Date: Tuesday, March 15th 2005
Time: 21:00 pm
Location: Torres Del Paine
Temperature: 10°C 50°F
Wind speed: 15 mph 13 knots
Wind chill: 7°C 45°F
Altitude: 50 m
Weather: Rainy

This morning we packed our backpacks light and brought two tents with us ready for a few days hiking. We moved all our gear into a small room at the hotel and then checked ourselves out. By 09:00 we were on the bus trundling towards Puerto Natales and the Torres Del Paine. The landscape outside of town was very flat with extensive fields covered by small, scrubby bushes. We passed by farms with sheep, cows, horses, and even emus/ostriches!! As we continued driving north, the plant life became more tree-like and eventually the landscape became littered by small copses. Every few kilometers along the highway there were small shrines set up ~1-2m from the road, most of these shrines contained crucifixes and some even contained freshly cut flowers and candles.

In Puerto Natales we were befriended by a local girl who showed us where to buy bus tickets for the next leg of our journey. After buying tickets, we found a place to eat and had a little lunch. The bus journey from Puerto Natales was basically a 3-hour ride down a bumpy dirt track. The roads were so rough that the buses spent as much time on the centerline as possible (because the edges were the roughest), this resulted in several games of “chicken” between buses traveling in opposite directions.
After much vibration, we arrived at the Torres National Park. We left the bus and crossed the Lago Pehoe by boat, eventually arriving at the Refugio Pehoe. During the trip across the lake the weather began to clear and we caught a brief glimpse of some spectacular mountain peaks towering over us. By now the light was beginning to fade, so we pitched our tents and headed into the Refugio to get some food.

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