingly pushy and strong) Chilean woman. A particular highlight was the smell of rotting eggs infiltrating every nook and cranny below deck (including the sleeping berths). After arriving at Puerto Chacabuco (in pouring rain) and ... read more

Well, we couldn´t go south forever, the water was too cold. Following our joyous zooming downwind all the way to Ushuaia, we decided to heed the signs, and caught a BUS (32 degrees of stuffiness) back up to Punta Arenas - the end of stage 1 of our cycle tour. A hot shower, a warm friendly dinner TABLE with Emma and Carlos, and a day spent cleaning and fixing errant bike carriers (all those things we should have sorted before leaving chch - details later Aggie!) We then headed off in a north-west direction, peddling INTO the prevailing winds - starting from Puerto Natales towards the famous Torres del Paine National Park (the Milford of Chile). And yes, los vientos (winds) are as ferocious as legends tell. We now understand why the locals raise their eyebrows ... read more

The main attraction around Puerto Natales is the Torres del Paine National Park, one of Chile's most beautiful and famous. Its main feature are the three granite towers. The only way to properly appreciate the park is by foot, the typical trail taking 4 days. Being of the more lazy variety, we settled on skipping one day, cutting the trek down to three days. The first day we hiked up to the torres, and were lucky enough to actually see them. Weather in the area is very unpredicatble, and we had rain, snow, gale-force winds interspersed with sunshine every day! The second day was a little easier, though we also covered quite a distance of 24km. On day three we were planning to hike to a glacier, but mother nature had other plans. It rained all ... read more