January 5th 2018
Got up and ready to go and realized that I had returned the keys to Nikolas the night before and I was not certain how to open the electronic gate without the keys. I looked everywhere and could not find it. I had to wake Nikolas up to show me where the buzzer was. It was 8:55am when I headed to the bus station which turned out to be only 7 minutes away. I was nervous about this part of the journey because I had never put anything online to busbud as I had never heard of this company before. Got up to the ticket booth and passed them the ticket. They indicated no problem and said just wait until 9:45am and to go out to the bus.
At 9:45, I went out with my suitcase to the assistant who proceeded to put it on the bottom of the bus and gave me a number for my suitcase. There was one person standing by the entry of the bus who was looking after the tickets and checking off each individual that got on the bus. I hopped on a reserved seat at the front of the bus and waited for us to head out. Once we got going at 10:00am and headed out of the city towards Puerto Natales the bus assistant collected the bus tickets. We made one stop 24 minutes away at the airport and many more passengers boarded the bus. This service was an easy method of transportation between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales. I was very impressed with how easy it really was. This company was very efficient and extremely well organized, absolutely no problems.
At 1:15pm, we arrived at the Puerto Natales, Rodoviario bus terminal. I stopped at the information desk and received a map of the town. I gave them the hotel name I was staying at and they showed me where it was on the map. They indicated that it would take approximately 30 minutes to walk or take a taxi for approximately 1200 Chilean Pesos. I chose to walk as it was early in the day and in approximately 25 minutes I arrived at my hotel. It was a very quiet walk as everything was closed from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. After checking in, I rested in the hotel room until after 3 o'clock.
I went for a walk around town and was very impressed with how friendly everyone was. I walked along the waterfront on Pedro Montt Street and came across a tourist information place. The lady informed me that part of the road to drive the loop was closed and that I would have to drive all the way back again which would take more time when visiting Torres del Paines. I got all the information that I required and headed back to the hotel to drop off the pamphlets.
Talked to the front desk to find out where a good place would be to eat and was informed of a couple places up by the Plaza de Armas Arturo Prat square. Walking around, there seems to be a lot of people out after 6 o'clock pm. After enjoying the nice walk around town I went back to the room to lay down to watch some television. Not realizing the time because of all the light that was outside ... it was after 10 p.m.!
January 6th, 2018
After waking up this morning around what I thought was 8:30 a.m., I had to get up have a shower and get down to breakfast quickly. After a nice breakfast I went up to the second floor to access internet in the common room. There is no internet in the bedrooms. After approximately half an hour checking the emails, I observed that it was 7:30 a.m. and not 9:30 a.m.! The sun also comes up early as the days are long this time of year in southern Chile.
Spent the rest of the morning in the room working on my blog. Not feeling well and it also started to rain early in the afternoon. Decided it was necessary to have a lazy day.
Had to get out to get something to eat. Tried Mexican food, not a good idea on an upset stomach. LOL Food was great though. When I got to the restaurant it was less then half full. After my food arrived the place was packed. I was almost done eating when a couple were looking for a table, I invited them to join me as I was leaving soon. The gentleman did not speak any English and the young lady did speak some English. They lived in a neighboring community and stopped in for a drink. Great chatting with her.
Walked around the community to lose some of the taco's and beans I ate. LOL At one point, I looked over at the mountains to see that one section had opened up ... it was quite majestic looking and the photo does not do it justice.
January 6th and 7th were lazy days ... the calm before the storm. LOL Actually, was quite tired from all the flights and getting over a cold ... so rest was welcomed. :)