TdP

STRIKE AT THE BORDER

The alarm went off at 5AM so that I could jump on the Torres del Paine tour at 5:50AM.  How annoyed was I that they did not show up until 6:40AM to pick me up?  Not much.  It gave me more time to research what the heck am I going to do if I get to TdP and can't get on a bus out of there.  I'm envisioning sweet talking a park ranger into letting me sleep in the visitors center.  These are skills I picked up from Steph.  The result of my research?  Nothing.  And thank goodness, I did not have to try out the sweet talk skills.

There were 9 other people on the tour bus that were in the same situation. (The German who has been following me around for weeks being 1 of them, an Irish couple, 2 Colorado girls, 2 other Germans including a Sebastian German, and 2 Swiss girls going on the Navimag with me.

) The tour guide just happened to live in Puerto Natales, so he told us he would send the big bus back to Calafate with the other passengers while we went home with him in the van at  the end of the day.  Perfect!  More free transportation! 

I can relax and enjoy the day.  Worry about the flight after Navimag later.  One city at a time.  Oh!  Except that we have a 3 hour bumpy dirt road ride before we hit the border.  And it gets worse!  We are told that the border inspectors have decided to go on strike from 10AM-2PM.  We arrived there at 10:15AM.   Well, maybe if they would have shown up on time to pick us up...don't get me started.  Decisions now need to be made.

  Chile will allow us through if we leave our luggage there and come back to pick it up after they inspect it at 2PM.  Some decided to go on with the tour.  Others decided it was best to stay with their luggage.  So, we have to wait for an extra van to show up to divide the group. Three hours later we leave the border in a van with more people than seats.

I was looking forward to seeing the highlights of TdP as from what I hear, it is even better than the Argentine side of Patagonia.  Having to make up 3 hours, we got the speed version which left me wishing I had just taken a direct bus to Puerto Natales.  We would have to stop at every bird, animal, or lake that we passed by.  It would take 15 minutes for us sardines for pile out of the van and 5 minutes to snap our pictures and run back in.

  This starting and stopping must have happened 20 times through the day and none of the sites could compare with what I saw the day before.

The big highlight I was hoping to see was Grey Glacier.  The postcards show ice caves and beautiful shapes.  We got to vaguely see it from very far as we were told we had 30 minutes to hike across a bridge and the beach to snap a photo and come back.  It took just that to hike it.  No time to sit on the beach and really take it all in.  We all rushed back to find that the tour guide was dilly dallying.  30 minutes beyond that he was done discussing the border strike drama with his friends so we could go.  From this point on, I decided just to catch up on my sleep until we got back to the border to retrieve our bags.

  So much for TdP.

Oh! And to top it all off, I was the lucky one who had to move to the far back hot corner of the van where a woman had gotten sick from the driver's 60mph speed around the twisty mountain turns so that she could get fresh air up in my front seat. 

You guessed it.  When we finally got back to the border at 7PM our bags were nowhere to be found.  Apparently, some other tour group took our bus with the bags inside.  Long story just a little longer, we got into Puerto Natales eventually with our bags.  It did make for some good cameraderie with the other travellers.