34. Chile: Roadtrip (Part 4): Eating and sleeping at cabanas within the National Park’s boundaries (Torres del Paine National Park/UNESCO World Heritage Site)
Serrano River Village,
Villa Rio Serrano is a cluster of hotels, cabanas and campsites at the Serrano river. The road to it leads down from a great height from where there are good views over the “village” and of course the surrounding nature which is mind blowing.
The Cabanas
The Wandelgek had hired a cabana, which is a wooden cabin including a porch in front. The view from that porch was soooooo cool, and because The Wandelgek
Exterior
From the outside, the cabanas are like little wooden hutts. A loo is attached.
They are located in sap green meadows near the river …
The porches are directed toward the Torres mountain range.
The place simply looked idyllic…
Interior
The interior include 2, 2 single bed bedrooms, a common room with benches chairs, a low table and a dinner table with chairs, a small kitchen, a loo and a shower.
From the kitchen, there was a wonderful view over the mountains…
The cabana had some large windows so that the inhabitants would not miss any moment of the view, the changing weather conditions or the animals, wild and domestic.
The Hotel del Paine and restaurant
Near the cabanas were two hotels of which The Wandelgek visited 1 for drinks and for dinners.
Drinks
The Hotel del Paine was fantastic. It had a large restaurant with huge windows overlooking the area. They had a great array of beers and after the daily walks in the park it was a really cool hangout for a few drinks
They had these really cool coasters with prints of local nature etcetera, made of a thin cork layer. Obviously The Wandelgek loved to bring some of those home 😀.
You probably don’t know how creative you can get when drinking a beer alone 😆, but here is the result of creativity 🤣.
Luckily there were always fellow travellers around😀.
Dinner
In the evenings, this restaurant served dinner and The Wandelgek tried it once with a dekicious meat dish …
and once with an equally delicious pescetarian dish…
A desert to finish…
Evening at the cabanas
The evenings at the Cabana were filled with drinks and snacks, sitting in the common room and on the porch, depending on how cold it would get…
The Wandelgek had taken some canned beers…
… and meat snacks from El Calafate and not everything had been used during the journey…
Above is sealed dried Guanaco meat, beneath is an Amber Lager Beer and some sealed (not dried) guanaco meat.
It is important to seal meat, but also other types of (fresh) food, because then it is allowed to take it across the border. You can even bring it with you in a plane.
The animals
The Wandelgek had been strolling in the evenings through the area surrounding his cabana, which was a rather grassy area. There were lots of domesticized animals around, mainly sheep and horses…
This was a rather inpressive sheep…
The wool must easily weigh several kilos …
The porch and the view
From the porch the views over the Andes mountains were really astounding…
The Wandelgek loved sitting there when dusk fell, drinking a beer, eating a snack and enjoying watching over the animals that were actually bonding, now that night was coming. They tried to search eachothers company, probably for protection and warmth…
On the last picture above, a rainbow is visible to the upper left. More clouds and an occasional shower had been passing by…
Then The Wandelgek went for a sleep, so he could get up early for the next day of hikes in this wonderful park…