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Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine Base Camp

Adios Argentina y Hola Chile! Time to head west and enter Chile. Crossing the border was a two-step process. First we had to see immigrations and then customs. It’s actually not allowed to bring any fresh food or wood products into Chile and the customs officers are very serious about it. We needed to unload our entire luggage and get it x-rayed. Before doing so our leader Anki collected all items we were not sure about if they need to be declared and showed them separately to the customs officer. It turned out they accepted most items. Only nuts got confiscated such as pistachios and walnuts but for some strange reason they didn’t take our peanuts. We speculated the immigration officers at this border like the more expensive nuts and will eat them once we have left. In addition our whole truck got inspected by customs including our camping equipment, food boxes and the fridge. In total the border crossing procedure took a bit more than an hour.

Our leader Anki also told us not to mention we will be driving to the Torres del Paine National Park but to Ushuaia. The reason behind is they make groups of people hiring a local guide for the national park which we don’t want but hike around on our own. You really don’t need a guide in Torres del Paine since the trails are pretty good marked.

Driving here in Patagonia is very much different from home. The distances are so huge that some days we cover a distance which is comparable with crossing Germany. But there is no autobahn without a speed limit, our truck cannot drive too fast and sometimes there is not even tarmac on the road slowing down our driving. Therefore, you have the amazing landscape of the Patagonian steppe and snow covered mountains. Also the service stations are kind of cute. They are very tiny, don’t belong to a big chain and have an individual touch the owner gave to them. On our way to Puerto Natales we also ran into another Dragoman truck driving up north. We stopped for a few minutes and had a chat with the crew and passengers.

We arrived in Puerto Natales around 4pm. Here we had two hours time to get everything we need to survive five days in the national park such as food, snacks or camping equipment. My fellow traveler Ian from the UK, who is except for me the only one planning to camp during the five day hike, hired a camping stove. I didn’t really want to carry a stove and cook in the evening. So I went for the cold food strategy and purchased food which you don’t need to cook and which doesn’t need refrigeration such as cornflakes, apples, muesli bars, crackers and tuna paste.

Since my cook group needs to prepare dinner tonight as well as breakfast and lunch tomorrow we also needed to shop for food. While Mollie and I had about the same idea about food shopping, our fellow traveler Diann had different ideas. While I wanted to buy fresh stuff only, Diann wanted to mix it with tined vegetables and fruit. The issue I had with this was that on one side fresh vegetables and fruit taste better and on the other side they are also cheaper. I would have compromised with Diann if there was a way to fit the tins into the budget we received for food shopping but there wasn’t. This resulted in Diann signing-off from shopping and walked away. I felt somewhat sorry and saw her afterwards to explain the situation and say I’m sorry about it.

We left Puerto Natales at 6pm for the Torres del Paine base camp which is a campsite within the national park. When we arrived it was dark, cold, windy and rainy. Not really perfect conditions for cooking outside. After we started cooking we even needed to move the whole kitchen into a more protected area which slowed down the whole cooking process. However, in the end Mollie, Diann and I managed to cook what was supposed to be fried noodles with chicken and vegetables. The main issue was the noodles. Although we added lots of oil they were sticky like glue resulting in the dish not looking very tasty. This is the first meal I consider a fuck-up for my cooking group but although it didn’t look inviting it tasted quite good and all 21 people ate it.

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