Day 5 : up early to make the journey back to the Paine Grande refuge and the catamaran ferry that transfers you to the bus stop. Typically for the last day, it was a beautiful day, a little cloudy but warm and pretty wind-free. You simply retrace your steps and so nothing new to see, although the brighter skies were certainly an improvement on the day before.

Whilst on the coach to the edge of the park we passed two coaches lying on their sides by the road. It turned out that they had been blown over by the wind the evening before, the winds really were that strong. We found out that two people had been seriously injured, one losing a foot in the accident.

Back in Puerto Natales we met up with Dani and Irene for dinner, plus an Anglo/American couple they'd met on the hike, Kieran and Crystal. We'd also met them briefly during the hike and thought they seemed awfully familiar but couldn't work out where from. Kieran admitted to have even considered if they recognised us from stage or screen - to which I confessed a similar theory on them. Far less interestingly, we eventually worked out we'd had breakfast together in the hostel in Sucre, Bolivia.

Dani told us that Ricardo, the Chilean guy we'd played cards with on Day 2 of the trek was one of the two seriously injured in the buses and was in hospital in Punta Arenas, a bigger town further south. Xavière joined us later having been down to visit him. He was better than we feared, having broken 4 ribs but nothing more sinister (in the scheme of things) than that. All in all, a chilling end to the W Trek.

With the contextually positive news on Ricardo, we went on to have a good last night in Puerto Natales. A full Patagonian BBQ and plenty of booze. Kieran and Irene work on luxury yachts and so had a few stories to tell to say the least. Fascinating and more than a little disturbing!!

And so ended our time in Chile, the next morning it was tome to head back into Argentina.