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5/1/2018 Bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales

After yesterday dinner and wine, I’m a bit down and observing small neck pain. We woke up late and had breakfast around 9:30am. Then we packed our rucksacks and Denisa prepared food for the way to Puerto Natales. I asked the hostel owner if I can print our bus tickets (bought online couple of days ago on cordelo.cl website. The tickets we bought are Bus-Sur company and each ticket costed 8000 Chilean pesos. The bus leaves at 12:30 noon and it should arrive at 15:45 to Puerto Natales. 

Before noon, we left the hostel to the Bus-Sur bus station which is on Av Christobal Colon, very close to Hernando de Magallanes. We got our bags labelled and sat on the bus. Most of the people didn’t have their tickets printed like we had. They had a receipt from the bus station till. I don’t know if they bought directly here or got the receipt here back of an online payment. 

Now I’m on the bus. It’s cold here and I need to take some painkiller to get rid of my headache. Note that they checked the tickets when we were entering the bus and then they checked second time already on the way. 

We arrived to Puerto Natales bus terminal at 15:50. It is quite windy here. But sunny and not so cold. I had some hostels preselected in my google maps, and as we are walking down the hill towards the centre, we see Hostal Alazar. I wasn’t on our list, but we decided to ask how much is per night. The guy in the reception speaks English, so it’s easy. The last available double room and 60 usd per night. It is expensive, but middle range from my preselected hostels. So somehow we like it. We asked to see the room first and then paid in cash. 

The good thing, it is like 7 minutes walk to the bus station. After few minutes we walked down the hill to the centre to do shopping for next few days. First thing we went to buy was some warming gel for Denisa’s back pain. Chose one of the pharmacies and noticed a ticketing system, where you tear a small sticker with a number right at the entrance and then you wait until your number gets called to go to the till. The gel costed 3990 pesos. Then we bought one gas canister for 2300 pesos and stopped for a coffee and cake in Kawesquar. 


Then we tried to find some cheap backpack for Denisa as our small foldable Karrimor backpack startled tearing around shoulder straps. We found something very cheap and basic for 11000 pesos. Not really a sporty one, but who cares :) Then we bought another small gas canister (different make and different contents) for 2900 pesos (I didn’t know which one is better for my stove). Stopped in few places to see if we can buy cheap rain cover for our small backpack and found one in La Cumbre shop for 9500 pesos. We also bought some dried food for camping - two portions for 7000 pesos in total and paid by card. After that we went to Unimarc supermarket and bought some simple dinner (bread and salami and empanadas) and dried milk and oats. And then walked back to our hostal, are and washed our underwear and went sleep. 

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