This entire time, we were really building up to visit the Torres del Paine national park – which is the Patagonia from the postcards. We took public bus to Puerto Natales, the gateway to the park – where 19 years ago, B and his dad and I, also started our trip to Patagonia. Boy, did that town change – super cute, full of hippie tourists and young kiddos who are all into adventure sports from all over the world. Comfy, minimalist, Scandinavian style hotels (Vendaval and Big Sur) were awesome. Great restaurants, shopping – sort of a Boulder vibe 25 years ago, way more affordable though.

Andres picked us up for the trip to park – the # of visitors are limited so you need to book tickets way ahead. One formal hotel in the park, most people come for a day and get out or stay just outside of it. We wanted to be in the park. However, even though we booked 10 months ahead, with a local travel agent, we were on a waitlist and tent was going to be our thing. Ah, not so fast, that was not our idea of vacation to celebrate the big 50 – on the ground, with bugs, cold and crawling with back pain in the morning. Plus, how are we going to be eating in a park with nothing around? While we were assured there will be a chef coming by to cook for us (odd, yet strangely tempting and maybe we could live with that) – but were really hoping for the refugio. It came through in November.

We did a quick drive through the park as it is huge (almost 1000 sq miles) – and a small hike to a few miradors, had a guanaco sandwich on top of one (yep, real guanaco tastes like beef) to snap some very kitchy but very real pictures.

You’d think we filtered the pictures but 100% real – all of it – our stunning figures, colors, skins – oh and the nature too :-).