January 18-20
On January 18th, I took it easy again. New guests arrived from Quebec, Michelle and his partner. They were nice folks and drove from Punta Arenas, stopped here for a couple days before driving into Al Chalten and then working their way back to Punta Arenas. I informed them that there were no gas stations around Torres del Paine that this town was the last gas station until they get into Argentina … they truly were grateful for that piece of information.
I went for a walk, picked up some groceries and headed back to El Sendero. Michele, from Quebec, was talking to another couple. I walked by them as they seemed to be heavily into conversation. I prepared my supper, cooked it, ate it, did the dishes and Michele was still talking to the other couple. After I had finished I sat down and Michele just noticed that I was there … he was so engulfed in the conversation. What a character. LOL I introduced myself to the other couple, Sandra and Steve, who were from Ontario. They have been on the road for 9 months and were planning to do so for a while longer. They started in Central America and have worked their way to this point. While Steve was talking to Michele, Sandra and I had quite a conversation about work and travels. Before I knew it, it was after midnight.
January 19th
I had planned on getting up early this morning to take some photo’s by the lake, but it was very windy and cloudy again. I opted to stay in bed and try again tomorrow. About 8:30am I went out for breakfast and shortly was followed by Steve and Sandra. During breakfast Michele walked by and he and his partner were on their way to El Chalten today. He had indicated the night before that he was leaving early in the morning, that turned out to be a lot later than he had hoped. Michele and his partner said their good-byes and off they went.
Sandra, Steve and I went for a walk down to the waterfront and walked as far as the Puerto Natales welcoming round-about. We were trying to determine if the white birds on the water with the funny heads were a type of swan. I took a few photo’s to research later to determine what kind of bird they were.
After returning back to El Sendero, we talked for quite some time and I was able to upload a few photo’s. We ended up going out for supper to a pasta restaurant and returned shortly after. Approximately 9:00pm we said our good nights. While working on uploading my photo’s, Juan (owner of El Sendero) came over, sat down and chatted with me for about an hour. He has done a great deal of travelling and living abroad. A very interesting chap who was so delighted that his daughter was staying with him for the next two months.
About 10:00pm I went back to my bedroom and worked on updloading photo’s for another 2 hours.
January 20th
I got up early again to find it was sunny, but still very windy. I tried to continue uploading photo’s but the internet was not working again. I went out for breakfast and shortly Sandra and Steve came out for breakfast. After breakfast, Sandra and Steve went in to get their gear, said our good-bye’s and off they went to their next adventure. Again, very nice people.
After a few more attempts at the internet, I gave up. Where it was sunny, I grabbed my camera gear and headed to the waterfront. I was happy with some of the pics I took, and got a few close up shots of the white bird we had seen yesterday. The sun on the lake left such a beautiful aqua color, even though it was still windy.
I walked up to the square and took some photo’s outside and inside of a Church that was celebrating 100 years. There was a poster inside the Church indicating that Pope Francis was going to be visiting Chile and this Church was celebrating 100 years.
After about 3 hours of walking around I headed back to El Sendero to see if I could get online … it is working! Time to upload some images and have lunch.