Puerto Natales, Chile

Set off from our hotel, after a small breakfast (still full from last night!) with obligatory nuclear orange juice. We returned our Kia serrato to the hire guys and caught a budget flight south to Punta Arenas. Picked up a simple Renult symbol from friendly Adolfo and put the pedal to the floor all the way to Puerto Natales. The winds are immense on this stretch of Patagonia and it was a mainly barren/flat landscape all the way. The trees were cool, all raggedy, covered in litchen and unsurprisingly often showing some serious leaning away from the wind. It was fun to see animals, would you believe the first animals we saw were flamingos? Crazy that they are hardy enough for this weather and their legs don’t break. Spent the evening doing laundry, hiring walking poles, grabbing tons of hike snacks, planning our assault on Torres del Paine, oh and trying to work out how we get a bus on our next stage….seems they are not scheduled on a saturday….any of them!