A bus ride brought us from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, the hub for Torres del Paine National Park.

The town itself is small, main income obviously tourism, i.e. catering all those people heading off to or coming back from the National Park. The town therefore feels like an odd collection of hostels, restaurants, bars, outdoor shops, tour operators, plus a big supermarket and a number of hardware stores – in total all an outdoor enthusiast may need before venturing out into the wild.

I basically spent my time as this city layout forced me to do … having food in restaurants – and shopping around for some last minute equipment (I needed gloves) – and so did most of the others. James managed to do some good cost-cutting on walking sticks; instead of paying 1500 pesos (around 3 USD) per day per stick (i.e. 6000 pesos for the our complete hike per stick) or buying new sticks at 8000 pesos each, he equipped himself with two broom sticks, 600 pesos each … so don’t wonder if you see photos of a guy with broom sticks 😉