Beware the fearsome Milodon.

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  Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile
Sunday, November 30, 2008

I´d like to ask yáll to excuse the lengthy gaps between entries you may have noticed lately. Besides the fact that we´re travelling in one of the most remote areas in the world right now, we´re also camping and hiking a great deal, so oftentimes, internet is not an option, let alone a priority. That said, I´m amazed anyone is still reading this long-winded excuse for a travel blog. Thanks for that.
So, getting on with things, we´re back in Chile again, and rather refreshed by the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as cuisine that does not include steak or pizza (I´m convinced that Argentines eat steak every day.) Crossing the border into Chile is always an exciting experience, given their wild claims to be a country "free of pestilence and disease", and the rather arbitrary searches through your bags to find an offending orange or piece of cheese (no unprocessed agricultural products may come through the border, which means we can´t take any good snacks on the bus.) After being stamped in and out in the usual way, we were all crammed into a tiny room on an enormous ferry for a 45 ride across the Magellan Straits. I just prayed no one puked. They didn´t. After a great deal of unecessary bureaucratic nonsense, we arrived in Puerto Natales (a sleepy burg chock full of tourist accomodation, travel agents, and little else) a mere 4 hours behind schedule. Thanks to the absurdly late Patagonian sunset (full dark doesn´t really happen until 11:30), we were able to have a cheap dinner in a decent place at midnight. They gave me a piece of salmon as big as a baby and about 5 pounds of mashed potatoes for let´s say, 3 US dollars. There were bones aplenty, but for the vigilant seafood fan, a good time can be had here in Puerto Natales (for lunch today, we had a gigantic Chilean sea bass filet for about 5 bucks, in a rather expensive place. I estimate it would have cost 30 or so in a restaurant in the states.) Puerto Natales exists on the tourist map almost solely as a gateway to Torres del Paine national park. World famous, but unheard-of to me, at least until I accidentally became a pseudo-hiker, Torres del Paine attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors worldwide every year. Some come to climb mountains and glaciers, some come because they are so absurdly rich that they´ve literally been every other place there is to go, and some, like Nathan and I, come because we feel compelled to walk around in the middle of nowhere for a week or so. What I´m trying to say is, Torres del Paine is a big deal, and was one of the main destinations on our trip, certainly the central focus of our time in Patagonia. Honestly, I was pretty intimidated, and decided to fudge it a little here in Puerto Natales under the guise of "preparation", "buying supplies", and of course, "doing research". Actually, I was really excited to have a roof over my head for the first time in a week (signs you´ve been sleeping in a tent too long: 1.waking up in a sweaty panic at the slightest sound of rain, fumbling for the door zipper to drag all your stuff inside before it gets wet, before realizing that you´re inside for once, silly.) The town is great to hang out in, actually, plenty of disgruntled locals sick of tripping over tourists, but happy to have your money, lots of backpackers even goofier looking than me, and statues of the Milodon everywhere. The Milodon, as I´ve been told, is basically a 9-foot-tall tree sloth that belonged to an extinct, bizaare group of marsupials known as the Megafauna (like saber toothed tigers and such, all vaugely resembling modern animals, but huge.) He was bipedal, herbivorous (okay, so not that scary), and had hard, scaly, skin, similar to an armadillo. The remains of one were found in a cave an hour or so from Puerto Natales, so all the travel agencies round here have enormous signs exhorting you to go to the "CUEVA DEL MILODON". No, I didn´t go. I´m really sorry, but we were busy trying to kill ourselves in creative ways in the National Park. But I´ll save that for another entry.
Here's a couple of my favorite silly signs from Puerto Natales, and one of the stupider Milodon sculptures that are almost as prevalent as lobster sculptures in Maine:
Funny things happen when you mix international tourism with literal translations

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