Patagonia Chile Travel Pictures

Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope) Sound  ~ Patagonia Chile Pictures

Buses Fernadez makes the 3-hour trip between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales (photo) about 7 times each day.

Checked luggage is locked with a cable tie and seats are assigned. There's a washroom at the back of the bus.

I'd gone into Punta Arenas to have a quick look around before taking the 2:30 p.m bus to Puerto Natales, where I would spend two nights.

When I got to the bus terminal, I was in time for the 1 p.m. bus, so I took it.

After picking up passengers at the airport, the bus continues north on a route through rolling fields.

Keep an eye out for llamas (pronounced 'jammas' in this area, "shammas" in Ushuaia), sheep and rheas (ostrich-like birds known locally as nandus). At 6:30 a.m. the next day, I took this shot of Puerto Natales harbour, Last Hope Sound

Puerto Natales Promenade Chile Travel 

Uniformed men on horseback head towards the port area in Puerto Natales, drawing almost no notice.

With my hands fully occupied holding my camera and water bottle, I walked past an empty juice box that was lyiing on the sidewalk.

An older woman seated on a bench nearby glared at me, sighed audibly, got up, walked over, picked it up and put it in a trash bin.

I could hear her thinking,"Tourists!"

How do you say, in Spanish, 'You know I would if I could, even though I didn't drop it'?

Plaza de Armas Puerto Natales Patagonia Chile

Several blocks (all uphill) from my hotel, the Charles Darwin, itself a block north of the waterfront, I turned left on Arturo Prat street and went one block to Plaza de Armas.

The trees here are pruned into unusual mushroom shapes, as were park trees in Punta Arenas.

Puerto Natales has a frontier ambiance, with many tour operators and outfitting shops coming and going, yapping dogs roaming the streets and broken sidewalks littered with bits of glass.

There are a few internet cafes and a number of hostels. Vehicles in need of mufflers squeal up and down the hilly streets. For all that, I felt entirely safe.

Patagonia Hotel Costa Australis in Puerto Natales Chile

From the wharf near the Navimag dock in Puerto Natales, the  hotel, Costa Australis, dresses up the waterfront.

A couple from Massachussets that I had met on the bus from Punta Arenas was staying here.

When I offered that their water views room must be wonderful, they agreed, but they said that, since none of the windows opened, the room was an inferno for several hours each day.

Just to the left of the hotel you'll find El Maritimo, a casual restaurant with good seafood and soups. I had the congrio, arguably the world's finest food fish.

Waiting to board Navimag Puerto Natales Chile Patagonia

This bright yellow building just through the dock gates is where passengers wait for the Navimag boat to take them north to Puerto Montt.

With no boat due in port for a day or so, all was quiet.

One cruise ship was in port, en route from Puerto Montt to Cape Horn.

I asked two of its passengers, a couple from Los Angeles, about the reputed roughness of the open-water section about 12 hours south of Puerto Montt.

"It's a night crossing at that point," said the woman. "I was bracing myself against the walls, trying to take a photograph of the waves crashing against the porthole -- we were on an upper deck. He was in the bathroom all night, throwing up."

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