Juan Ladrilleros Hotel Puerto Natales

Just spent a day in El Calatafe seeing the very very big ice cube (or Glacier as you sometimes call it). Was pretty awsom seeing it as it´s one of the few stable Glaciers in the world!<br><br>Today I took a bus to Puerto Natales on the off chance I can get the one boat a week out of here today..... I got on (in fact it´s so low season there are only 10 tourists on the boat!) Should be good. 4 days going up the Chilean fejords.

... 1 (Torch - kinda important) Mosquito Bite: 15 (Face and rear) Warnings: 2 (fellow trekkers suggesting we return as we were novice and out of our hiking depth) Day 2 (Seron to Dickson): After our first night on the freezing floor (which included a rat attack) we weighed up the risks and in a moment of complete bravery (stupidity) we asked ourselves the frank question - "How hard could it be?". We started late at 11am packing our gear up in the rain to continue on ...

... trek (more of a big U). Definitely highlight #3 of the trip (the Orcas and the ice trekking being the first and second) so far but by no means ticked off the list. We must return to conquer the circuit &#8211; and next time we will be seeing the towers at sunrise!!!<br><br>Back at base in Puerto Natales, we treated ourselves to a well earned `Lomo a la Pobre` (steak with fried eggs) and chips and a few glasses of Pisco Sour. It was so nice not to have to sleep in a tent that night!!<br>

Torres del Paine National Park is absolutely amazing. One of the best parks that I have visited. The best way to describe it to say the park is like 5-6 Yosemite's put together with much more varied terrain. I had an amazing time in the park and got in tons or exercise (whether I wanted to or not!) There was only one day where it rained while I was hiking and it was a short, 4 ...

... Natales est un petit village très calme et sans rien de particulier. C'est un lieu de passage pour la plupart des gens qui vont randonner dans le parc national "Torres del Paine" réputés comme l'un des plus beaux du Chili. Nous apprenons, lors de notre arrivée à l'hostel Nancy, que notre réservation a sauté, probablement à cause d'un groupe d'une douzaine de touristes qui ont réservé tout l'hostel. La patronne nous redirige vers l'hostel ...

... to go out, the weather was too bad... So I went over to see the Puerto Bories museum. It's a former industrial slaughterhouse that was exporting frozen sheep meat to Europe and North America, and which operated from the early XXth century to the 1970s. Actually it's the reason for Puerto Natales being what it is, before that it was only a tiny indigenous village. The site is 5km away from Puerto Natales, and as I didn't feel like paying for the taxi I walked there. It's ...

... in the crevices. You can hear an almost constant crashing sound of great mounds of ice but it can be difficult to catch it with your own eyes or camera. The highlight of the day is not the ice though - its the bus breaking down as we are about to go back into town. Avigail comes us trumps and gets us a lift back into town with a Slovianen couple. Tuns out the guy is a Playboy photographer for the Slovianen Playboy (I´ve been to Slovenia and the girls there ...

... smiling at them and saying "hola" to which they would usually blank you and attempt to walk through you. They were obviously not used to trekking or the cold. Our first campsite was situated at the end of glacier Grey and the start of lake Grey. This meant there were a constant stream of icebergs floating past the campsite, pretty cool (excuse the pun). The views were great of the lake and glacier and in the campsite we got chatting to some fellow Brits who ...

... day in the park. On the fourth day, the supposedly hardest day we all began to feel fit with less weight in our bags as we ate half the contents and excited to be nearing the end. The final night we set up our tent for one last time in the free campsite and the supposedly coldest site. Along the way we befriended another group of 5 people and the 9 of us joked, laughed and were merry, as much as we could be. At 6pm after everyone was set up we were feeling ...

... beer?! London prices! <br><br> <br><br>Not to be put off and still feeling aggrieved at our 'dry' night yesterday, we found a small bar which served food, so Olly &amp; I shared some empañadas and sheesh kebabs, while Katie had some tomato soup. We all shared a nice big plate of chips and a ...