Travel to Puerto Natales

 November 3 

We had an early start for a 10 hour drive to our next destination Puerto Natales. The sunrise over the ocean inlet was phenomenal as we left town.

The highway went up and through the mountains before dropping into a wide open valley plain. We saw a few herds of Guanaco - llama / alpaca like animals which are said can’t be domesticated. They often stood on the side of the road. As soon as we would stop to try to get a photo, they would immediately jump the fence and run into the fields. 

Further down the road, we came across more signs with different animal figures one was a wolf, an ostrich, and a typical deer

Preparing for our travels, we had read a lot about the border crossing between Argentina to Chile. We were expecting a long lines and up to a couple hours processing time. We arrived to find about 10 kids and a few of their chaperons from a parked bus. We were processed and through the border in less than 15 minutes!………we drove a couple minutes and came to what we thought was an agricultural station. We drove through but something felt off so we stopped and walked back to the building. Good thing we did because this was the chili immigration entrance station. The lady at the window that reviewed our rental car paperwork seemed to have an issue with it. She was not a happy person. She said she could not find documentation for the vehicle in the computer. It was a couple stressful minutes, but we got through continued on our way, took 35 minutes! The delay was due to Her researching the paperwork. 

Part of today’s adventure involves a ferry ride across the ocean channel. we have conflicting information on how often and what time the ferry runs some sources say three a day others say every hour. we found no official information from any site in the ferry. we arrived to the loading area to find a very long line of 30+ semi trucks. There was a second lane to the left that we continue down. We were waved onto the ferry immediately as the very last vehicle literally one minute after we pulled on the back deck was closed and we were underway, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. 

We stopped for lunch at a small cafe. We ordered a “traditional dish” it started with Fried bread called Sopaipilla followed by a beef and vegetable soup named Cazuela. It was tasty with good sized portions of meat. As we left Aly took a few minutes to give some love to a dog resting out front.

As we continued down the highway the mountains rose in the distance.

We arrived in Puerto Natales, checked into our hostel, and spent some down time researching our future days plans. Tonights room is twice the cost of our Ushuaia $15 each for the night.

We headed to a local restaurant for dinner. The service was very slow, but the food was fantastic. We started with a tropical ceviche and king crab empanadas. Our main course was a mixed grill platter. To drink we had a strawberry smoothie 

Following dinner, we filled our gas tank up and went to a local market for some snacks. We will take on tomorrow’s hike in Torres del Paine national park.