I woke up in the morning and tried to check in online and realized the airline had my middle name as my last name. I called them to fix it and they said they would try. I headed to the airport and couldn't check in because the name on my ticket didn't match my passport. Ten minutes after check in closed the airline called me and said it was fixed now.
Not seeing any other option I booked a brand new ticket, leaving that night. I did add one more day to my time in Patagonia, so that was one upside. My flight didn't leave until 11pm however, so I now had to kill 11 boring hours in the Santiago airport.
I got into Punta Arenas around 1am and took a cab into town. Earlier that day I had contacted my hostel and asked if they could accommodate me arriving between 1 and 2am. They said no problem, so I was very surprised when I got there at 1:20 and no one was there. I knocked on the door, rang the bell and called her phone to no effect. After half an hour I gave up and walked into downtown Punta Arenas with my bags looking for a hotel. I ended up at the Best Western at 2:30 am.
After that day, things picked up. In my mini bar I discovered a new brand of beer, Austral. Until then I had thought that Chilean beer was... Not awful, but not inspired either. Just a lot of really bland lagers. But Austral was actually good! Satiated, I went to bed and enjoyed a very good breakfast at the hotel.
I spent the next day walking around this little southern town. After Santiago, Punta Arenas (and seemingly all of Patagonia) was wonderfully relaxed. The people were friendly and very understanding of my broken and irregular Spanish. It seems that tourism is a bigger part of their industry there, so I think they are more willing to help the tourists out than in the Central Valley.
That evening I hopped on a bus to Puerto Natales, where I would experience the two highlights of my trip.
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