I’m in an internet cafe, spending valuable pesos to let you guys know what’s going on.

I got into Puerto Natales and headed to the hostel that a couple of people recommended to me. I’d emailed them earlier that day, and they had responded that they were completely full, so I was just hoping for a recommendation for somewhere new. When I walked in, a very jolly Scottish man greeted me at the door and told me that they did in fact have one bed left, and that I was the first person he’d checked in. I think Erratic Rock is more full of workers in the hostel than actual guests. It has been a ton of fun staying there though. Everyone that works there is about my age, cleaning and cooking and checking people in to be able to stay there for free. Within the first couple of minutes of being there, I accompanied a German girl, and a girl from the States outside with an electric shaver to attack the hairy neck of the Scottish guy.

We ended up going out later that night–the German girl, the girl from Colorado, Juan, a sushi caterer from Buenos Aires, a German guy-Johannes Alfred (who kept calling himself  ‘Your Highness’ because it sounds like Johannes)  and a couple of other people from the hostel. Erratic Rock has definitely been a home away from my home away from home. I’ve gotten to know everyone that works there quite well. We’ve been teaching Juan English while he’s been teaching us Spanish, we had a good time yesterday exchanging the words for ‘to sweep’ (barrer, by the way) as he swept the kitchen.

That night I looked at my ankle and it was gigantic. It had been over a week since I’d fallen on New Year’s Eve, but I had slipped in Punta Arenas earlier that day with my huge backpack on, and had tweaked it again. I decided very definitively that leaving for Torres del Paine was stupid, so I planned the next day as a doctor/logistics day. I woke up in the morning and slowly ambled over to the hospital.  I was pretty proud of myself that I could understand the receptionist, explain what was wrong with me, see the doctor, get an x-ray, understand that I was mostly fine but had stretched a tendon, get a couple of prescriptions, pay the bill, go to the pharmacy, get a number, pick up the prescriptions and head back to the hostel.

I’d say I now know enough Spanish to get by just fine.

I spent the day renting rain pants and a decent jacket, buying fuel and food, and resting in the hostel. I wasn’t very good at the resting part, everyone kept yelling at me to sit back down, because I’d have my foot up for 10 minutes or so and then get bored and walk around again.

I left for the park the next morning, paid my entry fee and took a catamaran to one of the ends of the W, the trail I hiked. I missed the first boat, and got into camp pretty late. I was setting up my tent and it flew away from me… as in, I had to run after it before it blew into a lake. It was an exciting start. I also realized that although the Chilean fuel looks EXACTLY like the fuel in the US, it doesn’t fit my stove. That was a good thing to discover. I was camping in a campground, though, with tons of people around, and I ended up borrowing the stove from a group of Israeli travelers so I could make some really disgusting pasta. It wasn’t the best first day. I woke up early the next day and hiked up to see a huge glacier, then back down and to the next campsite.

I spent most of the trip alone, so I guess the stove not working was actually pretty lucky. I had to ask a big group of guys from southern Chile to borrow their stove the second night, and ended up spending all night chatting with them and their Brazilian friend. They were amazed I was traveling by myself– ‘pero vas SOLA sola sola??’ (you’re going ALONE alone alone??). I told them I had a Chilean friend who was going to go with me, but he currently has another gringa girlfriend. To which they laughed and said ‘so not a friend exactly, more of a motherf*cker’. Good start to that evening.

I spent the rest of my time pretty much alone, and headed out early, because I kept tweaking my ankle and thought the straight uphill climb on rocks on the last section was a recipe for disaster. I also remembered my friend Mimi from Colorado talking to Juan and telling him she’d be out of the woods on the 12th and that he would have to make sushi for her. I woke up at 5 so I could make it out of the park in time, and ran into Mimi waiting for the bus. We had to wait a couple of hours, and it was sunny for once, and we just sat and talked in the grass. She’s been traveling around South America alone for months. An amazing person. We got back to the hostel and Juan said he’d looked everywhere for stuff to make sushi, but there wasn’t much in this tiny town. He ended up buying a fish and gutting it, and cooking perhaps the best fish I’ve eaten in my life for all of us. It was good I’d left early, I would have been quite upset missing out on that amazing dinner. Mimi left this morning for southern Argentina, but most of the hostel workers are still around. I’ve got one more night in town, and then I fly back to Valparaíso late tomorrow evening.

Love to you all.

Things are going just fine, actually. I´m off to another town tonight, will look for a promising hostel with promising people in it. My ankle is still kind of messed up from my fall, and I´m not planning on hiking alone, so the next couple of days are going to be full of waiting, I imagine. Luckily I only have to walk a day to see the best parts of the park, so at the least I only have to stay one night.

The penguins were pretty awesome, my camera is loaded with pictures of them. And videos of them. And more pictures of them. I met a guy from Spain on the bus and was able to have a more than decent conversation with him (in Spanish , of course), which made me pretty happy.
I should pack, I´m off to Puerto Natales in a half hour. Perhaps I´ll find some friends there!

* Mauricio eating pasta with red sauce and MAYO. Oh, how they love their mayo here.

* Being sent to buy stuff for lunch and buying a huge head of unwashed lettuce at the fruitstand down the block, and walking a couple doors down to the breadshop to buy coke. In a returnable bottle.. they’re made of thick plastic, you bring the old one back to get a new one.

* Asking for shampoo at the pharmacy, because everything is behind the counter.

* A two and a half hour dinner tonight.

* A colectivo driver asking the girl who got in after me if she’d broken up with her boyfriend yet.

The whole lunch takes about two hours at the table. I love it.