Growing complexity

OK, my head is swimming. It was so much easier when I didn't know anything about the places I planned to visit...

I've re-emailed the hotel in Sao Paulo I've heard nothing from, this time using a different address on their web page and with the e-mail in both English and machine-translated Portuguese. Still no response to my earlier e-mail to the Rio hotel, but it is the New Year's weekend. If I don't hear from them very early next week I will just have to go for something more expensive where you can book online.

I've also started to look into the early part of the Chile trip. Man, this is hard work. I wanted to go to Tiera del Fuego to start with. So I had a look in my guide book. Firstly, Punta Arenas is not actually in Tierro del Fuego. OK, it's not just about box-ticking - if it was, the guide practically suggests taking a short flight from Punta Arenas to Porvenir. So I now want to go to Puerto Williams, apparently the southernmost town in the world.

Punta Arenas appears to be part of civilisation. It's big-ish (110k inhabitants), it has hotels in abundance. Puerto Williams is a touch more edge of nowhere. I intend to fly out there from Punta Arenas - DAP (the local airline) do a flight every day. Their web site, however, has the 'bookings' page (in both Spanish and English) marked as 'under construction'. So I can't easily check the price or flight availability.

Given I'm reluctant to share a room with anyone, my accommodation choices in Puerto Williams are limited. It superficially appears to boil down to just the Lakutaia hotel, which has only 24 rooms, and I'm going at a peak time.

I also want to come back by ferry (34 hours in a reclining seat!), since you apparently get nice views of the glaciers that way. The ferry leaves once a week and is popular enough that you have to reserve in advance. The ferry company's website says it leaves on Saturday, but my 2005 guide book says it leaves at 10pm on Friday and doesn't arrive until 4am on Monday! That's way more than 34 hours and I can't see the boats having got that much faster since then. So I need to get in touch with them to check availability and exact days (so I can book hotels accordingly).

As a minor extra complication, I'd rather not take my suitcase on the ferry, as I have no idea what storage facilities will be available. So I also have to see if I can find a left-luggage office in Punta Arenas. (Writing this has been useful. I just realised I forgot to ask about luggage facilities in my draft e-mail to the ferry company.)

Once I get the ferry details sorted out, I need to 'simultaneously' reserve the ferry seat back and the hotel in Puerto Williams. I guess booking the hotel should come first, since I'm more likely to be able to back out on that if I then can't get the ferry booked. Of course, I could also be screwed by a lack of seats on the flight out to Puerto Williams. I guess I just have to cross my fingers.

It's also annoying that I can't really do anything about any of this until Monday, as no one can answer my questions until then. My own stupid fault for leaving it so late I guess, but it's still annoying.