Our preparation included plane tickets, packing a backpack that would allow enough things for an 11 day trip, but at the same time would be feasible to carry on our 4ish day hike in Torres del Paine, reading up on "things to do", booking hostels/campsites in the park, and creating an itinerary that we would try to follow. Most of the research about Torres del Paine that I did began to make me nervous, saying things like "hey... book FAR in advance", but we didn't have any trouble booking 4 days in advance, and honestly, I think we had a great deal more planned by the time we got there than a lot of people. Patagonia laughs at your plans anyway... more on that later.
We took a flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas where we planned to immediately take a bus to the small town of Puerto Natales (the kind of "jumping point" to the park). The second leg of our flight was delayed, leaving us in the bustling airport of Puerto Montt for more than your typical layover, but eventually we made it to Punta Arenas. Unfortunately, our flight being delayed caused us to miss the last available bus to Puerto Natales that evening. Luckily, we weren't the only people affected by this little mishap and in a rare glimmer of awesome in Chilean customer service, the fine people of SKY Airlines arranged a private transport van to take 7 of us FOR FREE on the three hour drive to Puerto Natales. Well done folks... Well done.
We planned our trip to include two days in Puerto Natales, which if you are taking the trip, you don't necessarily need that much time. The town is small and as I said before, mainly serves as a stopping point to and from the park, but for what the town "lacked" in touristy activities, it made up for in charm and beautiful views. Other than the random coffee shop girl that responded with a loud and obnoxious, "QUE??" when Michael asked about "muffins" which was written in size 230 font on the board behind her, the people were really friendly. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there.
We spend our first day walking around town, visiting the giant milidon statue that greats the town's visitors, and getting our first TINY glimpse of Patagonian wind. Our hostel, Casa Lili, had a free info session where Mauricio (who I'm sure has hiked every trail and non-trail of that park) gave some advice for tackling the hike. We ate lunch at a great Brewery/Hamburger/Mexican food restaurant, which is a must visit in Puerto Natales called Baguales Brewery. We had some craft beer, some carnitas tacos, and It. Was. Goooood. They even messed up Michael's order (and by that I mean it took just a little bit longer to come out) and gave us free beer for the wait... make that TWO strange Chilean customer service check marks in two days... weird. That evening, after we conquered the grocery store to buy food to take with us for the next five days, we went to a bar where we ended up playing darts for a couple hours (since we were seriously the only people there). I used it as an opportunity to practice doing math outloud in Spanish... since, in case you don't know my secret shame, I am EXTRA terrible at Spanish numbers that include the number 5. I am proud to report that I hit a couple bullseyes... I am less proud to report that every time I did I struggled to say 50... sigh.
The next morning we did a little more exploring before catching the bus to the park in the afternoon, where we would start our "W" adventure.
Photo Shoot with the Milidon... giant sloth dude.
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