Navimag Ferry (Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales)

Friday morning around 10:30 we checked in at the Navimag ferry terminal and spent several hours playing the hurry-up-and-wait game. The boat departed around 2:00pm and we set off on our 4-day journey through the Patagonian Fjords. We got settled into our 4-bunk closet-sized dorm in the bottom of the boat, and decided we would be spending as little time as possible in the said closet. We saw many volcanoes on the first day, including one which has been smoking since 1994 (picture below, at dusk). We wandered around the boat feeling kind of lost and bored until we started to meet some other cool people on the boat. We then settled into our routine for the next four days; eat, stand on the deck until you are too cold and windblown to enjoy the sights any more, eat, nap, eat, play cards, drink wine, eat, sleep, repeat (or something like that). We played every imaginable card game with a pretty awesome group of people; Sam (UK), Jemma (UK), Will (Australia), Le Roux (South Africa), Gillian (UK), Lea and Natasha (Switzerland), Gary (UK) and got our share of entertainment from Lemy (a 60-year old farmer from Georgia, USA).  You can click on the map to the left to enlarge it and see our path. 

Here are some views leaving Puerto Montt:

 

The food on the boat was actually quite good; salmon, fresh fish, chicken, and even fresh fruit. We ate more than we needed to considering we just sat around all day.  Around dinner time we saw the smoking volcano below:

The second day was much like the first, except that it was Alex's 23rd birthday, and we were out on the open ocean. We saw lots of sea birds, including albatross, and some black-an-white-stripped dolphins (but the pictures aren't really worth showing). We all had a solid nap in the afternoon for two reasons; lack of better things to do on the open ocean (no views) and 2) many people took Marmarin for sea-sickness, which knocks you out good.

The sunset on day two was spectacular. We celebrated Alex's birthday with a couple bottles of Carmenere Reserva, good company, and too many card games. Someone let it slip to the bartender that it was Alex's birthday, and so he sang her happy birthday (embarrasing), but also gave her an entire bottle of wine!  

Here is one of the bottles of wine that we brought onboard, and quite enjoyed. We are going to miss being able to afford bottles of Reserva wine (which you can get here for about $5).

Day 3 we were back near the coast, but unfortunately the weather was cold, rainy, windy and grey.

 

The highlight of the day was a visit to Pio XI glacier. We found it neat how the glacier "glowed" in the fog from a distance.  

The ferry came quite close to the glacier, allowing us to get some pictures if we could brave the extreme winds, and gropple (or was it hail?) streaming at us horizontally from the glacier. You were lucky to get a picture in before your camera lens was covered in rain drops. We were all frozen and soaking wet when we finally gave up on the elements and returned inside to the bar/lounge area to dry off.

On the third (and final) night on the boat, there was a "party" and cheesy bingo game upstairs in the lounge. If you got a bingo, you could win great prizes (wine, fleece jackets) but you also had to go up and dance, by yourself. Go Le Roux!

Monday morning, at 10:00am on the dot (!!), as scheduled, we arrived in Puerto Natales harbour.

The weather was sunny and brisk, and we left our bags at the terminal as we rushed around town trying to find a hostel (along with the other 200 people on the boat, minus those who were smart enough to make advance reservations.) We tried a number of places that were either full, or too expensive, but eventually we (the two of us and Will) got lucky and found a triple room at Hostel Los Castillos (paying the same (or less) than the average price of a dorm bed in town), and it turned out to be one of the best hostels we've stayed in thus far. We had the entire upstairs loft to ourselves, complete with sunny enclosed patio, private bathroom, and room to comfortably sleep 6 if we really wanted (we didn't). The cheerful hostess served us a wonderful breakfast too, complete with eggs!

At 3:00pm we attended a free briefing/introduction talk given by Erratic Rock hostel about Torres del Paine National Park. Up until this point, we had decided that doing the W-trek wasn't going to happen for us, since we didn't think we had enough time, and didn't have the equipment we needed. After the 1.5 hour talk (which by the way, was hilarious, and extremely informative), we changed our minds, ran around town renting gear (tent, sleeping bags, mitts, sleeping pads), buying groceries and getting ready for our self-guided, 4-day, 3-night speedy version of the normally 5-day, world-famous W-Trek. We spent the night waterproofing all our belonging (in black garbage bags, naturally), and working out the bare minimum of what we actually needed on the trek. We rationed our food into 4-days worth of breakfast and lunch, and decided we would buy dinner on Day 2 and 3 at the refugios along the way, since we didn't rent cooking gear, and felt that we'd probably want a hot meal or two along the way (looking at the forecast). We headed to bed, excited for the trek ahead, but barely slept since the wind was howling all night long, with such force that you could feel the frame of the house flexing. We should have (but didn't) taken this as an indication of the winds to be expected in the next four days.