Sara goes to Puerto Natales and Puerto Madryn

Puerto Natales, Chile
After Calafate, I headed to Puerto Natales, Chile, so I could renew my visa. Puerto Natales isn't a particularly interesting town, but it's the place that nearly every tourist stops when they head to Torres del Paine national park. I arrived on Saturday, September 18th, which happened to be Chile's bicentennial. As our bus pulled into Puerto Natales, several servicemen were already in the street preparing for the desfile militar (military parade). Most of the town shut down for several days during the bicentennial celebrations, which meant it was quite difficult to get basic things done while I was there. I couldn't find a hostel that was open when I arrived, so I lugged my backpack down to the waterfront in order to watch the parade.

The parade was really interesting to watch, and it didn't hurt that the beautiful sea and mountains sat right behind everything. First several different groups of soldiers marched in and stood around while military leaders gave a brief history of how Chile won it's independence and who their key historical figures were. Then, the parade continued as Chilean huasos (Chilean cowboys, similar to Argentine gauchos) came out to perform the cueca, a traditional dance. Eventually, the politicians dressed in suits came out and danced the cueca with the huasos. The parade ended with large military vehicles and firetrucks driving down the street. After walking around town a few times, I finally found a hostel and was able to get some much needed rest. Puerto Natales was also hosting a artisan fair, so there were several artists who were selling handmade goods and other people selling handmade foods. I bought some homemade empanadas and could quickly tell that the dough had been made from scratch--it really makes a difference and those were some of the best empanadas I've eaten in 11 months.

Torres del Paine is a beautiful national park that I wanted to spend time hiking around. Initially, Jill and I had planned to hike the famous "W" trail there in November, but we realized that wasn't practical, so this was my chance to see the park. I didn't think it was safe to hike the "W" alone, especially since there was still snow on the ground in some parts, so I opted for a day tour of the park. Again, much of the tour operators in the area were closed for the season, so day tours were the only real option. Driving around the park in a car wasn't really the way I wanted to see it, and it was a little disappointing. Yet, I was still quite happy to see it.

Before we reached Torres del Paine, we stopped at Cueva del Milodón, or "Cave of the Milodón." The Milodón is an extinct giant sloth that supposedly died out around 5,000 years ago. Skin and bones of the animal were discovered in the area more than a century ago. After that, we drove into Torres del Paine and stopped at a point where we could take a short walk to Lago Grey. From the lake, which was filled with giant icebergs, you could look across and see glacier Grey. A Huemul, a type of endangered Patagonian deer, was walking around to drink from the lake, and that was especially cool to see since Huemuls are Chile's national animal. From there, we drove to several beautiful lookouts where you could see the "towers" (mountains) of the park, but unfortunately there were clouds hanging over them most of the day. We also spotted several guanacos (similar to llamas), nandu and condors (a type of vulture that is Chile's other national animal).

Back in Puerto Natales, I spotted black-necked swans swimming in the sea on my way out of town. I took another 5-hour bus ride back across the border to Calafate.



Calafate (again)
I arrived in Calafate with 5 minutes to decide whether I wanted to take a 20 hour bus trip up to Puerto Madryn, and at the last minute I decided to spend one more day in Calafate. I had befriended one of my tour guides from the big ice trek that I did, as we bonded over discussions about politics and books. So we met up to have beer at a neat book bar, which was fun, but also somewhat awkward. After that, I spent some time walking around Calafate with a nice guy I had met from Korea, who I had met on the bus between Puerto Natales and Calafate. He cooked me a delicious pasta dinner at the hostel, and I got to chat in Spanish with several nice Argentinians while he cooked. It was a really nice to relax for a day while talking to cool people I had just met. The following day, I grabbed a lamb crepe on my way to the bus station for the 20 hour trip up north.

Puerto Madryn
I headed to Puerto Madryn to get to Peninusla Valdes, a famous area filled with wildlife and an increidibly good spot to go whalewatching. The first leg of my bus trip to Rio Gallegos was fine, but the second leg was pretty unpleasant. The bus broke down about 1 hour after we got on, so we hopped on another bus that came by. At the next stop (2 hours later), we all got off and waited for another bus to come pick us up. There was no phone signal in the middle of nowhere when our bus broke down, so the driver waited until we got to the next stop to contact the bus company. Since these are overnight buses, that meant that 30 people were all crammed into a tiny bus station in the middle of nowhere from 11pm to 3 in the morning while we waited for the new bus to arrive. I finally got to Puerto Madryn 4 hours late.

The following day, I took a day-tour to Peninsula Valdes with my hostel. We started by driving out of Puerto Madryn for about 20 minutes to a beach where you could watch several whales swimming about 50 feet from the shore. It was great, but we had a schedule to keep, so we quickly headed onto the next stop, which was a small museum about the Southern Right whale. From there, we went to Puerto Pyramides, where we hopped on a 90 minute whalewatching boat ride. This was the most amazing part of the tour because the whales came so close to the boat. Southern Right whales recieved their name from whalers because they are a curious and social animal, so they often swim close to boats and are the "right" whale to kill. I've never really done whalewatching before, but was excited to see whales breaching, swimming right under the boat and mating. After the tour, we ate lunch in Puerto Pyramides, the only town on the peninsula, and then headed to a sea elephant colony. The sea elephants weren't too exciting to watch since they don't move much, but we headed to a cool penguin colony after that. Both the sea elephants and penguins were on the peninsula for mating season.



Puerto Madryn isn't a very pretty or exciting place to spend much time in, so after the tour I was ready to move on. I took a bus up to Bahia Blanca, where there was a circus festival taking place. The festival, however, was very small and uneventful when I arrived. I was tired of traveling, missed Jill, and felt ready to get back to Buenos Aires. So after a very brief period of time, I hopped on the next bus and went home.