GAME TIME

Day 1 of our trek in patagonia

things i learned:

1. people party hard in puerto natales on saturday night. wear earplugs if you want to even think about sleeping.

2. breakfast at 7 am really means 7:20 am...even though the bus comes at 7:30am. no big?

3. dont weigh your bag right before you leave. you may find it almost half your weight and freak out.

granted i weighed my bag with water, it was still over 40 pounds. it really worried me since this would be the first time backpacking with only two people. and with all the wind i had been warned about, i really didn´t want to set myself up for a miserable time. nevertheless, we did not do any rearranging and i just hoped for the best.

4. bring enough cash into the park.

we didn´t realize until we got to the point of no ATMs that we had a miscommunication about how much cash we had. oops. we counted and we did have enough for the entrance fee, the catamaran, and the shuttle back to the bus. whew! we were just going to have to pray that we had enough food and that we would never have to stay at the refugios.

5. glacier grey is absolutely stunning.

we had a beautiful first day. we pushed ourselves to campamento guardas which was INCREDIBLY close to glacier grey. aboslutely worth the extra 3 hours (even though every person we talked to along the way said we only had 30 min. left...). oh and by the way, there is a steep section that is guided by a rope you have to climb up. no one mentioned that either.

we actually saw some calving! that was very cool because we were so close to it.

and we saw the most spectacular sunset above the glacier that night. it was the most vibrant orange-pink color and filled the entire sky. what a perfect way to start our adventure.