Puerto Natales, Chile
February 24, 2007
S 51°43.585
W 072°30.366
We woke up rather late this morning and headed to grab some coffee. Our plan was to get coffee, update the blog and grab some cheese and salami for a little protein in the backwoods.
We got to El Living, the place for coffee in Puerto Natales, right around 11 AM. They weren’t quite open yet, so we headed to the cheese place. They weren’t open either…based on our list; we decided to hit the internet cafe. We quickly back tracked after we finished updating the blog and checking email and grabbed cheese, got some coffee, and hit the Carneceria for the salami right at 1:00 PM —closing time.
The siesta, or mid-day break, still exists in both Chile and Argentina. Our day has to be planned around this break when everything is closed between 1:00 to 4:00 PM (sometimes 5:00 PM!). Some days we plan things perfectly, but other days we get really frustrated trying to find something open during this break. Today we accidentally hit the Carneceria perfectly, but later in the afternoon we were rejected time and time again when trying to find some last minute essentials for our trek. Let me explain…
After the Carneceria we headed back to our room and made a final dry-run of the tent set-up; since winds in Torres del Paine have been reaching 30-45 mph. It went fairly flawlessly in the sheltered backyard of Erratic Rock 2, but we needed a process before setting the tent up in the whipping winds. Mission accomplished.
However… while making a final inventory of our packs we discovered two key items were “missing.” One of the items, my gloves, most likely ended up in one of our drop-ship boxes and was left at home in San Francisco. The other item, Marc’s headlamp, was last seen in Montanita… either lost or stolen. We tore everything apart searching for the items without any success.
Next mission… go out and find a headlamp and gloves. We knew exactly where to go, but when we got there the store was closed, of course… we fell in between the 1:00 and 4:00 PM timeframe. I looked at my watch and it said 2:30 PM. Marc suggested we go grab a beer to waste the time. We figured it would be our last beer for several nights, we might as well. We tried a few places and they were closed until 6:00 PM. “Do these people ever work?” we said to each other.
We opted to walk down near the water to waste time until siesta was over and the shops re-opened. We headed back up to the town center a little before 4:00 PM and the store finally re-opened. They had what we were looking for, at a premium of course, but these were essentials. We were pleased we budgeted the extra $10 per day for miscellaneous items—the gloves and headlamp clearly fell into that category!
Tomorrow… Torres del Paine.
February 24, 2007
S 51°43.585
W 072°30.366
We woke up rather late this morning and headed to grab some coffee. Our plan was to get coffee, update the blog and grab some cheese and salami for a little protein in the backwoods.
We got to El Living, the place for coffee in Puerto Natales, right around 11 AM. They weren’t quite open yet, so we headed to the cheese place. They weren’t open either…based on our list; we decided to hit the internet cafe. We quickly back tracked after we finished updating the blog and checking email and grabbed cheese, got some coffee, and hit the Carneceria for the salami right at 1:00 PM —closing time.
The siesta, or mid-day break, still exists in both Chile and Argentina. Our day has to be planned around this break when everything is closed between 1:00 to 4:00 PM (sometimes 5:00 PM!). Some days we plan things perfectly, but other days we get really frustrated trying to find something open during this break. Today we accidentally hit the Carneceria perfectly, but later in the afternoon we were rejected time and time again when trying to find some last minute essentials for our trek. Let me explain…
After the Carneceria we headed back to our room and made a final dry-run of the tent set-up; since winds in Torres del Paine have been reaching 30-45 mph. It went fairly flawlessly in the sheltered backyard of Erratic Rock 2, but we needed a process before setting the tent up in the whipping winds. Mission accomplished.
However… while making a final inventory of our packs we discovered two key items were “missing.” One of the items, my gloves, most likely ended up in one of our drop-ship boxes and was left at home in San Francisco. The other item, Marc’s headlamp, was last seen in Montanita… either lost or stolen. We tore everything apart searching for the items without any success.
Next mission… go out and find a headlamp and gloves. We knew exactly where to go, but when we got there the store was closed, of course… we fell in between the 1:00 and 4:00 PM timeframe. I looked at my watch and it said 2:30 PM. Marc suggested we go grab a beer to waste the time. We figured it would be our last beer for several nights, we might as well. We tried a few places and they were closed until 6:00 PM. “Do these people ever work?” we said to each other.
We opted to walk down near the water to waste time until siesta was over and the shops re-opened. We headed back up to the town center a little before 4:00 PM and the store finally re-opened. They had what we were looking for, at a premium of course, but these were essentials. We were pleased we budgeted the extra $10 per day for miscellaneous items—the gloves and headlamp clearly fell into that category!
Tomorrow… Torres del Paine.
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