Patagonia Part 1: Punta Arenas & Puerto Natales
To get to Punta Arenas we took a 12+ hour bus ride from Ushuaia, crossing the border into Chile on the way.
Punta Arenas for us was basically a stopover on the way up to Puerto Natales. Its key tourist attraction is visiting Magdalena Island to see the penguins, though this was an activity a bit over our budget. The best thing we got out of Punta Arenas was a fellow Aussie friend, Sophie, who we ended up seeing in the new year with, and viewing the sunrise at Mt. Fitzroy with a couple weeks later!
We met Sophie in the hostel, I was instantly drawn to her as she was the first Aussie/Kiwi I had seen on the trip, it was refreshing being able to use slang words again in conversation! We all spent a couple hours chatting in La Chocolatta (a cafe) to fill in the day. We got some delicious coffees, hot chocolates, as well as our first churros.
We caught the bus up to Puerto Natales the next day, but first we found a cheap bite to eat (yes Lucas’s sandwich was bigger than his hand, and yes it was cheap!).
We spent 6 nights in Puerto Natales, including Christmas Day! On Christmas Eve we did the hike up to Torres del Paine. This was a huge day, with 4 hours of bus travel, and 7 hours of hiking. We met Jessie from South Africa in our Hostel who joined us for the day which was great to have his company, and a free photographer. Cloud hung over the 3rd tower the whole time we were at the viewpoint but it was still an epic site to see.
On Christmas Day we had a nice sleep in and buffet breakfast, provided by the hostel. We had plans to treat ourselves at a fancier Chilean restaurant for Christmas dinner, though we didn’t end up going out for dinner until about 9pm, and the few restaurants that were open were either full, or about to shut as part of holiday hours. We ended up at the dairy down the road with a couple empeñadas each that we weren’t sure if they’d give us sore tummies the next day. It did the job though!
We then headed back to Torres del Paine national park where we hiked to and camped at the Grey Glacier viewpoint. We started at Paine Grande campsite, and hiked for 12km to Grey Glacier. We hiked out via the same track on day 2. The tracks here are very busy, and I think you can nearly always expect high winds.
The campsites in the national park are all very expensive and hard to book, I think because they are part of the W and O trek. Campsite Grey had hot showers, flushable toilets, and a pub. We lugged over ingredients to make pasta for dinner but we saw the pub and thought we had best check it out. They had a deal for a pizza and 2 beers for cheap so thought we would redeem ourselves for last nights Christmas dinner.
We stayed in 3 really nice hostels while in Puerto Natales including Lily-Patagonicas, Rufus, and Last Hope. They all came with delicious buffet breakfasts. This one at Lily-Patagonicas has been the best hostel brekky by far.
By the end of our 6 days in Puerto Natales we were satisfied with what we saw of Torres del Paine National park, including the Towers and Grey Glacier. We were excited to be moving on to El Calafate and El Chalten from there!!
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