Day 15 ... a farewell walk in Puerto Natales

It was our last day in Puerto Natales today.  We had a flight to Santiago later in the afternoon so had the morning to ourselves with no tours booked. So a lazy start, a little sleep in, breakfast and packing before we checked out of the hotel at 8.45am.

We left our luggage with the hotel staff and walked into Puerto Natales ... about 3km along the waterfront of the Sound. Beautiful water lapping beside us, water birds flying overhead, resting on rocks or bobbing in the glacial water.

 

The waterfront walk takes you past the giant Milodon statue, La Mano (a set of giant fingers emerging out of the earth), and the Muelle Historico ... the posts of an old Puerto where gannets rest atop.

 

Continuing along the waterfront you come across another pier where you can walk out to the end and look back at Puerto Natales or across the Sound to Cerro Balmaceda. 

You pass more statues  ... for explorers in the area or some sort of Cirque de Soleil acrobats (naked ... which would be pretty darn cold on the waterfront).

 

I made an error in an earlier post when I said that we had been further south when we went to Stewart Island in NZ. Puerto Natales is in fact the furthest south at a latitude of 51⁰.

Leaving behind the water we headed up the hill to the township and spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering the streets,  looking at the houses, the shops, restaurants and amazing street art. 

We visited a church  ... Parroquia Maria Auxiliadora, where the doors were open and anyone was able to come in. It was a simple church, very understated, except for the beautiful painting behind the altar and rhe gorgeous stained glass windows behind the choir and organ loft.

We scooted around the central park in the town ... Plaza de Armas Arturo Prat, planning on coming back later. We tried to visit the library but sadly it was closed.

 

We walked past the main stadium in town ... Estadio Municipal Victor Borquez Miranda and peered through the gate to admire the mural and were waved in by the staff. It was a great little stadium ... they play soccer there, rugby, it has an athletics track, a long/triple jump, spots for shot put and a velodrome track. Talk about multi-purpose.

We headed back through another part of town and ended up back at the Park for what would be the highlight of our walking tour! A group of kindergarten children coming to the central fountain for their "school" photos! We sat and watched the teachers and parents wrangling the wayward children as they ran around the park, squealed when the fountain spurted and generally did everything to ruin a group photo. After setting up the chairs in one direction they realised the children were all blinded by the sun so a second location was chosen and the wrangling began again. With Ian standing behind the photographer waving Kooky and Platy above her head the photos were achieved and a relieved set of teachers and parents were able to relax. 

We headed off to find an ice cream and sat back in the park to enjoy before heading off to find a supermarket to buy something to eat for lunch, snacks and dinner for the rest of our day which would be in transit.

A little more of the streets and art ...

 

And then we walked back to Remota Patagonia to relax, repack and ready ourselves for our onward journey. Morea arrived with a driver to transfer us to the airport ... a tiny international airport with one gate.

Check in was a dream, a young man manually weighed and tagged our bags before walking them out to the trolley that will go to the plane. We walked through security  ... no queue ... just us and one scanner.

We settled in airside and ate a yummy lunch of a Milcaos ... a potato and pork fried bun and an Empanada ... filled with beef, egg and olives. Absolutely delicious. We have a huge roll with milanesa vacuno (think beef schnitzel) which we ate later on when we got to our hotel in Santiago. 

Another little highlight ... as we sat at the airport we watched groups of school children on an excursion to the airport. Another herding of cats ... but this time on the tarmac! 

As we were transiting for the rest of today ... I will briefly summarise our travels. We had a flight booked from Puerto Natales to Santiago but it was a two step process with a first leg to Puerto Montt (a little under 2 hrs) and the second leg on to Santiago (about an hour and a half). At Puerto Montt ... people got off, those who were going on to Santiago stayed on the plane and then a whole group of new people boarded to fill the holes. Very strange!

We arrived half an hour early ... super flying. Grabbed our luggage and met Rosa (our guide) and Rodrigo (our driver) who whisked us off to our hotel. Whilst we were driving Rosa and Ian replanned our day tomorrow ... to make the best of our day! 

And so ... we are now in Santiago. Settled, fed and relaxed and all ready for tomorrow. 

Steps ...17,202

Kms ... 13.15

Photos ...  427 and a mere 7 from Ian.

A moments silence for my somewhat damaged suitcase!