I decided it was time for a short holiday to recharge and reflect on the previous year. A vehicle-relocation service seemed like an interesting option. Because so many people travel from Auckland to Christchurch, rental companies often have campervans that need to be returned north. This arrangement suited me: I could fly into Christchurch and depart from Auckland. I woke up early and took a train just after 6AM to the airport, arriving easily before 7:00. After checking in I cleared security and proceeded to my gate, waiting for my flight to depart. Jetstar flight 151 departed on time, and had me landing in Christchurch at 13:45 local time.

I awoke to stunning views that I had missed when arriving late the previous night. Mountains filled the horizon on one side and the beach on the other. Breakfast was a simple hard-boiled egg, since I didn’t have any oil, with a little bit of cheese. Just before 9:00 I started the van and began my drive north, needing to be at the Picton wharf by 13:25. The drive was beautiful and enjoyable, somewhat reminiscent of driving in Hawaii. The road seemed better than the last time I travelled it.

I have just returned from hiking the “W”, a famous circuit through the Torres del Paine, in Patagonia. Although I did some research before doing the trek, it turns out I made a number of assumptions that turned out to be incorrect. I will detail in this entry what I learned, a few things that worked well, and a few things that did not work so well.

My last day in Puerto Natales simply involved laundry, eating, and sleeping. I was not feeling particularly well and was extremely fatigued, so I rested at the Erratic Rock while she did the laundry. The highlight of the day may have been when she asked me to get her an orange and a few other things to eat on the ferry, just in case the time between meals was too long.

After exiting the port in Puerto Montt, I turned right, walked for 10 minutes, and entered the bus station. I quickly located the minibuses to Puerto Varas, paid my 800 pesos, and climbed aboard. Getting around Chile had been wonderfully easy. Buses were reasonably frequent, almost all were clearly labelled with their destination, and the terminals were close to where I had been staying. The minibus cruised through Puerto Montt, picking up passengers. I saw the unmistakable backpacks of the “English Couple” in the distance, and we soon left the city. Twenty minutes later, I arrived in Puerto Varas, got off at the corner of San Francisco and San Salvador, and walked to my hostel.

Before leaving Sydney I decided it would be worthwhile to go hiking in Patagonia. The “I” trek, arguably the most famous trek in the Torres del Paine, is what I opted to do. Although I noted the logistics of the trek in another post, I will share the photos and other stories here. I flew into Punta Arenas on an overnight flight, arriving just after 6:00 in the morning. The airport was small, similar to the one in Medford that I knew so well. It was comfortable, with plenty of room to spread out and sofas to lie on. There was also free Wi-Fi, although the connection was slow. One question remained: how would I get to Puerto Natales? I knew a bus left from the city and thought it might stop at the …

Although I had taken a few short trips this year, to Nepal and Taiwan, I had been saving my annual leave for a bigger journey through South America. This trip will probably be my last for quite some time. This morning, I woke up and finished preparing for my flight. I had some difficulty organising my seats because the departure time kept changing, I couldn’t check in online, and calling the hotline proved futile. The check-in lines were long, but I could use a shorter queue because I had no checked baggage.

I arrived in Chile shortly after 18:00, although the sun was still beaming as if it were noon. At the airport, I withdrew some money and immediately caught the Centropuerto bus near the front of the terminal, just as Triposo advised. I bought a return ticket and was soon dropped off at Pajaritos Station on Line 1. I managed to get a Bip! card and caught the metro to Manuel Montt, the station closest to my hotel.

My first trip to Kathmandu is now over, so there are some lessons learned I should scribe. Some of these are obvious rules I usually abide by whenever travelling, and some I simply forgot in my (very) impromptu trip to Nepal. When agreeing on a price, make 100% sure the other person states the price back to you. I thought a price had been agreed to when the other person responded “ok ok, you are a lucky man”, but this does not count. As they say, reconfirm, reconfirm, reconfirm. When arriving at the airport, make sure you have small bills, too. I had 3x 100RS, 1x 10RS, and then a few 500RS. The price I negotiated was 440RS, and it would have been nice to have paid the exact amount. During my visit, …

Stopped hosting websites for people. I cancelled almost all the domains I was hosting for other people and removed their websites from my server. Hosting websites generally does not take much time, but I still needed to manage backups, monitor them, and make sure everything worked. This was fun when I was younger: “Neat, I can host websites virtually for free!” Over time, however, the appeal faded. I now help with only two websites.