Weather update: cold, clouds, rain and more Rain. 🌧. I’ve not seen this much rain since I was in the Amazon and even then it usually fell at night. Funny how you take the constant sunshine for granted.

6am; Up, showered, stuffed my face at breakfast – what is it with me and free food…..any food, you’d think I was deprived as a child.

Another minibus tour, this time to Torres del Paine National Park.

On boarding the vehicle the tour guide announced to the rest of the passengers that there was a very special nationality from Scotland aboard then proceeded to ask me to sit on a single seat as I was the only one travelling alone 🤣. Maybe I should have booked into this hotel !!

What rotten weather, I sat in my wee single seat and stared out the condensation streaming window hoping things would improve.

1st stop Mylodon cave discovered in 1895 by settler Eberhard Hermann.

Inside he found inside a strange skin with thick hairs. Scientists as well as curious people were both interested in the finding and soon it was established that it was the the fur of a Mylodon, a large extinct sloth.

Although these minibus tours are a great way to experience a huge variety of attractions in and around the area, there’s never enough time to properly explore and as for taking photographs that have been well composed – forget that one!! But I did the best I could in the time I had and to be honest I probably stretched it a little and stretched the patience of the tour guide on many occasions!

So, back on the bus and into my singular little bucket seat and we were off to our next destination in the rain, to the icebergs and glacier.

To get to our intended destination I crossed a rather bouncy, swinging suspension bridge that would only allow 6 people to cross at a time.

And after a 15mins swift walk the floating iceberg came into view. Even though the scene of enormous floating icebergs was utterly amazing, I had to remind myself that this pretty picture was actually a disastrous situation and that the melting of the glaciers was happening because of how environmental change was impacting on the earth!

they were enormous, so blue and so beautiful. The glacier fromst where they came in the far, far distance is called the Grey Glacier and this was Lago de Grey – shame about the grey skies.

“15 mins” the guide repeated, “15 mins”. Like that was going to happen. We all swiftly dispersed like greyhounds out a trap with no intention of returning in 15mins 🤣

To walk to the far end of the pebble beach would take at least 20 mins and up a rocky wee path to get a Birdseye view stopping every 2sec to take zillions of photos – you do the math!!

After 40 mins or so, the exasperated tour guide came marching down the beach – all he needed was a whistle and whip!!! we were all rounded up like a flock of sheep by a froth spitting collie dog!

So after getting rushed across the swinging bridge, and jumping back on the bus, we were driven at high speed to our next destination on our leisurely sightseeing journey – we were off to the towering mountains stopping off at one of the most expensive restaurants I have been in on my whole trip in South America. I guess if you play with the rich kids you have to pay the price 🤑 – 24,000 Chilean Peso and by my calculation that’s about £24. To be fair, that included soup, main, sweet, juice and a beer but it was only lunch time and my stomach would have rejected more than half of that and there was no option to have anything less!

As I sat eating my way through the enormous BBQ’d plate of beef, I could see the light changing on the huge towers outside my window and I couldn’t really force this beef down any quicker.

Photograph session finished and before I knew it I was sitting in my wee naughty chair looking out the same window and we were off!

Next stop on our busy itinerary was to a gorgeous waterfall coloured by the melting glacier ice.

A few beautiful photos here and everyone was keeping an eagle eye on the hopping monster.

We didn’t have to be sheparded this time, the look was enough and like a dutiful compliant flock we made our way back to the automobile!

There were a few other stops on our return journey and I think by this stage he was reluctant to open the doors to let us out 🤣

The rugged and beautiful landscape never failed to impress and we left Torres del Paine national park with an impressive view of the Towers. What amazing day it turned out to be. I will apologise profusely to the frazzled guide for stretching his patience should I bump into him before I leave on Thursday. It all worked out in the end and I am sure we all got the photos we deserved 🤣

Even though the bus didn’t stop to photograph the handsome foxes nor the birds of prey that hovered as they hunted over the Valley, nor the beautiful colourful birds of varying sizes that sat on treetops and branches, it was a long wonderful day in the National Park.

I have a feeling that after we left, the tour guide shut the minibus door and wept!!!

Fell asleep as soon as I got back to the room and slept till morning only waking up to visit the wee ladies room.

Nite 😘