Entry into Chile (21-24/Jan/06)

Puerto Natales, Chile

Saturday was a day of rest round Puerto Madryn. Not much to do, and it's a pretty ugly town, so we just sunbathed a bit and read. On Sunday we took the local bus for an hour South to Trelew, and from there a quick afternoon trip to Gaiman, an old Welsh settlement. The local Welsh descendants seemed to have picked up the siesta habit and weren't out in force. At all in fact. A bit of a ghost town with token "typical Welsh houses" (but mostly following the typical square block of concrete that is the typical Argentinian Patagonia architecture) and lots of signs for "Welsh tea" in interesting Celtic typography, with lots of Cs, Ws and Ys. Jumped in a canal (a defining feature of Gaiman) to cool off, took a couple of pictures, and got the bus back to Trelew. From there we took the night bus to Rio Gallegos.

Monday. The plan was to go to Ushuaia, the Southernmost town in the world, take the Southernmost train in the world to the Southernmost national park in the world. But that meant 3 nights in Rio Gallegos which wasn't an exciting prospect (yup, more concrete, unexciting scenery, and not much to do but find out why the Falklands belong to the Argentinians at the local museum), so decided to skip it (sorry Dan!) and go to Torres del Paine in Chile instead. We will probably visit Ushuaia in the future though, but by plane, either in a couple of weeks from el Calafate, or next Dec/Jan if we go to Antartica. So we spent the day in Rio Gallegos, watched Narnia (NOT recommended), got tipsy with some crazy French guy, and walked back to the campsite munching empanadas.

Tuesday morning we took the bus to Puerto Natales in Chile, the gateway to Torres del Paine, a not-to-be-missed park, much bigger than Ushuaia's. It is much nicer than the Argentinian towns, probably because the Patagonian coastal towns are the uglyest ones in the whole of South America, being mainly industrial/shipping. At last we have mountains and trees (though the Patagonian flatlands are also amazing in their own way). We also have a camping site right in the centre of town, rather than 3km away. Today Wednesday we will relax and plan out trek in Torres del Paine. It looks like a 7/8 day affair, with lots of camping equipment and food to carry. A "bit" of excersise for a change. Didn't bother to get a Chilean SIM as we'll be mostly without network and after this we will go straight back into Argentina, to el Calafate & the Moreno glacier.