Day 84: Monday, December 24th
Punta Arenas —> Puerto Natales
Stayed at The Singing Lamb Hostel

Dear Obiwan,
Obi HERE WE GO ON OUR PATAGONIA ADVENTURE! Kelsey and I left Punta Arenas and took a 3 hour bus to Puerto Natales- where you leave for Torres Del Paine National Park.

We are staying at ‘The Singing Lamb’ Hostel which was large, room-y, and beautiful. However, the hostel worker at reception wasn’t friendly or helpful at all. Maybe he was having a bad day?

Our room had 6 beds and bathroom and shower ensuite! The showers were huge and HOT and the beds were incredibly comforable. In our room we had 2 really nice and funny American guys and a very cool and sweet woman from Holland.

After showering we went out to dinner on Christmas Eve! We ended up eating with a couple who was FROM PHILLY! What are the odds? They live in Fishtown!

This place had pretty damn good burgers, but what was more incredible was the dogs of the store could open doors Obi! The doors were on a system where there was a huge rope that helps the doors not slam and close slowly, but the genius dogs figured out that you can open to door by jumping up and pulling the rope, I tried to capture this, look:

Day 85: Tuesday, December 25th
Puerto Natales —> Refugio Grey
Stayed at Refugio Grey and Camping Grey- camped

The next day our adventures in Torres Del Paine finally began! We had a nice wakeup at 5:45 and had an alright breakfast at the hostel. We then took a bus from Puerto Natales to Lago Grey!

For those who might do this one day, just for your information- you can take the bus all the way to Lago (lake) Grey on the bus that takes you to administon of the park, everyone gets off, but if you are doing or want to do a different route or go to the lake, just take this bus!

Here are some pictures from our bus ride to Lago Grey:

After this, we had a few hours to kill before our BOAT RIDE. So we had lunch at this gorgeous hotel on the lake, if I ever become an incredibly rich Music Therapist Obi, I’m coming back and staying here!

My meal was so delicious…it was some DELICIOUS MEAT and I ate knowing I might not enjoy our next 5 days of planned meals 😖😖😖.

I also ended up buying a wind breaker/ rain coat there because the one I brought from REI could fold up really tiny but its ‘water resistant’ or something that means IT CAN’T HANDLE ANYTHING. It could not protect me from the monsoons of Colombia and I definitely wanted to feel protected in Patagonia! I felt a lot better after buying this jacket too.

After lunch and relaxing we had to walk this beautiful 45 minute walk to the Catamaran and we had to walk on this tiny strip of sand at the end that was SO UNBELIEVABLY WINDY. Kelsey and I were blown away (ha, get it Obi?) but how windy it was! It was impressive!

We also took the special boat that you can take later in the day that specifically goes to both sides of the glacier and also drops you off at where we needed to go for camping.

And then…I saw my first glacier! Kelsey as seen one before but she was also SO EXCITED.

Glaciers are incredible Obi! IT WAS SO BIG. I still can’t comprehend how big it is! On the catamaran we were given free pisco sours and met some nice people. Before getting off the glacier we got some great photos!:

Only this picture needs a scale for you to understand how big this was, our big boat next to it would be a tiny itty bitty dot in these pictures!

After this our boat dropped us off right at Refugio Grey! (Kelsey did this organizing of course, I had no idea how convenient this was!).

We then checked in to our first refugio! The nice Refugio worker walked us over to our tent and it was a nice size and beautiful! They really NAIL it in to the ground, prepping for the wind, it was so firm! Also, they provided these THICK mattresses in the tent, which was amazing to sleep on.

After moving into our first tent, we went on this amazing hike to see these suspension bridges. It was later by this time, about 6:00pm…the sun was still up as if it were 1:00pm! And as we were walking this guy casually came up to us, and ends up being a park ranger! But he so sweetly told us we were there too late, but that we could go see the first bridge then return and it was all good. Once we got to the bridge, it was so cool and beautiful! You could still see the glacier and it was so fun to jump on, look!:

After this we had dinner, which was soup, chicken and rice, bread, juice, and a coffee pudding thing for dessert. I didn’t think the chicken wasn’t that good…but everything else was pretty darn good!

After this we slept in our first tent of our adventure!

Goodnight my jedi,
Love, Tu Madre,
Carly