El Calafate to Puerto Natales 3-5-26

I'm in El calafate riding down to Puerto Natales on the 5th of March 2026. As usual it was a windy day and it took quite a while but I finally made it down to Esperanza where I had to fill up.  There were a few bikes there resting from the wind and chilling at the gas station.  After a few minutes rest I pressed on southwest to the border with Chile.  At the Argentina side it was a dirt road (we had been there before in 2018) and the buildings were in the middle of nowhere.  When I parked the bike next to the buildings there was a family of foxes, cute little foxes just running around all over the place playing, jumping around, checking people, out running under cars looking for snacks.  I went in and did my paperwork came back out took a few more photos of the foxes and then started heading down the road and when you get to the Chile the road is concrete and quite nice so you ride down into the first little town where the immigration offices and you do your stuff.  The wind was so horrendous that I was quite empty on the gas, so I asked about a gas and the policeman said oh it's right in town so I rode around town and I didn't see anything and thought oh well we'll just keep going and and maybe when we start heading towards Puerto Natales I will find a place.    I headed up into Torres Del Paine national Park and kept going and going and finally I got some great views and I was wondering where the heck is the darn place where you have to pay to get in and I just kept riding until I got some really awesome views to take photos and I still wasn't inside the park.   I did my photos that I wanted, the sky was clear, it was pretty incredible and then I turned around and went back towards the border area and that was about 60 km so I put on an extra 120 kilometers at least and then I really needed to get gas. 

I stopped in at the basic general store and ask the folks where the gas station was and they said oh you get gas at the hotel and they sell it in jugs or something, so I thanked them and then rode over to the hotel down in town. I asked the lady and she said oh yeah go around back blah, blah, blah, talk to these guys...  I finally find these guys and they say meet us over at that cargo trailer,  I went to the cargo trailer and they had like 20 huge red gas tanks that you carry in your truck.  They had like 20 or 30 of these containers that held about 20 liters in each. The guy asked how much do you want?  Six liters or 10 or 20? Six will be fine, so he poured it in a jug, then put it in the bike, I paid and off I went. 

The ride from basically the border down to Puerto Natales was pretty uneventful.  As usual, wind and I was expecting a lot of pine trees and stuff because I thought that that's what was around there, but it really wasn't, it was still pretty barren. When I got into Puerto Natales and started looking for a place to stay, I was really surprised that it was such a touristy hiker kind of town with a Bazilian hostels all over the place and so I looked for one and couldn't find it so then I was just riding around town and I found another one I think on booking.com and then went in and got a room. The room was in the back, no windows and at least I got to park the bike in a very secure area back by my room and it had a little breakfast. They consider breakfast like toast and coffee, breakfast .... 

I was starving because, basically I only eat once a day, I decided to walk downtown to the main square and I found a awesome little restaurant that was serving.  Pizza and pasta was their specialties and I ended up getting a salmon ravioli dish that was just incredible.  The guy said oh yeah, we make these these raviolis daily and everything is fresh so I really enjoyed that dinner.

Later, I found a place to get some cash from a cash machine at the local gas station. I went to a couple of Banks and they didn't have any ATMs available so finally the gas station was it.  I got some money out of there just for general principles because I didn't know if I could use my card or had to pay everything in cash like in Bolivia.    That was about it for the day.