Hostel Natales Puerto Natales

... like many South American countries. Luckily I eat fish but to give you an idea, their idea of a national fish dish is grilled salmon with a slice of tomato and processed cheese on top. Not particularly inventive...although the salmon was very nice. The boat left 8 hours late. These things happen when you travel and you have to just accept them, there is no point getting wound up about it because there is nothing you could do. This meant the boat trip would now be 4 nights instead of 3 ...

... 200 US Dollars for having an onion in his backpack! Thats an expensive onion. Puerto Natales is one of Chiles 2 main towns in Southern Patagonia, and is the main access point to the Torres Del Paine national park. Many people hike in this extraordinary park for 4-9 days. Unfortunately we had only 2, but made the most of our time there. Patagonia is very cold, our tans fell off us as soon as we got off the bus. So after listening to a free talk on the park we ...

... not had any luck in the past with the sunrise. This time I got it wrong as we were told the sunrise was beautiful. Oh well you cant have it all. We trekked up for around 9am. The one benefit we got from this was that it was quiet and there was no one else up there. The cloud then lifted completely and the Torres looked spectacular. They would be amazing to climb. We spent around three hours talking to a Brit called Robb who was now going to live in New Zealand ...

... to walk. It took a total of 17 volunteers over 3 hours to mountain rescure Mick and bring him back to the base camp. Over all the situation was a disaster. The volunteers where great but the guy who was in charge of the park delayed and delayed with the helicopter. He wouldn´t dispatch emergency help until his insurance information went through. Thank god he wasn´t on his death bed cause they would have left him die in the park. After going back and forth and ...

... clouds and light rain. After a while it became obvious that the weather would not clear up any time soon, and there was no news of the bridge getting fixed. So we decided to go back. Half way down the mountain, the rain eased up a bit and wind picked up (this is a common theme for us apparently.) When we got down, the weather at the base had cleared up completely, but clouds still surrounded the peaks of the Torres. The wind was steady at around 50 - 60 ...

... Oh. Isn't it part of the same company?" <br>"Errr, yeh, I mean, like, I don't know where that is. I'm, like, new, and errrrr... I don't know much" <br><br>NO KIDDING!<br><br>In the end we grabbed a leaflet for the second hostel and found it ourselves, fortunately it was quite close. <br><br>Our room was nice, with a TV, which I checked immediately for the sports channels. All present and correct. YOU BEAUTY! <br><br>We didn't have much time until 3pm ...