No rest for the wicked: up at 5.30am in order to make a 7am bus to the airport for our flight to Puerto Montt. We were too early for breakfast so the hostel made us bags to go. A ham, cheese and salami sandwich and some cookies! Not quite our idea of breakfast, so we ate some of our own cereal bars as we settled into our seats and saved the sandwiches for our lunch. We were the first people into the airport that morning, first in the SKY airlines queue. The counter hadn't even opened yet, we were so early! But the bus from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas airport takes three hours and if we'd got the next one, we'd have been too late to check baggage... so we waited patiently for the airport to wake up. Free wifi in the airport! Not a brilliant connection but good enough to get some travelmin done whilst we waited for two hours at the gate. We were allowed to bring two litres of water through security (South America definitely has different rules around this?!) and we ate our sandwiches too, thus avoiding spending any money. Small pleasures! We had been slightly dubious about booking with SKY airlines, given their low prices and lack of airline alliance. Were they utter cowboys?! We were about to find out... and we were pleasantly surprised! Pretty uncomfortable seats and no legroom for Olli, granted, but the plane was clean, on time and it was quick to board, disembark and collect our luggage. And we had seats together with a window seat for Olli (thank you for checking us in, Rebecca!); what's not to love? Not going to speak too soon though, because we have to fly with them again on 1st December to get to Santiago... We hopped on a shared shuttle to Puerto Varas (with a lady who was wearing enough perfume for six people) and were dropped directly at our hostel. Our room had a beautiful view out across Lago Llanquihue, despite the rain that had begun to fall. Exhausted and desperate to flop, we had to rally to run errands: laundry, buying bus tickets to Pucón, buying water. With that all done in the little town, we treated ourselves to a huge empanada and walked back along the lake front, the weather having cleared. We have made it to the Chilean lakes, hurrrah! The changeable weather was a perfect excuse to plan very little for the rest of the day (and the next!). Soooo tired from the W Trek followed by the early start to the day, we had an early dinner at La Gringa/Mercado 605 with some yummy Chilean wine and had a super-early night. Zzzzzzz...
