We enjoyed breakfast from same balcony while watching the city workers clean up the square after the hobos and what I think are prostitutes. A little fight broke out among two hobos hitting each other with sticks. It wasn’t even 9am yet. We went to the local market buy some cheese and supplies. I noticed a lot of clothes littered all over the street, amongst them several bras, which makes you imagine what happened last night on the streets. This is the real Santiago, not the cleaned up version I saw yesterday.
We took at taxi through the hostel for a slightly better rate (18000 CLP = $18). You could all the passengers on this flight was going to Torres Del Paine because it was mostly foreigners and everyone was checking in camping gear. There really is no other reason to go to Puerto Natales to be honest. We were supposed to check-in and print out tickets ahead of time to avoid fees, but the gate guy was nice enough to let us by. We had enough time for a quick lunch at a lounge and made it 10 minutes before scheduled gate closure time. Why do I always like to live life on the edge?
At the airport, I managed to arrange with three other people to share a taxi (8000 CLP per car) while Ingrid took the shuttle (4000 CLP) because she had a bike. The taxi driver would only drop us off at one location, and luckily my hostel was the most central. We first went to the bus station to get our tickets to the Torres Del Paine park and El Calafate. There was a CONAF booth we could have bought our entrance tickets at also, but it was closed because it was Sunday. Then we stocked up on some snacks and wine (liquid gold on the trail) since it was Sunday and everything was closing at 7pm. We had lamb for dinner at La Picada De Carlitos under the recommendation of our hostel. The rest of the night was spent packing for our 7 days trek starting tomorrow. With all the gear, food, and water, my backpack weighed 50lbs! The scenery better live up to the expectations because the camera equipment contributed 10 lbs to the total payload.
