Puerto Natales Part I - tip of Chilean Antartica

We were pleased to arrive in Puerto Natales after 3 hrs complete with photo stops. Things are not easy in Chile. When they collect your hire car they want the documents for the vehicle which they never gave you. The map from the hotel’s website was incorrect so we circled the streets a few times until we worked that out. They call a hose a house. They put you in room 11 but give you the key for room 14. They short change you at the restaurant. You need to stay alert for sure!

That first night while I feasted on the biggest tastiest plate of lamb meat ever, Andrew was vaguely pacified with a small salad and pretzel shaped bread served on a wooden kitchen roll holder – 14,200 at El Asador Patagonico (and yes this was the dodgy lot who gave us the wrong change but although we were overwhelmed by the zeros we were still doing the maths). Our one night at Aquaterra Hotel was very restful after we tuned out the snoring. Best bed so far! Room was nice but small. Good web access too after we got the password from reception.

We spent the morning getting Chilean money, booking bus to El Calafate (11,000) which included waiting for the lady to turn up in the office when she felt like it as they don’t operate fixed hours (she didn’t have our reservation which the hotel had made), shopping for food supplies at the supermercado and fruteria. Our 6,378 pesos basket contained 3 high fibre packs of biscuits, large bag of crisps, 3 bottles of water, almonds, trail mix and raisins. In the fruteria I got a packet of mini tomatoes, 2 nectarines, grapes and 3 bananas for 2,450.

We had a long lunch stocking up on wholesome food and calcium for me in the form of 3 soya milkshakes at the Veggie café ‘El Living’ run by British people where I also had Borscht (beetroot soup which is typically Polish or Russian) followed by chickpea patties with coleslaw. Andrew had aubergine lasagne and a mixed salad big enough to be a main meal. We had to wait ages for it but it sure was tasty and left us stuffed. We also got sandwiches to take with us to the Torres Del Paine National Park as we had read food was scarce and very expensive indeed. Our total at ‘El Living’ was 23,800. We later enjoyed our sarnies sat on the bed in our pants delighted to be free of our claustrophobic walking boots on what turned out to be a stinking hot day after being woken up for breakfast by what sounded like gale force winds.