Back to Puerto Natales. I truly did
sleep well during the three hour bus ride yesterday afternoon back to
town! Maybe this was due to the beer I had for lunch, or the fact we
had to get up at 4:20 am that day to catch the sunrise on the
mountains, or just due to the strenuous eight days of hiking the
Circuito Entero all around the fabulous mountains. The nap was a
little surprising since the ancient ramshackle bus went at a
tremendous speed of about 120 km/h along the bumpy dirt track,
everything shaking and rattling, about to fall apart...
The mountains had greeted us with mixed
weather, but all in all not too bad. Mainly cloudy or sunny, just
occasionally snow and hail, wind and drizzle on and off on most days...
And yes - the weather is changeable in Patagonia! But in fact we have
been really lucky, the day we had designed to be our 'rest day' without
any walking turned out to be the only really horrible day weather-wise.
So we stayed in the hut nearby the camp site playing chess and watching
other travelers arriving drenched. The landscape of the park is truly
beautiful and very varied. Lush valleys, alpine forests, fairy-tale
lakes, massive glaciers, serrated mountain scapes. Some
'interesting' swamps to cross, lenghty snow fields to scale on the
'pass day', mainly good camp sites. So many beautiful big and small
impressions and encounters. I reckon a few pictures say more than I can.
At the moment we are
enjoying some lazy time in sleepy Puerto Natales before
boarding our ship bound for Puerto Montt on Thursday night. It is a
pleasure to have clean clothes again! And fresh food - not just
the noodle / porridge / soup variety...
Some more pictures of this week can be found here .
Also have a look on Volkers great pics here which give a good impression of 'daily life' during the trek.
