Erratic Rock 2 Puerto Natales

The road from El Calafate to Puerto Natales has only been tarmacked half way, after two hours smooth sailing we hit the bumpy, dirt track road and Katie started to regret those extra pints the night before. Crossing the border into Chilie took forever as they searched everyone´s bag looking for food - really! People on our bus had brought food with them for the W trek (cause its so much cheaper in Argentina) and ended up having to chuck it cause you can´t bring any food into Chilie! You also ...

Up at 6.30 for a 3 hour bus ride to Puerto Natales. Stayed at the Erratic Rock 2 Hostel. Spent evening washing clothes and getting ready for our five day trek. Booked all the trek arrangements and the stay at the 'Refugios' well in advance through a local travel company called Pathagone. Advisable as the Refugios (small mountain hostals) get full very quick and the alternative is a tent (not my idea of fun at the best of times).....we chose to do the 'W' trek (76 Km long) which is less hardco...

The next morning we got up at what we thought was 7:30am to catch the 9:00am bus to Puerto Natales. What we found out later was that the time changed last night and we ended up catching the 8:00am bus. No problem, we just arrived a little earlier. It was a 4 hour bus trip though it seemed like a 2 hour trip to me. We drove past large open spaces, flat ranch land, rolling hills and snow capped mountains way in the distance. We reached Puerto Natales which is a small town filled with backpacker...

It's been a few days since my last entry. Turns out I caught another cold and I'm not to happy about it. This time I'm staying in bed and taking it easy. I feel a bit better today so I will repeat what I did yesterday, ie. Eat raw garlic, take my greens, sleep and rest so that we can go to Torres Del Paine tomorrow for our six day trek.

Hello from Patagonia!
We finished our stay in New Zealand with a couple of days up on the Coramandel peninsular & were lucky enough to have some sunshine to soak up before time traveling to Santiago where we expected the weather to take a turn for the worse. Another beautiful golden deserted beach on another stunning streatch of coastline with impossibly turquoise sea. It was a little emotional as I think it was the first time we felt truly sad to leave a country and we had also grown ...

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine 18 al 22 El bus nos dejó en la Administración del parque, nuestro punto de inicio de la caminata. 5 horas de caminata más tarde llegamos al campamento Paine Grande, inicio de la famosa "W"; un trekking que tiene ese nombre por la forma que describe alrededor del macizo, y que sus puntas son incursiones a puntos de interés. El segundo día hicimos la primera incursión (la punta izquierda de la W), hacia el Glaciar Grey. Espectacular glaciar que vimos desde un mi...

Arriving in puerto natales was a bit of a culture shock for all the people on the Navimag boat, after endulging in 5 days at sea with no need to think for ourselves, beds and meals provided and conditioned like pavlovs dogs everytime the bell went for food, legs fusing up after lack of use and fuzzy heads from too many pisco sours and limboing at the 'bingo' the previous night... there was about a crew of 8 of us who had been joined a the hip during the boat and i think we all suddlenly reali...

A lot has happened in the last few weeks so this entry might end up being a bit of an epic.. I arrived in Puerto Montt on the 23rd, the night before I was due to sail. The town isn`t large or particularly attractive and every Friday there is an influx of gringos as the weekly boats get rid of one load of passengers while another load waits to board. The `Puerto Eden` run by Navimag is basically a cargo ship carrying supplies South to the remote towns between the fjords on the Chilean coast, b...

We set off from Rio Gallegos bus terminal only to turn back 5 minutes later as we had gearbox trouble. The bus mechanics banged away under the bus in the garage while the driver crunched away at the gearstick. Once we had all been suitably gassed by the monoxide we set off again. The driver was still not happy and turned back once more. They repeated this and after a couple of hours sitting on a bus going nowhere we pulled out again for a third attempt with the taste of diesel in our mouths. ...

We showered, slept, did some clothes washing... not very exciting but much needed! Really liked Puerto Natales, has a shabby charm about it. Plus the dog politics were very entertaining.