Suzi 27/10/06

An update on our Patagonian adventures then.

Was an absolutely fantastic 10 days. We went straight from Punta Arenas, where we landed on 20 October, to Puerto Natales and ended up staying in the cheapest, but messiest, place in the whole of town. It was basically a lady´s house, offering double rooms for rent, and she did not possess any wardrobes so everything, including more clothes than even Nanny Farm owns, was simply in huge piles all over the downstairs rooms! Our room upstairs was nice and clean but was definitely somewhere Kim and Aggie needed to visit in the near future!

Puerto Natales itself is a nice, chilled out, place, with little houses everywhere made of corrugated iron and, aside from glacier and hiking trips, not much else happening. This October has the lowest number of tourists for years as the prices have all gone up so much we were told everyone is going hiking in Argentina instead. It is worrying for the inhabitants, who rely on 5 months of tourism to support a 12 month year, but was great for us as simply re-enforced how unspoilt and beautiful Patagonia is - Torres del Paine NP covers 181,414 ha and there were less than 200 people registered for hiking there at the same time as us!

Before hiking, we went on a boat trip for a day out to visit the Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers. Was amazing! We saw a family of sea-lions who come in to the harbour area to breed every year and condors, which looked absolutely magnificent circling round and round overhead. Balmaceda glacier is the fastest retreating glacier in the world and was incredible to look and see the effects of global warming really close up - 20 year ago its foot was at sea level but it is now about 10 metres back from the sea and there is simply a slab of bare rock between it and the sea. We walked out to Serrano glacier and was incredible to see it so close up. Only puzzling thing was that the glacier ice was a blue colour - answers on a postcard from you geologists out there as to why that is? Freezing cold but we loved it!

Running out of time on my computer now and more to explore so another update on torres del Paine and Penguins soon.