Back to Chile: Puerto Natales the Windy City
CHILE | Monday, 7 January 2008 | Views [2186]
It's smooth sailing for our 7 hour bus ride to Puerto Natales today, and thankfully gaining an extra hour on Chilean time, just in time to snag the last "double" room at Erratic Rock II, a small franchise of hostels (there's actually 4) the Erratic Rock name owned by a former Portland, Oregon resident. Our hostel rocks; it's a cool place owned by a local enterprising woman who also teaches English on the side to local kids. She's pitched it as the hostel alternative for couples, which is actually a really neat way to position it, and we find it great, as each morning over the most fabulous breakfast we've had (full American, eggs, cereal, homemade bread, yoghurt, cheese and ham, and real orange juice with soy, and REAL coffee) we can sit with other couples with similar interests. Puerto Natales feels like a "real" small residential town and not as touristy as some of the other towns we've been passing through. Aside from the few restaurants, cafes and camping gear stores, it's mostly full of local homes, and our hostel is back off a tiny neighborhood street. It's super windy, cold, and a bit rainy here, although it feels like it should be snowing. Desolate plazas are filled not with people, but with random packs of street dogs that play in the grassy patches along the roadside, plaza centers and streets. Puerto Natales, while windy, is not as bad as it's sister city to the South, Punta Arenas, where they have ropes on the corners of the main square to keep people from blowing away into the streets. Most people come here to get stocked up on camping gear and food before heading out to Torres del Paine National Park on a trek of the "circuit" or the "W." And that's exactly why we're here, to get our plan and equipment sorted out for the big trek.
