Last day in Punta Arenas.......

Our time in Punta Arenas and Patagonia has been wonderful. Our hostel in Punta Arenas has probably been my favorite out of all the hostels in the world I´ve been. Lonely Planet gives it a somewhat drab description, which is very untrue. The place if very homey, nothing really modern except the big flat screen tv, but incredibly comfortable. The owner is extremely friendly and speaks good english. They provide a computer with free internet, and their kitchen is well stocked with lots of pots and pans and ample fridge space. You walk in and you feel at home to sit anywhere or touch anything. Our first night here we had a wonderful dinner with our new Dutch friends Fons (pronounced like the Fonze, only with an S, in his own words) and Margreet. Our dinner party also included a young british couple on a very long road trip. They bought a jeep in Santiago and drove it all the way down here at the end of the world. They had a pretty great story about a nasty rain storm in northern patagonia, the waterfalls next to the road flooded and created a small river making it near impossible to pass. They drove through anyhow and luckily made it despite water pouring in through their windows. There were locals on the other side of the ¨river´ taking photos of them the whole time. We stayed up late into the night drinking lots of wine and sharing stories. It was really nice to have some down time between the long flights and bumpy bus rides.

We left the following morning to catch a bus leading us to Puerto Natales where we would meet Brandon and Annie. We had a great introduction to the warm atmosphere the local people put off right when arrived at the bus terminal. Realizing that the little map we had in our guide book did not include the street our hotel was on, we knew we would have a small challenge on our hands finding the place. There were people at the bus station trying to hand you fliers to their hostel or buy a tour with them. We told them we had a hotel, and after giving them the name, one biggish taxi driver in a burgundy sweater vest offered to drive us there for free. He said he was a friend of the owners and was happy to do it, rad!

Our room was decent, it was great to have our own bathroom for a change. The place was a little far away from the main part of town but not too bad, probably helped prepare us for the long walks soon to come. Melanie and I went out to lunch and we were pretty hungry. It was a little late for lunch by Chile standards, and were lucky to find a nice looking place still open. I had heard of the King Crab down here being a specialty and was looking to sink my teeth into some. They brought out some really nice bread and butter which I scarfed down immediately while Melanie salivated (she doesn´t eat bread, pretty sure everybody knows but just in case). The big plate of crab was good, but really needed garlic butter to make it great, people down here love their mayo. The flavor was somewhat bitter, and lacked that smooth richness Alaskan crab has.

We made our way back to the hotel and meet up with B&A. It was great to see some familiar faces and knowing that more good times were ahead. We took a bus the following afternoon up to Parque Torres Del Paine. There was alot of headache trying to figure out what to do in this gigantic part, the headache coming in with too many options and not enough time. We talked to some people in PN and got some good advice on how to conquer the park in the short 3 day visit. It involved 8 hours of hiking per day, hitting the trail at 5am, needless to say we would be modifying that plan just a little bit. We would stop off at the Refugio (pronounced re-foo-he-o), where you could rent a bed or a campsite, along with the necessary gear. We had to take a catamaran to get there, it provided excellent views of giant mountains from a crystal blue lake (getting it´s color from the nearby glaciers), at a premium price. Being that the refugio was so remote, they jack up their prices for moderate accomodations, especially in the peak season which we are in. After a very long discussion, and Brandon accidentally asking the front desk woman if we could take her girlfriends back to our tent in spanish, we decided on renting two little domes to sleep in. We drank some box wine and dined on small sandwich fixings into the night. We never did see the front desk woman´s girlfriends.

We woke up the next day with rain clouds over our heads. Our plan was to leave most of our stuff with the refugio and take a day hike out to Glacier grey. We noticed that one of the other domes had completely blown over during the windy night, pretty lucky it didn´t happen to us. Suprisingly we didn´t hear anybody scream when that happened, that or we were too tired to care. We hit the trail at 10, and proceeded uphill to an extremely windy 20 kilometer hike. The further we hiked, the windier it got, breaking at times when the trail ran through a small amount of forest. Hiking along a ridge gave us incredible views over a lake and forests. Small amounts of glacier bits that had broken off upstream was lining the shore. Hopefully my blogging skills are improving, we reached the lookout, and this is what we saw.



After having a well deserved lunch of trail mix, dried fruit, and more avocado sanmich fixings, we headed back to the refugio. We were feeling somewhat taken by the inflated price at the refugio, didn´t want to risk the domes, and tried to decide what to do for the evening. We wanted to make our way north, over to the main refugio in the park, Hosteria Las Torres, were we could make a journey up to the granite towers. The only problem was that I heard through an email from the reservation person that the beds were all booked up and there was only camping available. The girls really wanted to sleep in beds, which was understandable since we had a hard day on the trail sucking on glaciers and being slapped around by the wind. We wanted to call and see if that was true but the refugio was saying they didn´t have a phone for us to use and was being rude about it. Brandon and Annie went back to Puerto Natales that night and Melanie and I went on to Las Torres to test our luck or get stuck in a rainy tent. After taking a boat, then a bus, then another bus that went over a bridge so narrow it had about 2 inches of clearance on either side, turns out Melanie´s enormous childhood collection of rabbits paws has finally paid off, they had a room with a bed for us. Well, ´bed´ might not be the right word, bunk beds in a room with a leaky ceiling and a bucket in the middle of the room to catch the rain drip is more like it. But hey, it was warm and we were tired.

The following morning we woke at sunrise to make the hike up to las torres. This was the busiest hike in the park and as it lacked in isolation, it exceeded in beauty. We were in the middle of an REI catalogue and the holes in ground from all the hiking poles were there to prove it. We heard numerous conversations about the different fabric certain outdoor clothing companies started to use and not all of their gear clothes were city worthy etc. Are we in Chile or Berkeley? The hike was pretty, we got snowed on briefly, and made it back to our base to catch the afternoon bus back to PN. Brandon and Annie had already made it to Punta Arenas so we caught the late bus to meet up with them, and dreamed about staying an extra night at our favorite hostel. Since we bought our tickets last minute, we couldn´t sit next to each other because all the other pre-assigned seats were taken. One of our seats was in the aisle at the very back of the bus, right next to the smelly bathroom. I let Melanie escape the stench and took my seat next to the lieu.

My travel mate/bus neighbor/mother/ and albino puppy owner took her seat next to me. I was a bit confused on how she was going to get away with bringing animals on the bus, along with her puppy. She positioned the half open corona box with her albino puppy in it on her lap, then her chubby 5 year old squeezed in front of her legs between the seat. She must have noticed the puzzled look on my face because she motioned for me to sit down. I knew immediately that it was not going to work out, and I grabbed the albino beer box puppy and set it on my lap. She rather appreciated my gesture, and for the rest of the ride offered me handfuls of junk food and sugary sweets when she could pry them from her kids dirt stained hands. I pretended to sleep most of the way as the child kept trying to make conversation with me, and when I couldn´t respond due to the lack of spanish, he would look at his mom as if I was crazy and probably had some sort of learning disability.

Made it back to Punta Arenas and have been feasting like kings. Melanie made a big pot of soup yesterday and it was great to have after doing alot of hiking and eating cold food for several days. Yesterday we took a boat to and island through the straights of Magellan, where we visited a penguin colony of over 100,000. The penguins are well, I told them you all said hi and they thanked you for the christmas card.

This morning we had a roasted red pepper frittata with chard and buckets of gruyere along with roasted taters. We were tired of lots of places claiming they have ´real¨ breakfast, when really its just bread, jam, and armpit flavored coffee. Brandon and Annie just left for Santiago, then they are taking the evening bus to Valpariso. Our flight is later this evening, we are getting picked up by a friend of our good friend Molly. Joce is kind enough to put us up for the night, and hopefully she will be joining us later in wine country and joining the Tony and Melanie army of friends.

Thats all from this end, just killing time in our hostal, El Fin Del Mundo. Some Australian bicycle tourists just showed up and are throwing their water proof totes everywhere. Gotta run before they start throwing punches, much love to everybody and we´ll give you the update when we can.


T&M inc.