Hotel Temauken Puerto Natales

... Santiago gay pride parade when everything goes a bit mental for a while.<br><br>Our weekend in Santiago was mainly spent eating, drinking and sleeping. We were looked after by Ian, a friend of our friend Aaaandrew in Leeds (Hello Andrew!) who took us out for amazing steak &amp; kept us well watered, when he wasnt playing international cricket for Chile!<br><br>On Monday, having recovered from the timetravel lag and the modest hangovers, we ...

... hike sucked and we were exhausted but finally we got to put our bags down and set up camp. Then we hiked another hour up rocks to see the Torres. Amazing! It was amazing how the clouds disappeared and we were able to see everything perfectly. It was beautiful how the water looked like a blue I had never seen water before. You had to climb down in to this valley of rocks to go near the water and once you did it was another world. The two other people ...

... of all the different indigineous tribes Johnny Colonist had wiped out with his airborne viruses. There was also an old Milidon cave, which is basically an old extinct bear thing, who seems to be quite celebrated in chilean patagonia. After this obvious filler part of the tour, we visited some beautiful salt lakes, waterfalls, and glaciers. I won´t describe them all so just check out the photos. In the evenings we´d chow down in the numerous Meateries around town, the ...

... Puerto Natales with some others allowing me to visit a hidden treasure of Chile: Parque Nacional Bernardo O´Higgins, the biggest national park in the country, only accesible by boat. Today I took a 3 hour boat trip (one-way) up the Fjord Ultima Esperenza to see the glaciers Balmacera and Serrano. It was a cloudy day but as the clouds were high enough we still could see the mountains and the top of the glaciers. This national ...

... whilst eating 2 minute noodles. The scenery was breathtaking. Patagonia is amazing. It is cold here and we are glad we have our warm coats with us despite having to drag them through the heat of Africa. Our trip on the boat was not as great as we anticipated because of the weather. We left 12hours late and for the first 2 days it was too foggy to see anything more than 200 meters away. We were told there ...

... however, as we were saying goodbye to our hosts, we found ourselves in a difficult situation. Although the husband had checked us in and accepted our payment the night before, his wife had little trust that we had in fact paid, or in her husband's bookkeeping. His memory seemed to escape him at this crucial moment, and since he had not given us a receipt, we had nothing to say except "ya pagamos!" Unfortunately, our level of Spanish ...

... rock can push the plug right up into the tire, and the hole is back... One more plug. But this time I was fortunate enough to break down on a sunny day, in view of the Torres, which are steep tower-looking mountains, the namesake of the park. After this I took it a little slow until I reached the campground. Which was full. The young guy at the little store who ran it had a bit of 'maitre d' syndrome'. He says check-in ends at 6 and there's a ...

... de vulling **uit trekken om daar ond** te kijken. Na wat heen en we** gepraat blijkt dat de vulling die ze daarna we** opnieuw wil plaatsen alleen een tijdelijke vulling is voor een maand. Het is namelijk een nood-tandarts. Op dit punt ben ik ** wel redelijk klaar mee en besluit dat het mij een stuk bet** lijkt om naar een `echte` tandarts te gaan in Punta Arenas. Dit is wel we** 3u in de bus richting zuiden, maar qua ...

... The journey up the channel towards the glacier was amazing with the change in the water colour from deep blue to aqua marine, ice bergs floating in the water and large mountains surrounding us. We sailed upto about 100 meters from the front of the glacier, just fantastic and the crew from the ferry took a boat and bought back to the ferry glacier ice that we had in our Pisco sours. The thought that I was drinking ice that could be thousands of years old was interesting ...

There's not much really going on in Puerto Natales, Chile. The 17-hour travel extravaganza to get here included three buses and a ferry. I must be getting soft or have forgotten what it's like to travel this way because I was dragging when I arrived at my hostel. <br><br>I guess I really haven't traveled like this since Indonesia. Oz was hopping around on planes and riding around with friends in every ...