28th December Puerto Natales – Torres del Paine 89 miles

Well a slow start today, we were hoping to get away promptly having stayed in a hotel but on checking one of my panniers I had water in it, no harm done but it needs to be fixed. So after a mornings worth of faffing we finally get away and head for the town, gas up and look for an ATM. Having stopped for a photo of a large animal on a roundabout we meet 2 English girls who are backpacking and using buses to get around and apparently they saw us in Puerto Pirimades 12 days ago. They are heading up to Bariloche via Calafate, having told us where the ATM is we bid farewell. ATM found and sorted and on to the supermarket to provision up.
We head off towards Torres del Paine, some of you will know that this is mine and Martins desktop, gravel road with a BMW on it and snow capped mountains in the background. The ripio is not too bad but I rather stupidly have just put half a dozen fresh eggs in my pannier, could be scrambled eggs later. Even on the road in the views are stunning, lakes of green and blue, snow capped mountains in the distance and pine forests. Progress is quite slow as we must keep stopping and taking photos, it is fantastic. After 40 miles of ripio we arrive at the entrance to the park and stop off at the visitor centre. There is so much to see here so rather than pressing on and half doing everything we decide to camp for the night. We are near a glacier and we could drive to the road end a get a view but it is best to take a 45 minute walk once there to get the best viewpoint.
We are once again camped next to a river but this one is slow moving and silent unlike the one in Ushuia, but it does have ducks and ducklings on it. The facilities here are fantastic, we have a pitch for the tents, a bbq area and a log cabin with seating benches and a table in it including light and mains to charge our netbooks. Having cooked our meal Martin now discovers his backlight has gone on his netbook, not a lot we can do now, it will have to wait until we hit a city.