It was time to begin Anna’s annual wildlife trip

“It’s like being invited to the football World Cup final and they’ve given you a special seat – And it’s inside the ball.”

— James May, ‘The Grand Tour’, on driving in a beautiful place on horrendous roads

After 27 hours in transit we had finally arrived in Chile, where we had spent a fun two nights in the capital, Santiago, but now the time was here for the real reason we had come all this way.

Friday, October 10, 2025
Our flight to Patagonia was a relatively early one, departing at approximately 10:00am, but it was domestic so we only needed to be at Santiago Airport around 90 minutes beforehand. A half-hour drive and we were there, checking in wasn’t a major issue, and we were at our gate with plenty of time to spare, but once it was time to board we were told that we wouldn’t be leaving any time soon due to a mechanical fault on the plane. The flight was rescheduled to 2:00pm and there isn’t a whole lot to do in the domestic terminal of this airport so everyone was given a restaurant voucher for the equivalent of around US$20.00, but Anna had a better plan, or so she thought. We have a pass that grants us access to airport lounges, but it can only be validated a very limited amount of times, therefore we only use it on occasions such as this so we went down to the “VIP Lounge” to kill the next four hours. It looked good when we checked in, but there was very little food once we entered the room so we just figured they were changing over from breakfast to the regular options. The entire bain marie was empty, but there were some old sandwiches, and there wasn’t a whole lot at the salad bar so I just grabbed myself a bowl of canned corn kernels and pulled up a seat until the rest of the food came out… but that didn’t really happen. I went back and there was dirty water in a pot that I thought must’ve been under a steamer, but as time went by curiosity got the better of me and it turned out that it was just a really salty chicken stock soup with nothing in it, but I still had a bowl or two anyway. I went over to the bar to grab us a drink each only to be informed that there was a three alcoholic drink limit per person for their entire time spent in the lounge so we would also be sitting on those for a while. Eventually a plate of very bland pasta was brought out and everyone flocked to it like it was pieces of bread being thrown at ducks, however, it would have to do. We at one point considered going to the restaurant, but it would be absolutely packed with everyone from our flight, plus twenty bucks doesn’t get you much in an airport so we just waited it out and by two o’clock we were on our four-hour flight to Chilean Patagonia:

Patagonia is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands, and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.

The northern limit of the region is not precisely defined; the Colorado and Barrancas rivers, which run from the Andes to the Atlantic, are commonly considered the northern limit of Argentine Patagonia; on this basis the extent of Patagonia could be defined as the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz, together with Patagones Partido in the far south of Buenos Aires Province. The archipelago of Tierra del Fuego is sometimes considered part of Patagonia. Most geographers and historians locate the northern limit of Chilean Patagonia at Huincul Fault, in Araucanía Region.

Our flight was a little confusing, because although we were traveling to Puerto Natales, our flight number when we checked in was for Puerto Mott. We were told over the intercom that our flight time was about a third of what we thought so when we touched down in Puerto Mott we were unsure whether to get off the plane. Some people did so I got all of our luggage down and we almost joined them, but there were people still seated, prompting Anna to ask a flight attendant. Nope, this was just a stop along the way, we had almost another three hours to go.

After flying over some incredible mountain scenery, including what looked like a spiky range that we would later find was Cordillera Paine and at the base of which was the location of our camp, we finally landed at the airport in Puerto Natales more than four hours late and it would still be another two-hour drive to our final destination. We stepped off the plane and I was glad I had packed a warm hoody in my luggage, because it was significantly colder here and windy too, my hat immediately blowing off toward the terminal as I exited the plane, but that was just a precursor to what we had coming. There had been an airport transfer organised and I don’t know if the driver had been waiting the entire time for us, but we were soon in the car on our way to our home for the next five nights, EcoCamp Patagonia, the two of us blown away by the scenery and making a stop for some photos along the way.

It was 8:00pm when we arrived at our camp so we quickly checked in to our bubble tent and had dinner in the communal dome, but because we were so late we wouldn’t be meeting our guide or our two other traveling companions until breakfast the following day. We also had to finish dinner early, our food order having been taken in advance when we had arrived at the airport, because the staff do some crazy hours here, but as would we, waking at 5:30am each day for the foreseeable future, so that elbow in the ribs to get to bed was definitely needed. Being an EcoCamp everything was sustainable and what could be reused or recycled was, which meant we had a composting toilet, one that didn’t flush, rather the base would rotate vertically when a foot pedal was pushed, our own personal compost donation falling into a larger batch, but surprisingly our room didn’t smell. Also, for the coming days we would have zero wifi, except on the rare occasions when we were out in the open on a hill, then we could potentially get a bar or two.
Some of the scenery and inside our camp:

Saturday, October 11, 2025
Our alarm rang at 5:30am and not only would it be the first of five consecutive early starts, but we learnt it was going to be freezing every morning too. To make it worse we were still jet lagged and had only got to bed not long before midnight so that morning was a little tricky, but we layered up with thermals, windbreakers, and puffers and battled the wind to make it to the community tent for a phenomenal breakfast spread. We don’t usually eat breakfast, but with there being the potential of being out all day it was best to have something to eat, plus this setup was made for people from different groups to also pack lunches for later in the day so pretty much anything you wanted was available, I even had pickles and prosciutto with my breakfast. We also got to meet the other two members of our group, Rita, a woman from Boston, USA, and Eduard, a Belgian man, and this pair seemed like they were going to be a bit of fun.

Anna and myself would be in a different 4WD to Rita and Eduard, their driver named Chris, ours JP. The layout of the general area was a little confusing, because a fraction of where we would be exploring was in the ranch that housed our camp, but the greater area was part of the Torres del Paine National Park, however, because of where we were staying it meant we were licensed to venture off the main roads, unlike those that were just there for the day. Once in the national park the puma search was on, meaning we would be going off-road up steep, muddy, pothole-ridden dirt tracks over hills and through gullies. I saw something quite early walking up a hill in the distance that turned out to be a guanaco, a mammal similar to a llama, and we’d be seeing plenty of them. Apparently there had been a lot of rain recently so we spent the next two hours bouncing roughly around, periodically stopping so JP could pull out his small, heat-sensing telescope and eventually he spotted something, but there was a technique to parking the car for us to be able to get out. He circled around in reverse while telling us that we had to park facing a particular direction, otherwise if the wind was coming from behind us it had the potential to rip the doors off the car. He wasn’t exaggerating either, because earlier in the season exactly that had happened when a person rushed out without warning and the car door was blown off in the wind. There was very little greenery around so it was tough to tell exactly how windy it was, but JP told us it had been over 80 km (50 miles) per hour earlier that morning and it was probably even stronger now, however, the previous week it had got up to 135 km (84 miles) and our tents were built to withstand gusts of up to 200 km (125 miles)! This wasn’t an outlier either, wind like this is the norm in Patagonia, thus why there were no trees around. JP radioed for the other car so we exited, the doors slamming shut immediately and we were now out in the cold, because even though it was about 5°C (41°F), the windchill made it feel more like -7°C (19.4°F) when the icy blast froze our faces. As JP and Chris were struggling to set up a camera with the thermo gear, Anna and myself battled to stand upright, having to lean into the wind in order to not get blown backwards, me resembling one of those inflatable tube men things they have out the front of used car yards (above, right). Our eyes were watering, our noses running, and at one point I just had snot fly off into the distance before I even had a chance to wipe. We were eventually called over to see on a screen what was apparently a puma hiding in the distance, but the little white spot didn’t really count to us as a sighting so we moved on. Constantly communicating on the radio with other drivers there were no more sitings of pumas so at around 10:30am we decided to make our way back to camp, stoping off at the national park office for a toilet break while a waterfall blew backwards uphill. We would try again at 3:30 in the afternoon, meaning we would be able to grab a bite for lunch, sit down and get to know Eduard and Rita, and get to look around our camp during the day where it was significantly less breezy.
Struggling with the wind and our camp by day:

After lazing around and chatting with Rita in the sun for a good portion of the afternoon 3:30pm soon came around and we were back in the cars, dodging guanacos as they wandered toward us. Some of the guides had been trying to predict where the morning’s puma may be, constantly on the radios while bouncing around the rough and boggy terrain in different areas of the park with an even more breathtaking landscape. While we had been back at the camp a bright blue lake had been visible, but now we were pulled up right next to it, admiring how the shades of blue got lighter and deeper in different parts while JP monitored the area with no success so we continued on. We passed many more guanacos along the way so we watched their movements to see if they seemed wary or agitated, but that wasn’t the case, however, several hours on bumpy tracks were making us both need to pee so at one of our stops I took advantage of the situation, but was careful not to face into the wind, essentially creating a mist that disappeared immediately, but Anna opted to wait as long as she could. We bounced around for a couple more hours when an announcement came on the radio that the puma had been spotted, JP’s Grand Theft Auto instincts kicking in, throwing caution to the wind and flooring it as he sped back down the mud tracks, my head bouncing off the the headrest and hand grip constantly the entire way. At some points the mud was that deep that in order to get around it our car was at a 45-degree angle, Anna and myself getting a little worried at times and my back beginning to get a bit painful as it tends to do, but eventually we were in the same location as the puma. There were already a bunch of people there, some of whom had been standing there for the past three hours, but there was also a rule that only 10 people could be in the vicinity of the puma at once and nine were still there. Anna had the camera so I convinced her to go down and have a look while I sat in the car and chatted with JP until some of the others there decided to climb back up to the their cars. I then made the steep trek down to join Anna, Rita, and Eduard, as well as some others, but I could see why a few had given up. The puma was about 50m (160′) away and besides turning its head or occasionally laying down and putting a paw up in the air, it apparently hadn’t moved much at all in the hours since it was first seen. Anna still managed to snap a couple of photos of it, but it was getting late and we couldn’t just stick around, waiting for the cat to move so we went back to the camp for dinner, arriving again at almost 8:00pm. In all we had been seated in the car for about nine hours on our first day, the same length as our flight from Singapore to Auckland, but feeling as if that flight had been horrendous turbulence the entire way.
Guanacos, some more of the beautiful scenery, a slight glimpse of a puma, and some cool cloud formations on our first full day:

After a server at dinner confirmed that food cooked with coconut oil or milk doesn’t sit right with me and that it’s best to avoid it (although I have no problems eating an entire coconut for some reason), dinner that evening was the first time that Anna, Eduard, Rita, and myself, as well as another of our guides truly got to know each other properly. When it comes to being asked which part of Australia I’m from it’s easiest just to say Melbourne for a point of reference and then point out that I was born and spent my first 19 years in a town called Traralgon, about 160 km (100 miles) east of the city. However, now I have another reference to give people an idea where it is; I mention that Traralgon is in the same region where a murder case that made international headlines recently happened, the town of Leongatha, where Erin Patterson murdered three members of her family with poisonous mushrooms. Naturally the conversation devolved over the course of the evening, especially when I noted that Patterson was only the second woman in Australia to get a life sentence, the first being Katherine Knight (do not read the details in that link unless you have an extremely strong stomach!). After relaying the story of Knight and what she did to her boyfriend and his remains back in 2000, a running joke that would last the entire trip was that somehow I must be a cannibal as well, followed by constant warnings from the others that they will be bathing in coconut oil and eating anything containing it over the coming days. Where the hell do they even find coconuts in the part of the world? 
Once dinner was done it was around 11:00pm again so Anna and I went back to our dome tent, showered and went to bed. All we wanted to do was just lay down and sleep, but we didn’t have a whole lot of time to enjoy it.

Sunday, October 12, 2025
We were up and exhausted again at 5:30am, running on fumes and also my lower back was still quite painful from the previous day, but at least today we would have a little luck.
After breakfast we were on the road again at 6:30am and initially the day started off the same, driving over bumpy wet tracks, at one stage passing a 4WD that had been bogged and deserted for the past two days, and passing more and more guanacos while on the hunt for pumas. The weather was far better today, it was still cold, but nowhere near as windy so we were hoping the incredibly bright rainbow we encountered wouldn’t be the highlight of our day and after about three and a half hours we would strike gold. JP received a message on the radio about a siting near one of the main roads so we floored it once more, us bumping up and down, back and forth off every surface inside the car and almost getting airborne on a couple of occasions until we found ourselves in a ditch by a sealed road just metres away from a puma, only one other person from a different tour group there. We’ve got close to wild animals in the past, but we never would’ve thought we would get this close to a puma on this trip:

The puma soon got up, walking up a hill to lay down and it seemed a bit strange that there were just a handful of us there to witness it, but minutes later the other cars began to arrive. Once again the puma was about 50 metres away, sleeping behind a bush while everyone tried to view it from the road. After a while JP decided to walk up the hill behind where it was laying and once he had found what seemed like a better spot to view it he motioned for our group and a few others in order to make a pack of 10 to join him. That’s when I learnt why none of the plants seem to blow in the insane winds here, they were all just thick clumps of thorns ripping at our clothes and stabbing our legs, not the most comfortable location to catch a nap, but this cat wasn’t going anywhere in the near future. We stood at the site for a few hours just waiting for this thing to move, but by about 12:30 it was decided that we should go back to the camp for lunch and try again in the afternoon.
At the camp Anna showed Rita and Eduard her photos from in the ditch earlier in the day, but when we asked where they had been at the time, the two of them were pissed! Apparently when the puma had been spotted their driver, Chris, was radioed about it, however, he had been given instructions from JP that they had to wait for another tour group to join them so there wouldn’t be too many cars arriving at different times and scaring it away. They had to sit there for 12 whole minutes waiting for the other car to join them when all they wanted to do was get on the move and witness what they had paid a substantial amount of money to see. To rub a little more salt into the wound once they had arrived at the scene, individual cars also rocked up at the spot periodically, having no impact on the siting whatsoever.

That afternoon it would’ve been easy for us to say, “Well, we already saw one up close this morning so we don’t need to go”, but that’s not the type of people we are so we got back in our 4WD and spent the next three hours trying to track where that cat had moved, but to no avail. Back at the communal tent we had over an hour before dinner so we sat in the bar area where there were welcome drinks for new arrivals that we could also have, as well as all of the beer, wine, and spirits you would expect and our tour buddies were still fuming about what had unfolded that morning, letting us know while drowning their sorrows. Over another great dinner where there was complimentary wine Rita told us that what was happening wasn’t what her tour operator had promised, as there was nobody going out early to spot pumas before we left each morning, instead just going out by ourselves and trying our luck. Eduard was still furious and was taking major advantage of the free drinks so we decided the following day to switch drivers, they would go with JP and we would go with Chris. Tomorrow would be the final day of trekking, as an “excursion” was planned for the following day so Rita was going to insist that if we didn’t get to see anything significant she would ask for another trek for herself instead of the excursion. It occured to us that this time we were back at a reasonable hour and had a few drinks in us, plus we might possibly get an extra hour’s sleep so I promised not to devour them during the night and we all went back to our tents.

Monday, October 13, 2025
The alarm blared once more at 5:30 and I just wasn’t in the mood. We were both absolutely exhausted and that’s when I tend to get rather nervous, because lack of sleep is one of the triggers for me having epileptic seizures and I had had a minor one in my sleep a few weeks before. Anna handles lack of sleep and cold weather far better than I, but she didn’t seem to be in the best condition either, plus I had the added issue that my lower back now was absolutely excruciating. Anna had some proper painkillers, but they can cause drowsiness and I already had that sorted so I downed a couple of paracetamol, had some breakfast, and we were in the car with Chris. Chris was a far different driver to JP, more careful and taking things at a reasonable pace, but despite this the car still bounced around on the tracks, each bump causing more pain in my back and down into my right buttock. At that point I was just questioning why we were even in the car —  It was wet and windy again, we both just wanted to stay in bed and sleep, plus it would be almost impossible to top what we had seen the previous morning so going out today seemed almost redundant. We bounced around for several hours, occasionally posing for photographs and at around 10:30am the radio blared with a sighting. Once again when we arrived the puma was laying behind a thorn bush so all of us would once more need to stand nearby and just wait it out, opting to stay out for the whole day as opposed to returning to camp and coming back later. We were standing there in the thorns, everyone with their cameras at the ready as we saw the occasional ear twitch above the bush, a paw in the air as the cat rolled over, and sometimes it would even poke its head up for us, but the weather was beginning to get worse. It was becoming very windy once more, plus now it was pouring rain almost horizontally and I think our drivers could see us getting more and more uncomfortable in the weather so after four hours of standing in the prickles and sitting on rocks Chris came over and asked if we wanted to go back to camp. Anna and I really wanted to, but weren’t sure if the others would object, however, Rita agreed, telling us that we had already seen something better than we could expect to encounter in this location so they would stick around for a few more hours, but had no issue with us returning. Thank God, so we made the drive back to camp, reversed in at the correct angle so the doors would stay on, and could now enjoy time to ourselves.
Some photos while we were out for the day:

It was now only about 3:00pm so we relaxed in our room and listened to music, but we also figured it might not be a good idea to sleep now, because if we did we would be out for hours and then would wake at a terrible time, making us feel even worse. Anna decided to get a massage while I just stretched out my back on the bed until later on when everything would be available in the community dome so when it was time I grabbed a beer and got chatting to an older couple from Darwin while a middle-aged woman from New Zealand with terrible plastic surgery who seemed to be in the midst of her Eat, Pray, Love crisis sat in the lotus position and preached to her group of friends about the benefits of yoga. We heard all about how doing yoga in Bali will blow your mind and the time that she went to a silent yoga retreat that changed her world. It was funny for the three of us until it was time for her yoga class at the camp and she tried and tried to drag us along, because, “It will be a life-altering experience!” I almost said that I’d consider going if she could guarantee me that she wouldn’t be in the room just to get her to go away, but I didn’t want to poke the bear, because she may just end up lurking outside and quizzing me on it when we were done.
Anna soon arrived and we had a couple of games of Jenga before Rita and Eduard returned after braving the wind and rain, both satisfied with that day’s sighting so they would both be joining us on our excursion through the national park the following day. The logistics of this were later explained to us by our guide — If we were lucky, we would get to see a lot of cool animals as well as some historic cave paintings, but what appealed to me most was that it was going to start at 7:30am, one hour later than usual so we’d get a little extra sleep!

Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Getting up at 6:30am still wasn’t the easiest after the previous few days, but it was still definitely a welcome alternative, plus we got to catch the sun rising over the camp. Another added benefit of today was that we were going to be spending the entire day on sealed roads so although my back was still extremely painful, we knew it wasn’t going to get too much worse for now. We wouldn’t be returning to camp during the day so we all had some breakfast as well as packing a box each for lunch and hit the road.
The plan was initially to play a bit of bird bingo, pulling over to spot some of the local avian species around the wetlands including flamingos and an ibis, however, after about two hours that plan was scrapped when we saw a bunch of vans and 4WDs pulled over with the occupants with their cameras out, because that could only mean one thing. We were still driving when I spotted the puma coming down the hill and this one was definitely going to get Eduard and Rita excited, because it was the best view they both could possibly hope for. We pulled over, got out and watched as it stretched out in the downward dog position before slowly walking down towards us, the sound of camera shutters going off all around us. Everyone managed to snap some great shots of it before it turned around, jumped a stream, and wandered off into the distance.
Sunrise at the camp, a couple of birds, and our feline friend coming down the hill including a video I managed to capture of it:

Obviously we were all excited to have been able to get that close to the puma and take some extraordinary photos, but what none of us realised is that the day was really only just beginning! We didn’t need to just play bird bingo, we could’ve tried to tick off every major native fauna species in the region over the course of that day. Only an hour after the puma sighting Rita noticed something scurrying across a field, our guide telling us that it was a baby armadillo, appearing like a hybrid of a porcupine and a pig. This particular creature eventually stopped and burrowed itself into the ground so again we moved on, however, we didn’t have to travel more than a couple of minutes before we found a whole lot of rheas, a large flightless bird, in a field on the other side of the road, some just eating, others running around in a crazy manner. There are also several different species of fox in Patagonia, something that is just a pest where I grew up, but Anna was excited to see one and this excitement passed on through the bus when we saw another in a field of sheep. We had come all of this way to see pumas, but there was always the hope that we may get to see a kill. Sure, a fox taking down a newborn lamb wasn’t what we had in mind, but it would still be bloodshed! We waited and watched as the fox prowled around the field, some of the sheep becoming a little uneasy as it approached, especially the ones with young lambs, but I guess this guy wasn’t that hungry or just lost interest, because eventually he just scarpered off, not to be seen again, however, along the way to lunch we saw an eagle up close sitting on a fencepost.
Our post-puma sightings:

We had pulled over for lunch in an area with toilet facilities, set up a table, and were all sitting around to eat, but we had to go back to the bus, because the wind came up once more and was strong enough to blow the entire table over. Once on the go again we made several stops to take in the scenery and a few group shots, but there was something else we had come to see that Anna had recently been reading about in her book, Sapiens, and that was some ancient cave-paintings by the Tehuelche people:

The Tehuelche people, also called the Aónikenk, are an Indigenous people from eastern Patagonia in South America. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Tehuelche were influenced by Mapuche people, and many adopted a horseriding lifestyle. Once a nomadic people, the lands of the Tehuelche were colonized in the 19th century by Argentina and Chile, gradually disrupting their traditional economies. The establishment of large sheep farming estates in Patagonia was particularly detrimental to the Tehuelche. Contact with outsiders also brought in infectious diseases ushering deadly epidemics among Tehuelche tribes. Most existing members of the group currently reside in cities and towns of Argentine Patagonia.

These paintings are between 6,000 to 8,200 years old, making them the earliest found in South America so after a relatively short hike we were at the top of a hill with a great view over the area, interpreting a cave painting that appeared to show some of the local people hunting a guanaco. A sign at the area informed us that the pigment used was made from a using stone tools to grind minerals and then mixed with a binder fluid.
A group shot of us, the hiking trail, the cave art, and some postcards we were shown of the Tehuelche:

We were back on the road again and while Eduard excitedly scrolled through his photos and Rita kicked back with her headphones on, it had reached that time where Anna and myself required a little snooze as we chugged along. The reason we were continuing was there was another hiking area two hours away, however, when we arrived only Eduard had the energy to continue up another hill. Our guide suggested to the driver that he take the other three of us to another area, again with incredible scenery, so we could walk across a bridge over a lake to a cafe on an island and relax. We took the walk across, but once we were in the cafe, which was part of a larger resort, it was closed, but that didn’t matter anyway, because they only served hotel guests, a rule that applied to the toilets too. Instead we sat around on a bench and chatted while taking in the bright blue lakeside view while a bird stared at us, later me ducking around the back of a construction site to pee before we picked up our guide and Eduard to get back to camp.

By the time we had arrived back we had been out for 12 hours so a sleep in to finish the trip was all we wanted, but as we sat around our table inconveniently located right next to a fireplace that had us constantly needing to get up and walk around just to cool off we learnt the truth. We knew that there was going to be a sunrise viewing through the mountains the next morning, but our plan was just to skip it and get a ride to our flight later, as we had already seen the salmon-coloured skies, plus I was starting to get really nervous at the prospect of having a major seizure due to how little sleep I had had over the past week. Well, that wasn’t to be, because the ride to the sunset viewing was also our ride back to Puerto Natales for our flight to Santiago, ours being at 3:00pm, and in much the same way that Strongman competitions put the weights in ascending order in each event, we would need to be in the van with our luggage loaded at 6:00am, meaning we would be getting up at five, our earliest yet. Still, there was no way to kill the elation for Eduard and Rita with what they had seen that day, so there were a few celebratory drinks, but we couldn’t stay up much past sunset.
Around the lake area and our final dinner together:

Wednesday, October 15, 2025
I made it through the night unscathed, but I was in a BAD mood when the alarm went off. Not only was the floor freezing once more, but there was absolutely no need for us to even be up at 5:00am, we didn’t care about seeing the sunset from behind the mountains! Well, that wouldn’t be too much of an issue anyway, because after we had loaded our suitcases in the car and taken the one-hour drive around the back of the towers it was too cloudy to see anything so we just continued on. There was breakfast for us in the car if we wanted it, but I just immediately fell asleep, waking up two hours later in Puerto Natales, my only recollection of the drive being snorting loudly once or twice. Now we had the other issue Anna and I were both dreading; it was only 9:30am, our flight wasn’t until 3:00pm, and Puerto Natales, although technically being classed as a city, only has 18,000 people so there wouldn’t be much to help us kill four hours before we needed to be at the airport. We left our luggage in the Natural World Safaris office, got a cup of coffee from there and then went to have a look around, but besides cafes there wasn’t anything open for the time being so that meant having another coffee and a snack. When done we wandered around aimlessly, looking at whatever shops were open, most of which sold hiking, skiing, and fishing equipment or hardware for some reason, even checking out the supermarket until it was midday and we could go to a place to eat something we would only be able to get in Patagonia — A guanaco pizza.
Finally it was time to get going to the airport and when we arrived it seemed rather small, but that didn’t matter, I just needed to use the toilet, however, it was closed and this wouldn’t be the last time I’d experience that feeling. When I came back to Anna it was then that we realised a miscommunication between us and the Uber driver had us dropped off at a bus terminal so we ordered another where I could barely fit with our luggage, but we made it to the airport on time, although once again the toilets were being cleaned.
We arrived at Santiago Airport and due to having a flight the following morning we would just be staying in the airport Holiday Inn so we dumped our bags in our room, went down to the hotel bar for some dinner and drinks while watching a weird local version of Strictly Come Dancing that had an astronaut dancing with an alien while the hotel staff cleaned the toilet preventing me from going once more, me absolutely busting by the time we were in our room.
Some scenes from our last day in Patagonia, sans sunrise:

So that’s it for Patagonia. Stay tuned for the final leg of this trip where we head to Mendoza, Argentina to have fun in the city, visit a winery, eat tons of beef, and then have one last night back in Santiago, Chile.