Back in port and on the road again

Back in port early in the morning December 29 we picked up the Toyota, which faithfully started, and headed north on the “end-of-the-world” highway and soon crossed the border to Chile in direction of Porvenir.  Here we decided to free-camp at the port’s lighthouse facing the Magallean strait….. and slept truly peacefully until about 03:00 hours when we woke up by a typically strong Patagonian wind.

Impossible to sleep, we rapidly packed up and waited until having breakfast in a local hotel café.

The following day we took the ferry to Punta Arenas we stayed at a motel full of backpackers and other overlanders. Amongst others (among travelers from Brazil, Germany, France, Chile, USA, etc. – some hitchhiking, some biking and some in campers), we met a nice young Italian couple planning to run the medio-marathon in Barcelona in February – maybe some other runners we know will meet them?

Yesterday, we arrived Puerto Natales and are now camping at a very nice camping recommended by Chilean overlanders – Alfredo and Gloria – who we got to know in Ushuaia. And last night, we prepared a joint new years’ eve meal where everyone brought something (in our case we were instructed to bring avocados from Punta Arenas). Happy, we received the new year well fed and in company with other travelers of mixed ages, cultures, languages, and objectives.  And, in addition, as a soft opening to the new year, we had a calm first night of 2024.  

We will stay at this camp until tomorrow as we discovered our long searched-after camping gas bottles for our kitchen in a sports/camping store. We will get them first thing tomorrow morning before continuing north.