Chilly in Chile
Trip Start
Dec 22, 2007
1
12
48
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Puerto Natales,
Chile
Sunday, January 6, 2008
6- 10 Jan
We booked a bus at 1pm to take us to Puerto Natales which took 3 hours. The drive was pretty dull as there was only pampas to look at so we managed to catch a few hours sleep.
We are staying at Casa Cecilia which is pretty good and has homemade bread - yum. Still on the weird breakfasts of bread, cheese and ham though we have an added bonus of scambled eggs here.
Mon 7 Jan
We booked ourselves onto a boat trip which went up the Seno Ultimo Esperanza. The weather was overcast so it didnt look as stunning as it should have but the views of snowy mountains was still good.
We saw seals, cormorants and condors and a little glimpse of Torres del Paine but it was half under cloud. The first glaciar we stopped at first was Balmaceda which was our favourite as it was more picturesque. The second and final glaciar was Serrano where we docked and went for an hours walk to the glaciar. The lake had a few icebergs floating in it but they were mainly around the lake edge.
Tues 8 Jan
Today was our trip to Torres del Paine. We booked a bus to take us to the park. On the way we managed to spot zorro (silver fox), guanaco, ņando (similar to emu but smaller) and condors. Sadly the view over Laguna Amarga of the towers was covered in cloud.
We were dropped off at the park entrance, paid our fees and caught a shuttle to Las Torres Hosteria where we then started our trek up to Chileno where we would be staying the night. The walk was pretty steep at first with a very cold wind which was quite strong in places but nothing unusual for an ex-Wellingtonian :)
We arrived at Chileno after 1.5 hours where we checked in and had lunch. We kept an eye on the weather and as the clouds started to lift we thought we should carry on to the base of the towers. It was a lovely undulating walk through forest. We reached the next section of the walk after 1.5 hours which was clambering over boulders which was pretty tiring with the wind. It even began to snow for a while.
After an hour of climbing over boulders we arrived at the top and the view was absolutely stunning. Completely worth the sore thighs and legs!
We walked back down to Chileno hosteria and stayed the night in dorms. We met a lovely dutch couple who we ate dinner with and shared a bottle of vino tinto (red wine).
Wed 9 Jan
We had planned to walk up for sunrise but in reality the legs were just not going to manage it! Luckily for us it was cloudy in the morning so there was no view in the morning. The walk down was a lot quicker than we anticipated as it had rained in the night and made the loose gravel more compact. We saw a couple of random birds which we havent identified yet on the walk from Las Torres to the park entrance.
Thurs 10 Jan
Free day to recover from the walk! Its cloudy again today but will have a walk around Puerto Natales (its not very big!) and just chill out. We have an early start tomorrow to catch our bus to El Calafate in Argentina. More glaciars coming up!
