Patagonia Day 8

December 30, 2015

Patagonia Day 8

We ended our time in Puerto Natales by eating pizza and drinking beer at a place called Base Camp, directly next to our old hostel. As much as the town literally stinks, it was kinda nice to be back and be able to decompress somewhere familiar. We watched a young man struggle to assemble a rental tent and felt good about our veteran status.

The next morning, Dane, Ron and I caught a 10 am bus to Punta Arenas. Emily and Cristel got a 10:15 bus because Chile is really not very efficient. "No seats left" the ticket lady told Cristel, about our bus. Yet Ron was right after her, said he wanted on our bus, and they let him on.

Look. A bus

Bus was uneventful and day was uneventful. This was needed. Also, we had very little time here, due to our 6 am plane ride to Santiago the next morning. Punta Arenas is a little more of a booming metropolis than Puerto Natales, although our hostel was far inferior to any we had before. There was one shared bathroom, with one shower plopped in between two toilet stalls. What???

After eating and walking around a cemetery...which appeared to be THE thing to do in Punta Arenas...it was time to sleep. Or try to. Dogs howled all night and one of the "Nigth" Clubs kept bumping it's 128 rpm jams. So, in Puerto Natales, almost every night club was misspelled "Nigth"...or at least I assume it's misspelled. Maybe Nigth clubs are a thing down here.

At one point I kinda started to wonder what Chile was known for, and semi insensitively asked "what is Chile good at??" I mean no offense, I'm generally pretty curious. Besides TdP and being the bottom of the world, and also being super skinny, I know next to nothing about this country. I can generally name one or two things that most countries have going for them. Argentina: wine, super attractive people, terrible airlines. Peru: Machu Picchu, chicken, yucca fries. Chile: stray dogs? Clean tap water? If anyone can tell me some buzzwords about Chile, I'd appreciate it.

Just FYI what crunkle means from here on out

Since nothing too crazy has gone down in the past day or so (I took 1 picture yesterday, of the bus. And one snapchat of Ron mumbling. I haven't felt compelled to document any of this day), I'll recap some things we've noticed:

-almost all of our waiters have had braces

-Cristel, who speaks Spanish (she's from Mexico) can hardly understand Chileans. They speak muy rapido.

-Chilean food has been generally subpar. But I didn't come on this trip for the food and I gotta keep reminding myself that.

-you can have a lot of fun with the nickname Poop Bandit

-airport security is nonexistent. I took a full camelbak through and no one batted an eyelash

-taxi drivers will try to swindle us foreigners

-Chileans can't tell we are Americans. I've been asked by 2 cashiers I'm British. Then again, I can't really distinguish Spanish accents

-I miss camping

-I kinda like long bus rides

-apparently everyone and their creepy uncles are going to Valparaiso for NYE, like us

-Irish Spanish techno is a thing here. Our taxi driver was bumpin it this morning...at 4:30 am

-Chilean flags are ALL tattered and raggedy at the ends. It would appear the wind is so strong and terrible that it has simply torn them apart. I've even seen the Chilean flag drawn with these tattered edges. Also, the Chilean flag is super similar to the Texas flag. 🇨🇱

-I've reached the point in any long trip where I am exhausted and just want to sleep and not talk to anyone for a day or so. No offense friends. Two weeks is a long time

I'll think of more later. Currently I am on a 4 hour plane ride to Santiago. Emily and I are listening to Celine Dion and I for one am getting all the feels. I guess today/ tomorrow I'll have to change the title of these Days from Patagonia to just plain old Chile...not sure I'm ready yet. Goodbye Patagonia, you are pretty.

To celebrate the end of this leg of the trip: here are some pic the others took and shared yesterday:

Right after we parted ways from Dane, we were happy!

I tried taking my camelbak out and attaching it to the outside of my pack, instead of stuffing it inside. It lightened my load and also made me look like a pack mule

My rented yellow sleeping pad was a piece of poop. It offered no warmth from the cold hard earth. I recommend a compact blow up mat. DONT DO THE EGG SHELLS!!

Rain covers are sort of handy but sort of really not photogenic. I resemble a Ninja Turtle.

I miss those pants. Also, I think we were encroaching on that couple's alone time.

Our final hike down the mountains. Emily and Cristel flew down it. We took selfies instead of moving too much.

There was a big discussion over what Bokeh is and I was wrong: I thought it was just the blurry background lights in photos, and Ron said it was the blurry background in total. He won. He is right. I'm wrong. So here's some Bokeh.