We started early in the morning fully laden (packs front and rear) to catch a bus to Torres Del Paine in Chile …. Only 6 hours this time. The border crossing was fairly straight forward except that we stopped and picked up random Chileans just before the crossing point and they crossed with us - seemed kinda strange but nothing untoward happened and we arrived in the town of Puerto Natales on schedule, only to find that several people we had met previously on our trip were staying at the same hostel or nearby ….. The makings of a good and late night.

Puerto Natales was the trekking centre of Southern Chile sited at the edge of The Torres del Paine National Park and the world famous "W" trek. The "W" trek was a five day mountain and glacier trek involving camping each night and carrying all your gear. "It's not how you start, it's how you finish" so we decided to miss the first four days and just do the last one - Well, it is the hardest day being a 9 hour mountain hike, the last hour being particularly difficult as it involved climbing over huge boulders - Heather only has little legs so she struggled most (Dan secretly giggling as it seemed apposite revenge for the hills she had made him climb).

Eventually we emerged high above the start point with a stunning view of the star attraction the Torres (towers) themselves. We didn't actually camp either, opting to stay 2 nights in an eco-lodge but it was still cold in the mornings - Luckily they came into our lodge about an hour before we got up and lit a fire for us. We filled in the spare time with some mountain biking and despite the comfort and 3 course meals and free wine at the lodge, it still felt like we had had a challenging outdoor experience. On the last day we walked the seven miles from the lodge to the pick-up point for the bus. Back in Puerto Natales we shared wine with Alistair, an Englishman we met on our inbound trip. We had travelled far to the south and it was now getting cold, so like birds in winter we turned to face warmer climes - Destination Buenos Aires.