Santiago

Church on the central Plaza de Armas

 

Mapuche statue

Santiago was more or less a stopover point for us.  Kristen thought it was ‘eh’ on her last trip to Chile, and I wasn’t particularly excited to see it, either.  And it was exactly as expected – a South American city.  It’s got the central plaza, 200+ year-old colonial buildings, jam-packed pedestrian mall, brown stinky river that you can smell when the wind is just right, and a couple of very nice neighborhoods.  Certainly it was a pleasant example of a South American city.  It appeared to be safe, the colonial buildings were well-kept, and the bohemian neighborhoods were very nice.  It reminded us a lot of Buenos Aires.

We stayed at a great B&B in the center of town called Casa Bonita, and the owner gave us two major tips: lunch at the Central Market, and for a free guided walking tour of the city.  The Central Market was pretty cool, since it serves as the starting point for much of Santiago’s seafood.  Giant fish were stacked high, their names in Spanish.  We stopped at a restaurant in the center for a delicious lunch of fried conger eel and a seafood empanada.  We joked that this was not the place to order a salad.

The next morning, we headed to the central Plaza de Armas to take the walking tour.  Our guide appeared to be a student, and we were able to practice our (now much improved) Spanish with him.  The tour leaned heavily toward the history of Chile, including some very interesting points regarding the Mapuche tribe.  The Mapuche are an Incan tribe that resisted colonialism and fought hard against the Spaniards.  Chile is currently undergoing a sort of transformation in awareness of historical Mapuche oppression.  They are building statues dedicated to Mapuche heritage, and all over Santiago there are T-shirts and graffiti saying things like “Todos Somos Mapuche” (we are all Mapuche).  The guide curiously did not talk much about recent history, including Allende and Pinochét.

After the tour, we ate some typical Chilean food (cazuela de pollo and an empanada de pina) and headed for our bus to Mendoza.

Stachagonia

After 4.5 weeks of not shaving

After a trim and a cleanup – what an actual beard would look like

The ‘Pulp Fiction’

The goatee

The ‘Mask of Zorro’

The “19th Century Gangster”

The “Williamsburg Frontman”

The “Dictator”

The “Free at Last!”

I’ve tried to grow a beard a number of times, but never properly committed.  It gets itchy after a week or two and starts to look all scraggly and stupid, so I shave it.  But this time I swore I’d do it right.  This was my last chance to see what I look like as a mountain man.  So I emailed a bunch of my friends and told them I was going to grow a beard for as long as I was in Patagonia.  That way, there was accountability.  If I bailed out early, I’d face some humiliation.  I called the project “Stachagonia”.

The day we got to Santiago, our first stop out of Patagonia, I shaved that stupid thing into a variety of shapes.  Kristen couldn’t be happier to be rid of it, and neither could I.

Puerto Varas

   

Volcán Osorno and Lago Llanqihue as seen from a cow pasture on the lower slopes of Volcán Calbuco

Fuschia Magellanica.  We were happy to find that Kristen’s favorite flower from Butchart Gardens is apparently indigenous here.

Osorno floating in a marine layer that formed over Lago Llanqihue

We planned only 1 night in the Lakes District of Chilean Patagonia, which probably wasn’t enough.  The Lakes District looks like the Pacific Northwest of the US, with a series of densely packed volcanoes, lakes, and dense forest.  We stayed at an amazing place – Casa Ko, a small B&B about 40km outside of Puerto Varas – and by the time I realized we wanted more days in the Puerto Varas area, they were full.  Too bad.  I’d like to think we made the most of the time we had there, though.

Casa Ko is in the tiny village of Ensenada, on the lower slopes of Volcán Calbuco, with gorgeous panoramic views of the 3 local volcanoes and Lago Llanqihue.  It’s run by a young French couple (Raf and Pauline) who cook delicious meals every night, and who have built a hiking trail from the B&B to the summit of Volcán Calbuco.  They (and their guests) appear to be the only people who know about the trail.  You can’t really reach the summit without Raf guiding you, but he made a hand-drawn map for guests to find their way to the secluded Tepu waterfall and viewpoint about 3,000ft up.  So of course we had to do the hike.

The map was fantastic.  It was like being a pirate searching for buried treasure.  It had landmarks and instructions like “turn left at the big tree with roots”.  I loved it.  The first half of the hike worked its way through cow pastures (which was an experience for Kristen, since she’s a little bit afraid of cows).  They were mooing their asses off all day, because it happened to be the time of year when the calves are taken from their mothers.  The second half of the trail wound its way through a dense native forest, which looked not unlike the Hoh Rainforest in Oregon (though maybe a little less damp, and with the smell of rosemary added to the sweet smell of decay).  Eventually we emerged above the tree line, and scrambled up to an exposed viewpoint at the edge of a cliff.  Below us was a canyon with a small river and nice little waterfall, and all around us was an amazing view of the surrounding landscape.  A marine layer had developed over the lake, which gave the impression that Volcán Osorno was floating on the clouds.  Amazing.  We ate our lunch up there while the clouds shifted quickly.  On the way back down, the clouds parted and we had views of the lake from our cow pastures.  And we didn’t see a single person (save for one gaucho herding horses near the B&B) all day.  What a great hike, and a great day.

The bus ride from hell

We took the bus from Bariloche (Argentina) to Puerto Varas (Chile).  The route is fairly simple, crossing the Andes over a 5,000ft pass.  We paid extra for the bigger ‘cama’ seats at the front of the bus.  Turns out the girl across the aisle from us gets motion sickness, appeared to have eaten a full breakfast, and brought only a leaky plastic grocery bag for herself.  Despite her extreme unpreparedness, we felt sort of sorry for her until she tried to eat something in the middle of the ride.  It was a pretty awful 3 hours.  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

On Traveling

Some things that have been on our minds the past few weeks:

1. Tourism

About 2 years ago, Kristen and I were driving up to Acadia National Park, listening to David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster book on tape.  The author has a passage where he talks about the hordes of tourists flooding a quaint New England town for the annual Maine Lobster Fest.  He says:

“To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome.”

While I don’t necessarily agree with the degree of awfulness contained in this quote, there is something inescapable in its message.  Travelers are, for the most part, seeking one thing – an authentic experience.  But we can’t have it.  It’s true that I’m constantly mildly disappointed that I’m not the first ‘outsider’ to travel a particularly scenic road, or visit a particularly good restaurant.  Not that it ruins the experience, but there is a calculus involved – do I want to see or do this thing bad enough to become a part of its touristic commercialization?  In the case of the Perito Moreno glacier, absolutely yes.  But I wouldn’t be caught dead on an open-top city bus tour.

The feeling is intensified in poor and rural areas, particularly when people are selling handicrafts or other homemade/cheaply bought items.  It makes me wince every time.  The truth that I am one of the horde of foreigners (in the eyes of a local, of likely unimaginable wealth) that comes to this place to ‘experience’ it clashes with my self-image.  I don’t like how I must appear to these people.  The experience can be, to some extent, shameful.

Maybe that’s why we like to travel to places with lots of hiking and other outdoor activities.  When you’re in the wilderness, it seems to matter less that you’re not a local.  And there is nothing to buy, so there is no need to confront the economic and social impact of tourism.  In short, outdoor experiences feel ‘real’ to us – they don’t feel like transactions.  But in a foreign city, you can’t escape the feeling that you don’t belong.

2. Discomfort

Traveling is, by necessity, uncomfortable.  When I was a bit younger, the idea of travel was romantic.  I’d visit exotic locations, make exotic friends, and absorb local cultures.  I’d be a ‘citizen of the world.’ 

Now I know how it works – you see fantastic things, but you’re constantly on edge, and in a state of mild bewilderment.  The stresses come in two forms: practical and visceral.  The practical stresses are day-to-day – will the bus show up on time, will the hotel have my reservation, did that guy understand what I just said?  The visceral stresses are more intermittent, but make you long for home a bit more – who slept in this bed yesterday, did that guy just touch my salad without washing his hands?  The visceral stuff is especially important when traveling in the developing world.  In Argentina, they aren’t afraid to show you how the sausage is made.  Literally – the meat truck shows up with cow carcasses at the butcher shop and you can witness them hacking it into different cuts, and figuratively – a long-haul bus once picked up all us passengers and took us to their disorganized maintenance garage to tighten the lug nuts and check the tire pressure.  In the States, you never see that stuff, to the point that you forget anything behind-the-scenes exists at all.  The US is more or less Disneyland compared to South America.

And then there’s the constant bewilderment.  You don’t know how things work.  Questions are constant.  Why does the expensive long-haul bus pick people up at 2am on the side of the highway?  Did they have to buy tickets like the rest of the passengers?  Is this the tourist price or the real price?  (Exhibit A: we once made reservations at a hotel at a price of X, and when confirmed a few days later and asked for a reminder on the price, the owner said “well, what price did I tell you?”  Right.).  Everyone else always seems to know something you don’t.

Money can mitigate the discomfort somewhat.  Flying business class, staying in a 5-star hotel, etc.  But the truth is that travelers are just that – away from home.  Homesickness is real.  The desire for comfort and understanding is constant, and you don’t know you desire it until it’s not there.  The romantic ideal of travel to exotic places whitewashes over the practicalities.  Again, only after you’ve experienced it, there is calculus – is the experience of this place worth suffering the discomfort?  For Kristen and I, right now, absolutely.

Our parents have told us that our trip sounds incredible, but that they live only vicariously through our pictures.  They’re past the point where the discomfort is worth it.  Appreciating the idea of Home, I think, is one of the most important lessons a traveler learns.

Bariloche

Lago Nahuel Huapi and Hotel Llao Llao as seen from the Circuito Chico

Looking up the valley (and straight downhill) from the ridge behind Cerro Catedral

Lake #2 on the Ruta de los Siete Lagos

The West bank of Lago Traful, a short detour on the Ruta de los Siete Lagos

Ruta 63.  Beautiful, but not a shortcut.

Bariloche, a fairly touristy town in the Northern ‘Lakes Region’ of Patagonia, was our last stop in Argentine Patagonia.  The city is best known for two things – its chocolate, and as a Winter ski destination.  It’s situated along the shore of a large, ridiculously picturesque lake called Lago Nahuel Huapi.  The lake (as well as the surrounding mountains) create a strange climate in the Bariloche area, whereby South of town, Cerro Catedral gets many meters of snow per year, while the steppe North of town gets very little precipitation.  All of this makes for a very interesting Summer destination – gorgeous scenery and great outdoor activities in the presence of international luxury tourists.  The typical foreign tourist is a lot different in Bariloche than in, say, Chaltén.  For example, we heard some people saying they’d done an ‘exhausting 4km walk’ along the lakeshore.  It’s the kind of place an adventure-seeking traveler goes only if they’re on a very long trip.  In other words, it’s second priority to places like Torres del Paine and El Chaltén for people like us.  Nonetheless, it’s a fantastically gorgeous place and the outdoors are ripe to be taken advantage of.

We spent 6 full days in Bariloche, which was probably 2 too many.  But, since I originally intended the week as a rest from all the hiking and hostel-staying we had been doing for the past few weeks, we had booked ourselves a rental studio from AirBnB (which turned out to be a better deal than the over-priced local hotels/hostels anyway).  This meant we got to cook all our own meals, and finally had some privacy, so a very nice break is what we got.

Day 1: we spent the first morning walking around the city to get a lay of the land.  It was such a nice day, we decided to get a jump on the activities we had looked into.  So we took the local bus 20km West of town and rented bikes to ride the 25km Circuito Chico.  The route is relatively traffic-less, winding its way along the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, along other local lakes, past fjord-like mountain structures, and finally ending up near the most famous hotel in Argentina, Hotel Llao Llao.  Along the way, we were treated to some truly great views in the afternoon sun, and a pretty good workout.  After returning the bikes, we decided to stop into Hotel Llao Llao to have a drink.  The place was nice, but seemed pretty stuffy, and we were obviously the only people there who had just came from a bike ride.  We sat in the cafe/foyer and tried to flag down a waiter, but all we got were strange looks.  After a 20 minute wait, the waiters had visited all the tables except ours, and it was becoming clear they didn’t want our money.  We left in disgust.  Screw that place.  We got an empanada at a cafe down the street and took the bus back to our apartment.

Day 2: another nice day was forecast, so we decided to do the big local hike, from the base of the Cerro Catedral ski area to the top.  The 'classic’ hike involves taking the gondola to the top and walking down, but we wanted to do the opposite.  Going up is fun; going down sucks.  We took an early bus to the mountain, and nearly everyone but us headed for the gondola.  We had the trail mostly to ourselves, and passed a few groups on the way up to the intermediate point, Refugio Frey, where we had lunch.  The scenery at the Refugio was familiar – it looked like the Sierras!  Spiky granite outcroppings lined the hanging valley with its beautiful blue mountain lake.  The Frey area is known for rock climbing, and as we ate lunch we watched a few people scale the local outcroppings.  Afterwards the trail kept going up, and up, to an additional gorgeous hanging lake, and a plateau at the summit of the ridge.  It then began a traverse with a poorly marked trail on the back side of the ridge, through talus fields and across boulders, with views of the local mountain ranges and an extremely steep 3,000ft drop-off.  Finally, after 1 hour of enjoying ourselves on the rocks and an additional hour wishing the hike was over, we arrived at the top of the ski area.  Now, we had two conflicting desires: the desire not to destroy our knees hiking down 3,500 feet back to the base, and the desire to not spend $75 to take the lift down.  Luckily, the lift operators weren’t checking tickets on the way down (which speaks to the un-popularity of doing the hike in the direction we chose), and we were able to hitch a chairlift and a gondola ride to the bottom.  It was the perfect Kristen & Jeff hike – how often had we lamented that the main issue with hiking uphill is that you have to come back down?  We got all the fun of the hike and none of the misery!

Day 3: the third day looked like the last day with great, warm weather we might get in Bariloche, so we decided to rest our legs by touring the ‘Ruta de los Siete Lagos’ (7 lakes drive).  We rented a tiny car for a few hundred pesos (from a storefront shaped like a giant red toadstool), dropped our laundry off, and left the apartment around 9:30am.  The Ruta de Siete Lagos is just that – a road (or rather series of roads, part paved and part dirt) that pass by 7 lakes (or so) on its way from Bariloche to San Martin de los Andes.  The laundry place closed at 8, so we knew we had pretty much all day to enjoy the drive.  For the first several hours, we stopped frequently to take in the sights.  We also made a 2 hour detour to Villa Traful, a tiny resort town on Lago Traful.  It was beginning to get a bit late by that time, but Lago Traful turned out to be the most beautiful lake we saw on the entire trip.  We stopped at 3 points to take pictures of the lake, the last at a beach on the Western bank, which was our favorite spot of the day.  We wanted to stay, maybe forever, but we knew that if we did, we wouldn’t be able to get our laundry, and I was wearing a swimsuit because both my pairs of pants were dirty.  So regretfully, we left, and continued on our way up to San Martin.  The map made the last 25km to San Martin look pretty boring, and there seemed to be a shortcut to get back to Bariloche, so we turned off on to Ruta 63.  It turned out not to be a shortcut.  It was a 70km poorly maintained dirt road.  We probably saw 2 cars the entire time.  But as we slowly (very slowly) made our way back toward the highway, the views improved.  Crazy limestone formations began to come into view, and we snaked our way up and down gorgeous valleys.  The stress of wondering if our Volkswagen Gol was going to fall apart was tempered by the scenery.  In the end, the car was OK, and we got our laundry just in time.

Day 4: after 3 hectic days of activity, we decided to take the day off.  But the weather was so nice, we couldn’t just sit around.  We went for a 4 or 5 mile walk around town in the afternoon, and sampled some of the local chocolate at the most famous store in town, Mamuschka.  The store was ridiculously kitchy, and the chocolate was ridiculously delicious.  By far the best chocolate we’d had in South America.  It tasted like the real thing.

Day 5: After 2 relatively sedentary days, we wanted to get out and do another hike.  But it was threatening rain, so we had to settle for another quick walk around town, and more chocolate, this time at Rapa Nui (whose rama-style chocolate we liked even better than Mamuschka).

Day 6: The weather finally cleared up, so we did a hike up to Refugio Cerro Lopez (as recommended to us by the friendly woman at the car rental place).  It was about a 2,000ft climb, very steep, with the potential for an additional 500-1000ft rock scramble above the refugio to a scenic ridge.  As we made our ascent – Kristen leading the way and happily destroying me with her blistering pace – we began passing people wearing helmets and matching shirts.  It turned out they were participants in an adventure race, sort of like a hike/trail run.  We were clearly picking off the back of the pack, and we must have passed 100 or 200 people on our way up.  After a little over an hour, we reached the refugio.  The trail racers were all making their ascent up the rock scramble, and it looked like a logjam disaster up there.  So we decided to eat lunch and head back down.  We took the long way down – a shallow, switchback 4x4 road that was at least 3-4x longer than the direct way we took up the hill.  It was a tedious 3.5 hour descent, but we made it down without sore knees, and even had time to grab a coffee and a couple of empanadas in Colonia Suiza (the local Swiss-style settlement) before grabbing the bus back to Bariloche.  On the way back, we stopped off at the Cerveceria Berlina.  Bariloche is also known for a vibrant (and nascent) craft brewing scene, and Berlina is its crown jewel. Its “B” logo is suspiciously similar to Brooklyn Brewery’s.  We got a sampler, and viola! a few of their beers were really great, American style ales.  Ales are rare in South America, where the preferred taste is watery lager.  Satisfied, we went home to pack up.

How to get from Chalten to Bariloche: the 30 hour bus ride

In South America, it’s not really feasible to fly from place to place.  There isn’t enough demand for daily routes, and service is notoriously poor.  Instead, there is a well-developed system of buses.  But make no mistake – these buses aren’t greyhound.  Many are new, with comfy seats that recline like first class on an airplane, and LCD TVs showing (ripped) DVDs of late-run movies.  In fact, the main issue with traveling by bus through South America is choosing which company to use, and which route to choose.

This is the dilemma we faced when traveling from El Chaltén to Bariloche.  Bariloche is more or less directly North of Chaltén, and there is a road that runs along the Andes from one city to the other – the famous Ruta 40 (which traverses all of Argentina from South to North).  The problem with Ruta 40 is that it’s un-paved in rural areas, which is to say the majority of the trip from Chaltén to Bariloche.  Because of this, the going is slow, and the buses used to drive the route are generally of lower quality (‘semi-cama’ is all that’s available – like a glorified economy airline seat).  There is also no direct bus.  Instead, companies run ‘Ruta 40 Tours’, which means a 2-day excursion, 10-11 hours of driving per day (around 36 hours start to finish), with an overnight stay in a crappy hostel in a sleepy mid-way town.  This ‘excursion’ appeared to be marketed primarily to young backpackers as an adventure.  It sounded to us like bumpy, uncomfortable torture.

So instead we elected to take the circuitous route, which meant a transfer to El Calafate (3 hours on a nice bus), followed by a 28-hour ride to Bariloche that followed the main paved Argentine thoroughfares.  The route was pretty ridiculous – we headed East across the steppe (gorgeous horizon-to-horizon views of the sunset) to the Atlantic ocean, then up the coast a ways, and finally cutting back West through Esquel and El Bolson (which, by the way, appeared to be lovely cities) and back on to (now paved) Ruta 40 to Bariloche.

We booked cama-class seats with Taqsa, which included 3 served meals as well (which actually weren’t bad).  Kristen and I both got over 9 hours of decent sleep, and they showed good movies – like Gran Torino and Doubt.  Were we a little fatigued by the end of the ride?  Sure.  But in all, we were pleasantly surprised at how easy our trip was.

El Chalten

The Fitz Roy

Kristen climbing just outside town

The town of El Chaltén

Partial view from Loma del Pliegue Tumbado

El Chaltén is a less well-known area in Southern Patagonia.  Most people familiar with the area know about Torres del Paine, maybe El Calafate.  But not Chaltén.  Maybe it’s because it’s a 3-4 hour bus ride from El Calafate.  Maybe it’s because there is no cell service, no luxury lodging, and only one mildly functional ATM.  Whatever the reason, El Chaltén was the best place we visited in Patagonia.  The best hikes, the most beautiful views, and the most comfortable culture.

There is no mistaking the purpose of the town.  As soon as you arrive, you know why you’re there – to see and experience the surrounding natural beauty.  Every business in town is geared toward hiking, camping, rock/ice climbing, and glacier expeditions.  When you get off the bus, a guy at the station hands you a trail map.

As a primer, El Chaltén is in the Northern zone of the Parque Nacional de los Glaciares.  There are 2 major peaks to see in the surrounding area – Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy.  Both are spiky pieces of granite, sort of like Los Torres in Torres del Paine (which we never properly saw), but even more picturesque.  And the best part – all the best views are accessible via day hiking.

We were in El Chaltén for 6 days:

- Day 1: hike to mirador (viewpoint) Cerro Torre.  Cerro Torre is notoriously difficult to see.  There are large glaciers surrounding both its front and back sides, which create a constant cloud cover around the peak.  This, along with the technical challenge, apparently makes summiting the peak very difficult for mountaineers.  We heard stories about people hiking in to base camp, waiting 2 weeks for a clear day, and leaving without a single summit opportunity.  But we didn’t find that out until after we did a ~1 hour hike up to the viewpoint, and of course it was covered in clouds on an otherwise nice day.  But no matter, the hike was pleasant with glacier and waterfall views, and we were able to get a nice ~10k workout despite Kristen’s still-sore knees.  It was possible to continue the hike out to Laguna Torres, but with zero elevation gain and unimproved views, that portion of the hike seemed a bit silly to do.

- Day 2: hike to mirador Cerro Fitz Roy.  Today we got lucky.  It was cold, so we started our hike around 10am.  We knew this was a slight risk, since the clouds seemed to build around Cerro Fitz Roy as the previous day went on, but it would have been too uncomfortable to leave any earlier.  So we anxiously made our 1.5 hour ascent, looking at the sky minute to minute.  When we arrived at the mirador, the Fitz Roy was in full view!  We were the only ones at the viewpoint for the first few minutes, since we’d bombed past a number of other people on the way up, so we got some unbelievable pictures.  Within 5 minutes of our arrival, a cloud had come over the ridge and the view of the Fitz Roy was gone.  Lucky us!

- Day 3: the forecast called for one more day of sun, and then two of rain, followed by even colder temperatures.  So we decided to take a rock climbing lesson on this last reliably nice day.  Neither of us had ever been climbing outside (only indoors).  We were both a bit scared, but two things swayed us: 1) El Chaltén is supposedly some of the best climbing in South America (the massive shale and granite rock faces visible all over town just seem to beg you to scale them), and 2) the town is jam-packed with highly experienced, reasonably priced guides.  So for about $150, we had a private 5-hour lesson with full equipment rental.  We started on the easy pitches (5.6s and such), always with a top rope set by our guide (by far the safest way to climb – probably about as dangerous as hiking).  And we found outdoor climbing to be a blast!  A friend of ours once told us that outdoor climbing was more tactical than indoor climbing, which relies more on brute strength.  We found that advice to be true.  There were infinite possibilities on the routes we were ascending, and we were able to try lots of different body positions to see what worked best.  By the end of the day, we were successfully going up 5.10 routes (though sometimes we had to try multiple times to make it to the top), though always with a top rope.  For our last climb, the instructor asked if I wanted to lead climb the original 5.6 route (which would be easy after the day of improvement).  I was a bit scared, but I accepted.  Lead climbing means you set your “protection”as you go – attaching your rope to bolts on the way up.  The bolts are about a meter apart up the wall, which means that when you climb above each bolt, you can potentially fall up to ~5 feet (down past the next bolt).  Still not super dangerous, but a heck of a lot scarier than top roping.  Luckily, the route was easy, but I was glued to the wall each time I went above a bolt.  It was a taste of the real deal, I guess.  At the end of the day, we had a great time and would love to go outdoor climbing again, but probably only if someone else lead climbs from now on. But don’t tell our moms.

- Day 4/5: rain both days.  Kristen mostly studied Spanish, and I mostly read the entirety of American Pastoral.  Both afternoons it cleared up for a few hours, though, so we got out for some short hikes just to get outside – up to mirador de los águilas and mirador de los condores (nice views that paled in comparison to the other hikes), and back up to mirador Cerro Torre (again covered in clouds).

- Day 6: anxious to get in a good hike on our last day, we decided to go up to Loma del Pliegue Tumbado.  For some unknown reason, this hike is heavily downplayed in the guidebooks and local literature.  I don’t get it.  This is the best hike we did in Patagonia, by far.  I guess it was long and had something like 3300 feet of climbing, but it ended up on the summit of a hill right next to the Fitz Roy massif.  There were ridiculous 360 degree views of Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre (again in the clouds), Laguna Torre, Cerro Solo, multiple glaciers and other peaks, the Patagonian steppe, and gorgeous Lago Viadema.  The view up there rivaled Lake O’Hara, which is to say it’s one of the two most gorgeous mountain views we’ve ever had.

Looking back, if we only had a few days in Patagonia, we’d go to El Chaltén.  No contest.

Torres del Paine National Park

 Day 1 – Arrival and hike Glacier Grey (7 miles)

Kristen with Lago Grey, Grey Glacier, and the Southern Ice Field

Us with Glacier Grey and a cleaved iceberg

After leaving Punta Arenas, we hopped a bus back to Puerto Natales to get set up for our trip to Torres del Paine national park, probably the most well known and iconic area in all of Patagonia.  We arrived at our B&B around noon (which was fantastic, by the way – brand new, great beds, fresh baked bread for breakfast, and as yet unknown and priced to compete with the hostels), and managed to make it to the 3pm TdP primer at Erratic Rock, a local hostel and outfitter that provides lots of free information on how to hike the park.  The talk mostly confirmed what we already knew, but provided some valuable additional information, like that the most common injury in the park is wrist sprain, because people often get knocked down by the high wind gusts (sometimes approaching 100mph).  Afterwards, we walked around town, had a quick bite to eat, and went back to the B&B to sort our bags into what we needed for hike vs. what we should leave behind (all area hotels will store your un-needed stuff for the duration of the hike).

Getting into the park the next day was complicated.  We bought tickets for a local bus that picked us up at 7:30am for a 2.5 hour ride to the park entrance, where we had to pay 18k pesos ($36 USD) each to enter the park, watch a 5 minute video on fire safety (wildfires started by idiot campers have ravaged the park in recent years), transfer to a different bus which drove us to the Lago Pehoé catamaran (12k pesos each), which finally dropped us off at Refugio Paine Grande around 1pm.  We planned to hike the classic ‘W’ route, named as such because of its shape, which takes you up and down 3 trails to the 3 major park attractions – Lago Grey, Valle Francés, and Mirador Las Torres.  We hiked it West to East, which is somewhat non-standard, because I read online that hiking that direction would be less crowded.

There are several ways to hike in Torres del Paine.  The most popular is to do a true backpacking trip, carrying a tent and sleeping bags, plus food and cooking equipment.  This is the cheapest option, and the most rugged.  However, there are a series of ‘refugios’ along the route, which are like hostels.  They have dorm-style indoor lodging and cook meals (dinner, breakfast, and a boxed lunch).  Staying and eating at a refugio is not cheap, though, and feels a little like cheating, and is therefore less popular with the younger crowd.  But for us, it was a no-brainer.  We had just spent the previous 6 months sleeping in a tent and eating cold camp food.  Obviously we’d be staying in the refugios, and hiking without the burden of food and equipment.

After landing at Paine Grande, we ate a bit of lunch (mostly trail mix and crackers) and walked up to Glacier Grey.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous – mostly clear skies, with only a light wind.  A rare day in Torres del Paine.  The hike wasn’t too bad, a solid 1,000-2,000ft ascent and descent to Refugio Grey, with a gorgeous viewpoint of Glacier Grey just beyond.  We also had great views of Lago Grey along the way (complete with several floating icebergs), and some smaller lakes that Kristen thought looked like the high Sierra.

We arrived at the refugio to happily find that my online payment to them never went through, and had to find some cash to pay for our room and board.  As it turns out, we didn’t have enough Chilean Pesos to pay for the night and also to get out of the park, so we had to spend some of our Argentinian Pesos, which the refugio took at an extremely unfavorable exchange rate (50% lower than the official rate, I guess because they don’t want to hold a currency that inflates at 25%?).  Ugh.  At least their dinner was good – mushroom soup and fried chicken – and Kristen and I had the 4-bed dorm all to ourselves.  Hooray for the West-to-East route.  After getting settled in, we went up to the mirador for absolutely breathtaking views of Grey Glacier and the surrounding mountains in the coming dusk.  There were icebergs floating in the lake, and we heard a few ice chunks cleave off of the glacier front.  Wow.

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 Day 2 – Grey to Cuernos (15 miles)

The strongest wind I’ve ever felt.  It was creating what appeared to be 50-foot high ‘water devils’ in Lago Nordenskjold.

Our cabañita at Refugio Cuernos

Day 2 on the W trek is more or less a travel day.  We hiked back down the trail from Refugio Grey to Paine Grande, and then East to Refugio Cuernos via Campamento Italiano.  The weather was significantly worse than the day before, and more like what we had expected of the park going in.  Winds were high, with strong gusts, and it was drizzling on and off all day.  At times, it seemed like the rain was blowing in at us from miles away, carried on the strong wind – we would have blue skies above our heads, dark clouds in the distance, and rain coming in with each wind gust.  It was nuts.  But, one positive of the strong wind was that we didn’t really have to put on rain gear.  After getting drizzled on a bit, the wind would blow and dry us off.  We did cover our packs, though, with our rain ponchos.  That was a disaster.  Since they didn’t fit very tightly, they kept blowing off, and were a constant source of frustration.

The last segment, from Italiano to Cuernos, was particularly windy.  Kristen got knocked off her feet 3 or 4 times on the way, and we had to crouch down to avoid falling several more times.  We were very glad we had gotten hiking poles for Hannukah/Christmas!

Our accommodations at Cuernos were very good – at the time of booking, they were out of dorm-style beds, and had only private cabins available.  Our cabiñita had a skylight, 2 full beds, and an unobstructed view of Lago Nordenskjold.  The only downside was when the wind blew so hard at us that the cabin shook, as if it were an earthquake.  We were also granted access to their ‘hot tub’, which was a big wooden tub with a submerged wood burning stove in it.  We excitedly went for a dip, but after about 1 slimy minute in the tepid water, we decided it would probably be prudent to avoid catching whatever diseases that thing was incubating, and got out in time for dinner.

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Day 3 – Cuernos-Valle Francés-Cuernos (15 miles)

Kristen with the Western end of Lago Nordenskjold before entering the Valle Frances

Me at the mirador in the Valle Francés

Sunset view from the porch of our cabañita at Cuernos

Day 2 had been fairly grueling – around 7.5 or 8 hours walking with a full pack.  So it was a real relief to be able to do a day trip with a lighter pack on day 3 – all we had to take was water, rain gear, lunch, and first aid.  Which was nice, since day 3 was the hardest hiking we would do throughout the entire trip.

Since we’d arrived somewhat late at Cuernos the day before, we had to settle for the later seating at breakfast, which meant we wouldn’t hit the trail until 9:30.  We knew our hike would take all day, so we were really moving once we got out there.  The suggested hike times on the TdP official map were gone – Cuernos to Italiano suggested time was 2.5 hours, and we did it in 1.5.  Ditto for Italiano to the top of the Valle Francés. We really enjoyed ascending the Valle Francés – it was probably 2-3,000ft up, through mostly smooth trails, with improving views the whole way up.  The views were constant and fabulous – the valley below with Lago Nordenskjold, the Cuernos (‘horns’ in English, they are two wide white granite towers with sharp black tips of sedimentary rock on top, resembling the horns of a bull), Paine Grande and its large glacier, plus streams and icebergs breaking off of said glacier.

And again the weather was incredible!  We felt like we won the lottery, getting 2 great days of weather on our two ‘scenic’ days so far, in a place known for awful weather.  The wind wasn’t too bad, and there were few clouds in the sky.  The glacier atop Paine Grande seemed to be creating some clouds above it, but as soon as the wind blew them away from the mountain, they would disintegrate into the air.

When we reached Campamento Britanico, near the top of the valley, we were hungry and ready to stop, but decided to push on to the mirador (viewpoint) instead, lest the weather turn on us while we were eating our sandwiches.  The views at the top of the bowl were staggering – 360 panoramas of all the views we’d had on the way up, plus an absolutely stunning glaciated granite bowl forming the head of the valley.  It’s the only place I’ve seen that rivals the Northern Rockies in terms of ‘wow’ concentration.  It would be the best view of our entire trip.

The way back down was OK – we were a little over-eager to get back to Cuernos, so we pushed it own the downhill and made great time.  This had the effect of irritating Kristen’s herniated disc, and flaring up her sciatica.  Ick.  We need to be more careful from now on, now that we know downhill hiking is a trigger.  We arrived back at our cabin in Cuernos with time to spare.  Dinner was some sort of pot roast, possibly made from an old leather boot.  I think the piece they cut for me was the sole.  However the side dish was a delicious mashed carrot souffle.  The food at Cuernos is pretty hit or miss, even for a place that has to get all their groceries on horseback.  Oh well, it had been a really great day, and we were treated to a fabulous sunset view over Lago Nordenskjold from our cabin before heading off to sleep.

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 Day 4 – Cuernos to Refugio Chileno (9 miles)

Our last look at Paine Grande

Our last look at Los Cuernos

Looking up the Las Torres valley

Day 4 was another ‘travel’ day, and once again gorgeous.  It was a first for us in the park – no wind, few clouds, and plenty of sunshine.

We left Cuernos fairly early, around 8:30am, and hit the trail hard on our way to Chileno.  The plan was to arrive at Chileno before lunch, which would allow us to take the afternoon off and rest.  This was especially important for Kristen, whose knees and back were quite sore upon waking up, probably on account of the fast pace we took down Valle Francés the day before.

The hike was relatively uneventful and well worn, and we made fantastic time.  It was a little bittersweet, though – as we walked toward Chileno, we had to take our last looks at Paine Grande, Los Cuernos, and the Valle Francés.

One unanticipated side effect of the low winds were the mosquitoes.  We had not yet seen any mosquitoes in the park, but they were abundant on the ‘shortcut’ trail to Chileno.  I got 5 bites in the course of 30 minutes, and we actually found ourselves wishing out loud for the wind to return!

After a short, pretty hike up the Torres valley, we arrived at Chileno, we had our lunch, got settled in the dorm (which was set up to house 8 people to a room, on bunks 3 levels high), and pretty much just read books and studied Spanish for the remainder of the afternoon.  From the refugio, we could see the tops of the Torres (the spiky granite towers that give the park its name).  Our plan was to wake up at 3:45am for a 4am departure, in order to make it to the Torres viewpoint for the ~6am sunrise.  Apparently the way the sun hits the Torres at that hour is spectacular.  In the early afternoon, it looked like it might be a great day to view the Torres.  I kept thinking maybe we should go up there for a look, but our knees said no.  Hopefully our view the next morning would be even better.

Other travelers streamed in throughout the day, and eventually our dorm was completely full.  It didn’t smell very good, ugh.  At around 9:30pm, people started going to sleep in the room.  One guy was snoring very loudly.  I got in bed around 11pm (not feeling tired before then), slept for about an hour and a half, and was then woken up by the guy’s loud snoring and obvious sleep apnea.  I never made it back to sleep.  Additionally, someone had shut the small dorm window as it had gotten colder, and now the room smelled strongly of wet feet (as did my rental sleeping bag).  So needless to say, when 3:45am finally rolled around, Kristen and I were both grateful to get out of there.  In retrospect, we’d probably just rent a tent if we had to stay there again.

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Day 5 – Mirador Las Torres and out (9 miles)

 

The best view we had of Las Torres

All finished with the W!

We were out of Chileno by 4am or so.  At first the hike was pleasant, even in the dark and with headlamps.  It wasn’t too cold, and there was no wind.  We were making good time.  But I noticed there were no stars in the sky – it was cloudy.  After about 20 minutes of ascending, it started to rain.  As we went on, it rained harder.  By the time we were on the final climb to the Torres viewpoint, we were pretty wet, yet sweating in our rain gear.  The rain finally let up when we reached the viewpoint, a gorgeous glacial lake below the granite monoliths.

We had made great time, and arrived at the viewpoint before the dawn.  When the sun finally started to light the sky, we were cooling down.  And by the time it was obvious that heavy clouds were obscuring our view of the Torres, our hands were starting to go numb and we were shivering.  Wet, cold, and miles from shelter is not a good situation.

Our drop-dead time to leave the mirador was 7am, in order to make it back to Chileno for breakfast.  The sun should have been on the Torres at around 6:15am.  By 6:30 it became obvious that the clouds were very thick and not going to burn off.  There was no wind to blow them away, either.  At around 6:45 it started to rain again, and that was it.  We snapped a couple pictures and miserably headed back down to Chileno.  Kristen’s knees were very sore.  What a morning.

After breakfast, we packed up for our walk back down to the base at Hotel Las Torres, this time wearing rain pants.  It was still drizzling at the start of the hike.  But after a few kilometers, we had descended out of the storm system that was sitting in the valley, and it was a nice day – nice enough to put on sunscreen and strip off the rain gear.  It was slow going down the hill on account of Kristen’s knees, but the hike was pleasant and warm.  We arrived at the base with plenty of time to eat lunch and catch the bus back to Puerto Natales.

In all, besides the last day, we’d been very lucky.  4 out of 5 days with pretty good weather in Torres del Paine is rare.  We’d gotten great views of Grey Glacier and the Valle Francés, and had an all around very comfortable experience.  It’s too bad we didn’t get a view of the Torres, but honestly they are probably the most photographed rock formations in all of South America.  Windows has a picture of the Torres as a default desktop background.  I guess you could say we found out how the Torres look the other half (or more) of the time!

We got back to our B&B at Puerto Natales around 5pm and showered up.  The lack of sleep had started to hit us on the bus back, so we decided to take a nap before dinner.  We woke up the next day at 8am.  What a trip!

Punta Arenas

Us in the Reserva Forestal Magallanes, with Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan in the background

The Isla Magdalena penguin colony

 

An attention-loving Megallanic Penguin at Isla Magdalena

After leaving El Calafate, we took the bus to Punta Arenas (via Puerto Natales).  The full trip should have been 7 hours, but took around 11 because delays at the Argentina-Chile border caused us to miss the early bus to Punta Arenas.  Regardless, we arrived at Punta Arenas in the late afternoon, with plenty of time to grab dinner and walk around a bit.  We ate that night at a restaurant called La Marmita, which was charming and seemed to be filled mostly with locals (we saw the proprietor of our hostel having dinner there with his extended family).  It was almost certainly the best meal we’ve had since our wedding, and was enhanced by the guitar duo playing interesting folk-like music through dinner.  We bought their CD.

The next day, we had only one thing on the calendar – an evening ferry ride to the Isla Magdalena penguin colony, home to 60-70 thousand magellanic penguins.  The ferry departed that day at 5pm (the penguins can only be viewed in the morning or evening since they’re out fishing all day), so we had no plans until then.  A nice guy at our hostel asked us at breakfast if we’d like to join him on a day hike in Reserva Forestal Magallanes, so of course we said yes.  The hike was good, about 5 or 6 miles with high winds – a great preparation for Torres del Paine.

That evening, we boarded the ferry and were on our way.  The ferry itself was weird.  The company that runs it is government-owned, and the ferry seemed to spend most of its day shuttling cars back and forth to Tierra del Fuego.  So it was kind of weird to ride an empty car ferry, but the ride was quite pleasant, with decent sized seats and a little snack bar inside.  I was worried the strait would be extremely choppy, but the ferry is so heavy it smoothed the ride out considerably.

When we arrived at Isla Magdalena, we were immediately greeted with views of megallanic penguins as far as the eye could see.  They were waddling around, making loud honking noises, and popping in and out of their holes.  Too cute!  We got off the ferry and were told we had exactly one hour to walk around.  It turned out to be the perfect amount of time.  There was a small fenced-in path, maybe a kilometer long, leading up from the boat landing to a lighthouse.  The penguins seemed to be mostly afraid of people, but a few were sociable and would sometimes scurry across the path.  Mostly it was hilarious to watch them move around and nuzzle each other, especially when a baby or young penguin was involved (you could tell the babies apart because of their fur).  We took probably a billion cute penguin pictures in that hour – very fun!

El Calafate

The Perito Moreno glacier

Us hiking on the glacier

After a 1-night stay in Salta (which we did mostly to make sure we made our flight the next morning), we flew to El Calafate via Buenos Aires.  El Calafate (named after the calafate berry, which once eaten guarantees your return to Patagonia) is sort of like tourist central in Argentine Patagonia.  It felt like the Argentine version of Banff – overpriced gift shops, fancy hotels and restaurants, and people wearing unnecessary technical clothing to walk around town.

We stayed two nights at Hostal Amancay.  This was my first experience with a hostel, and it was apparently pretty typical.

We were in Calafate for one reason – the Perito Moreno glacier.  Located about 45 minutes from town in the Parque Nacional de los Glaciares, the glacier is an offshoot of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.  We booked a ‘mini-trekking’ tour of the glacier, which included a boat ride in the lake surrounding the glacier, a 1.5 hour walk on the glacier itself (with crampons!), and a visit to a set of terraced viewpoints for panoramic glacier views.  The glacier itself is remarkable for two reasons: the proximity of its face to land (as opposed to a lake) makes it great for viewing, and its location in a temperate climate mean it moves very fast, creating a great show for spectators when giant ice pieces break off the face of it ever 15 minutes or so (calving).

The ‘mini-trekking’ was great – Hielos y Aventura (the operator) ran probably the best-organized tour we’ve been on in South America (though priced to match – muy caro!).  They were on time to pick us up, their guides were knowledgeable and spoke many languages, and it was really fun.  The obvious highlight was our hike on the glacier itself.  It was the first time either of us had work crampons (which felt super weird at first), and we felt like the time spent on the ice was perfect – enough to see the major stuff (crevasses, sinkholes, different colors in the ice, etc.), but not so long that we got really cold or bored (as the alternative 5-hour trek might have done).  And at the end of the excursion, our guide chunked some ice off the glacier and served us each a glass of decent whiskey with glacier ice to chill it!

Afterwards, we headed to the balcony overlooks at the face of the glacier for an hour and watched some ice chunks cleave off.  We saw probably 4 or 5 huge pieces break off into the water over the course of about half an hour, all with a colossal BOOM that sounded like explosions.

Back in El Calafate, we were pretty tired from a long day in the park, so we showered up, ate some pizza, and passed out before the sun went down (at the latitude here, about 50 degrees South, the sun goes down around 10:30pm!).