Couch-surfing in Puerto Natalie

It was an urgent request for couch-surfing in Puerto Natalie. We asked one day before going there, even checked in a hostel. There we got online and found Gloria accepting our request, so we left the hostel in the rainy night and went to her home with our already-bought dinner. We were surprised to find that there were other couchsurfers at her home, then realized that Gloria was a very generous host who turned her home to a couchsurfing family with new people coming every now and then. She served dinner too. Then we had a traditional homey Chilean dinner on our arrival. The dinner included beans and fish stew. I like the fish stew a lot that I kept adding on my plate.

As for our room. We stayed in a room with two bunk-beds and we were on the bottom of one. The carpet was a bit filthy, no wonder all people wore shoes instead of slippers (or because it is cold here). All couchsurfers (one Spanish and one Chilean girls, a Belgian couple and us) shared the same bathroom which was also kept warmth by heater (good to dry clothes). There were also heaters in the living room and the dining room, but not in our room and it was quite chilly in there. Gloria also sold bus ticket to Torres del Paine and other nearby place, like a travel agent. Viewing that we lived at her place and she served us meal, we let her be our agent for bus tickets, although we guessed she made some money by being agent. There were also camping gear available for borrowing. I could take 1/3 can of gas for the hiking trip because we were too late to buy one before the shops closed.

After we were back from the hiking trip, we were happy to use her kitchen to bake and made dinner (chinese fried noodle and sweet and sour pork at that night, and fried rice for the next). Maria was happy too to bake cake (apple crumple and banana cake) in the oven. Our stay in Gloria’s place was short but we felt like family there.