Godot should show up any minute now...

(Puerto Natales, Patagonia, Chile) The inherent problem with ferries that sail on a weekly schedule is that... well it takes a week from one departure to the next, so all you can do in between is waiting.

I have left Punta Arenas yesterday and took one of those fancy air-conditioned, toilet-equipped, non-stop, frequently going buses that make traveling down here so easy back to Puerto Natales. After a movie-watching marathon in my hostel last night, there is still another 48 hours to go until I can board the ferry which will take me over the course of 5 days to Puerto Montt, 1000km (600 miles) further north - surely it will be much slower than any bus, but I hope that the trip through the Patagonian Channels offer me views that I couldn´t experience otherwise. Until then I have more than enough time to explore the areas of Puerto Natales I haven´t seen... and then another 45 hours to spare.

The tourist season here seems to come to an end - like I did a week ago I am staying in the Hostel Kawashkar, but this time with far less people around than before. The streets and restaurants reflect that as well, and a few weeks from now the tourist stream heading to and from the Torres del Paine National Park will have slowed down to a trickle, and Puerto Natales will return to being a quiet harbor town.

By and large the Argentinean and Chilenean sides of southern Patagonia are very similar in that it is cold, the weather is harsh and changes quickly, the landscape is beautiful and the streets are crap, the people are generally friendly, and even the spoken Spanish isn´t radically different. What IS different, however, is the cuisine!

It´s not only the absence of empanadas (those tasty patries filled with meat, onions, cheese, etc.) and "Tenedor Libres" (it´s like a buffet - you pay once and can keep on stacking your plate with meat from the BBQ) - which were widely available in Argentina. What is the most striking difference is coffee. Argentineans love their espressos and consume these (or cafés con leche) after every meal and in between if there is time. Espresso machines are readily available in every restaurant! In Chile, however, what you are most likely to get when ordering a coffee is a cup of hot water and a box of instant coffee. Make it yourself! Just today at lunch I ordered a café con leche (coffee with milk) and received a cup with microwaved milk and a little shaker with instant powder. It wasn´t as bad as I feared, but I think the waitress was secretly laughing in the kitchen about me.

All that said, the Chilenean kitchen I have experienced so far has been very tasty and interesting as well. The region XII (Los Magallanes) is known for it´s abundant and flavorful Salmón (Lachs, Salmon) - and after a healthy portion of Salmón a la plancha (literally "ironed" Salmon) I understand why. Besides that there is a lot of barbequed sheep, a variety of "burgers" with different meats and sauces (lomitos, churrascos), and luckily still the tasty "Chorizos" I know from Argentina, little spicy sausages made of everything left from the pig that isn´t cut up otherwise. I´ll have a few of those for dinner tonight.