After fleeing the Bates' Motel, my journey to Patagonia was largely
uneventful. I was staying in a town called Puerto Natales, which had its own
wee airport, and before I knew it, I was in my hostel (actually a hostAl,
although I'm not quite sure of the difference).
Puerto Natales is a charming, albeit quite touristy town, situated a few hundred miles from the
bottom of South America, it reminded me of Skye or Donegal a wee bit.
Surrounded by hills/mountains, there was a lot of daylight due to the time of year, it was rather windy, and more than a little baltic. It
was even cool enough to go for a run which I hadn't done in months.
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I didn't know National Geographic did cruises |
One of the main selling points of Puerto Natales is its proximity to Torres
del Paine national park. Torres del Paine (or The Blue Towers, not The Torrents of Pain) has a few
towers, none of which are blue. Still, the national park is stunning. Sadly,
all the walking treks were sold out for the days I was there, but since I'd crippled myself running again, this was probably a good thing.
Our tour guide, Marion, was as cheerful as she was knowledgeable and
passionate about the park and area, so the tour was one of the best ones I'd
been on.
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The delightful Marion (and me)
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She even explained why the water is different colours
(I
think it was due to melted glaciers. Or it might have been dissolved
minerals.)
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Took this photo and realised that there were loads of people ruining it
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So I told them all to GTF
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On the road home, we also visited the Milodon Cave, where the remains of a
giant extinct sloth were found and identified by Charles Darwin.. It stood 2-3
metres high (or 4-5 metres going by the statue they had in Puerto Natales),
and was quite a formidable creature.
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| Mon then |
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| Milo's cave |
I only had a couple of days in Puerto Natales before it was time to move
on to the Argentinian part of Patagonia. The bus journey across the board was
very much more civilised (i.e. quick), than the trip from
Bolivia to Chile ...
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I arrived in Argentina two days too late for the World Cup final, and
two seconds too late for this photo
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... and before long, I was in the town of el Calafete, on the shore of the
largest lake in Argentina (imaginatively named Lake Argentino).
The town was also very touristy, although that's not necessarily a bad thing to a
gringo like me who dances a small jig when struggling to understand what is being said and someone pipes up in English much better than my Spanish. It could also be
quite expensive if you only get your money through official channels, but
thankfully I'd bought 100,000 pesos off an Irish chap in my hostel, which will keep me going, but only for a few days (I'll expand on the mess that is the Argentinian economy later!). I felt like a drug dealer
walking about with that kind of money.
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Monopoly money |
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| Worth about 3p |
Upon wandering around the town, I stumbled upon a rather bizarre park,
dedicated to Francisco Moreno - an Argentinian explorer after whom a
nearby glacier is named (more of that in a moment).
I'm not sure how accurate it is, but the park made him out to be quite the Doctor Dolittle.
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A charming, if somewhat unlikely, scene
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The park was also home to lots of rusting machines of a bygone era ...
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... and I've no idea why
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As mentioned, the big local attraction is the Pertio Moreno glacier. A
glacier that is confounding its critics by not receding like all its peers,
although nobody is really sure why. It was certainly bloody cold enough not to
melt, although that was mainly the wind chill.
Whilst the park and its glacier certainly was worth a visit, it kind of
reminded of the
Rook sketch from The Two Ronnies
("not the sort of restaurant to come to if you don't like rook"). First we
stopped off at a glacier viewpoint ...
... then we got on a boat to have a look at the glacier (it was either that or
waiting on the minibus for more than an hour) ...
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There were even some nutters walking on the glacier
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... then finally we got taken to the visitor centre where there were miles and
miles of walkways that let you view the glacier from slightly different
angles.
I even witnessed the glacier "calving", i.e. bits falling off it. I wanted to
take this mini glacier home with me, but I didn't think he'd survive the
journey, so I chucked him back in the sea ...
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... though I didn't see if he swam back to his mother
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And that was Patagonia. I'd have liked to stay here longer, but since it's
nearly Christmas, it's time to go back to a big city, in this case Buenos
Aires. Or at least, that's the plan. My plane is at least 7 hours late, but
I guess that serves me right for booking with a bunch of fly-by-night
characters, if you'll excuse the pun.
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