We scheduled a prep day in Puerto Natales to get organized for the trek. This mostly involved organizing our food. We found an awesome Patagonian version of Bulk Barn and stocked up on snacks. If you are ever here, definitely get the candy coated toffee peanuts with seasame seeds, delish! Breakfast every day was going to be oatmeal and dinner either rice or pasta. Lunch, salami and cheese. We put each day´s food into a ziploc bag for easy access later on. We packed up everything in our packs (mine was about 35 lbs, Ryan´s over 40!) and tried to get a good night´s sleep.
The bus picked us up early the next morning, and we hurried out to meet it after our scrambled eggs breakfast at the hostel. It was a 2 hour ride to the park entrance, and we got to take a little nap which was nice. We woke up close to the park entrance and could see the terrain getting more mountainous around us. We saw Guanacos, which look kinda like camels with no humps browsing the patagonian foothills, and saw birds called Nandu´s that look like small ostriches roming around as well. I knew the wildlife viewing was going to be amazing.
We got to the park entrance, paid the fee, watched a video on the park rules, and then set off. Right as we were taking our first steps, we spotted Andean Condors soraing high up above around the mountain peaks! The gravel road we were on eventually gave way to a sub-antarctic tundra pathway with more mountains in the not too far distance up ahead. The path followed the Rio Paine, an icy blue glacier water river, with tons of rapids and little waterfalls. We ate our first salami and cheese lunch right beside a pretty cool rapid. I could tell Ryan was dying to paddle it! We hiked this path for 10 k until we reached Campamento Seron where we spent the first night. We set up the tent with Chilean Swallows dodging around us, made pasta dinner and settled down to our first night camping in Patagonia.
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