Ryan Greenberg

It’s time to add another superlative achievement to my list: this morning Amanda and I landed in Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world (though as Wikipedia indicates, that depends somewhat on your definition of city). Since our flight arrived at the early-bird-special time of 3:15am, we slept on the airport floor for a few hours before taking a taxi into the city. We hopped onto the 8:00 bus to Puerto Natales, a city about three-and-a-half hours north. Our first comic traveling moment of the trip came about 20 minutes later, when our bus made a pass by the airport to pick up passengers there. Why the gentleman I spoke with on the phone yesterday said nothing of an airport pickup escapes me, but we chalked it up to experience.

At 8:17am it started raining, which is sure to be the first of many times this week—Torres del Paine is somewhat famous for its sudden changes-of-heart when it comes to the weather. The road to Puerto Natales was impressive. It was covered with what looked like arthritic trees, warped and bent to the whims of the wind over time. Some of the trees were draped with an almost phosphorescent green moss. These forests would be an excellent place to shoot a suspense film.

Upon arriving in Puerto Natales we booked our next bus to Torres del Paine, rented our stove, bought some last-minute food items, and ate lunch. At 2:30pm we hit the road again, and from that point it’s us and the trail until we come back on February 5. There’s no updates from here on out, but if you want you can look up information about the park and imagine us doing the W-trek over the next several days. See you on the flip side!