January (2020) – Torres Del Paine Hike – Getting there

Happy New Year!

This month has been busy organising many things for the wedding next month, plus what to do and see when my parents and grandparents come to visit in February! Joaquin and I along with his parents went to the meal tasting for the wedding. The food was delicious; I booked my vehicle and tried to find a good hairstylist but no luck yet! I finished off the last preparations for the Scout Jamboree, as I was going straight there from the hike.

All packed up and ready to go on our holiday! There were 9 of us going on the hike together – we were heading to the south of Chile to a famous national park to hike for 5 days on ‘The W trail’ in Torres Del Paine.

Firstly, we had to take 2 flights, one from Antofagasta to Santiago and then one on to Puerto Natales, it would take us around 5 hours to fly (not including stop over time). The plan was for me to fly with Michelle, Juan Pablo and Karen on the first flight of the day and Joaquin and Carolina would fly on the later flight. This was so we could take their backpacks as they would be travelling straight from working the night shift to the airport. There was only one problem! They had cancelled our flight and put us on a later flight that day and we didn’t even receive an email informing us, we only found out when double checking details!!!

Which means we would have missed our flight from Santiago to go on holiday. There are only flights to Puerto Natales 2 times a week so we would have missed the whole trip! Luckily, we managed to get our flights changed to the evening before (Saturday) and we would be able to spend a restful night at Jorge’s flat (Joaquin’s brother also coming on the hike). This would have been a great plan if everything had been like clockwork.

I make my way with 2 backpacks to the airport, then we wait and wait for ages for the desk to open so we can drop the bags. This is when we find out our flight had been delayed but it wasn’t a problem. Until the plane didn’t arrive for another 5 hours! The airline did give us a voucher for some food and drink as I was starving by 12:30am and they offered a free transfer to our destination in Santiago!

Finally, we were on the flight and asleep straight away. Needed to get those hours of sleep in! The next part of our journey was smooth. We rushed breakfast at the airport, boarded the flight and I was excited to see what the south of Chile was like from my window on the plane.  

Finally, we arrived in Puerto Natales but all super tired. We grabbed our last bits of food and gas for the hike, ate a good meal and to bed for a much-needed good night’s sleep.