Puerto Natales

Dave arrived on Saturday night - yeah!! He had a days worth of adventures in Santiago before getting down to Punta Arenas. Our very fancy and expensive hostel only had room for one night so we decided to come up to Puerto Natales and start planning our hike in the Torres del Paine National Park on Sunday.
Puerto Natales has incredible views of the Andes to the north with crazy glaciers and snowfields just past the fingers of ocean that wind through the islands to this mainland town - it is the endpoint for the cruise down the coast. Today a person from the hostel suggested that we hike to the top of the mesa that is behind town. Puerto Natales is literally on the flat southern side of the sound and the north side is jagged peaks - it is pretty crazy. She drove us to a nearby estancia (farm). We paid the family a bit to get through their land and for the tea and bread they gave us at the end of the hike. We hiked about 1000ft to the top of this gorgeous mesa. It looks like something out of Utah but then once you get to the top you are facing these insane glaciers and have a perfect view of the town. We hung out at the top for a while taking a million pictures during the crystal clear day. On the way down, the neighbors dogs got through the fence and were fiarly menacing. We ended up getting trapped up on the steep trail for a while until the dogs got bored with us and went back to their house. It was actually a little scary when I went from thinking that their tails were wagging to hearing the growls. Luckily they weren´t smart enough to follow the trail up the hill, so we just hung out about 200 feet above them.
We spent the rest of the day getting all of our supplies and bus tickets for the trip. Unfortunately the weather has taken a turn for the worst, so we might be staying in the refugios rather than tents during the trek. We leave tomorrow morning and will stay 3 nights, getting back to town on Friday evening. Saturday we leave bright and early for Argentina. I just can´t stay out of that country. It is so beautiful and cheap!! Dave is also a little baffled by the Chilean prices. We found a great veggie restaurant here but it is almost more expensive than those in SF.
El Calafate is the destination in Argentina. We will head straight for the Moreno Glacier on Saturday afternoon.
Blog to be continued then....