Day 4 - Santiago to Rio Serrano

Well it turned out we weren't over our jetlag, which was possibly a blessing - it meant we were awake well before our 2.30am alarm. For the first time our sleep had been disturbed by the protesters, perhaps because it was a Friday night, though personally I slept through the water cannons and tear gas that other people reported today.

All of this meant we were awake with plenty of time and plenty of energy, at least temporarily. That turned out to be handy when we got to the airport. There had been an accident some way in front of us. A bus had driven itself onto the end of one of the concrete barriers that line any road in the world undergoing repairs. It was impaled on at least two metres of cement and clearly stuck, leaving room for cars (but not buses) to get by. So we were unloaded perhaps half a km from the terminal,  where it was clearly in our favour that we'd packed (relatively) light.

Our plane left close to the scheduled time and we had a bit of a view of Chile before the clouds closed over.

Then we were able to get some sleep until the view improved towards the end of the flight.

Punta Arena was much as you might imagine; a relatively modern (air bridges) though modestly sized airport on a wide, windswept plain.
We then drove north  in two small buses, interupted by a lunch stop and some wildlife including sheep, lots of upland geese, lesser rheas, and raptors I didn't catch but which I think were southern caracaras.

In Puerto Natales we stopped and saw some black necked swans.

After that we stopped at Lago del Toro and then descended to our hotel at Rio Serrano.

The hotel itself is a modern, minimalist and rather scandinavian design with large picture windows framing the view of Torres del Paine.

After settling in, I went for a short walk while Lynn refrshed herself, before a group dinner. Likely the start of a pattern where we pretend to be sociable.