Archiv der Kategorie: Chile

Argentina, Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Argentina & Chile – Summary & Photos

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It may seem odd that I’m doing a combined country summary for two very large countries – but since we zig-zagged our way down South, we sometimes had to remind ourselves which one of the two countries we are in right now. Also, I found more similarities between e.g. San Pedro (CH) and Purmamarca (AR), Pucon (CH) and San Martin (AR), El Chalten (AR) and Puerto Natales (CH) than for example between San Pedro, Pucon and Puerto Natales.

People: We met very friendly and helpful locals on both side, as well as a share of annoying ones. Through hitchhiking the Carretera Austral, I got a bit more in touch with Chileans than Argentinians overall. As in travellers, we met a surprising high number of Austrians and Swiss, some travelling by central car or camper. Most people we met were on a 3-5 week holiday and didn’t enjoy having as much time as we do.

Food: We cooked mostly for ourselves, went out for fast food here and there and treated ourselves to some nicer food around Christmas. Cooking for ourselves was tricky sometimes, with many ingredients not being readily available and especially our trekking food was usually rather boring and required lots of compromises. What we liked most, were the Argentinian empanadas – however the best empanadas ever we found in tiny Caleta Gonzalo on the Carretera Austral, in Chile.

Weather: Anything and everything! Burning heat in the North, cold drizzles in the South, lots of strong winds all over Patagonia… but overall we were mostly lucky with the weather and the sun came out on the most important days!

Costs: We spent WAY less than what we had budgeted for Chile and Argentina. Travelling as a couple, and with camping gear, saved us lots of money in accommodation and hitchhiking the Carretera Austral cut down our overall transportation costs. On average, including all tours and one internal flight, we spent just a little over 28 Euro per person/day. About 58% of our budget was spent in Chile, 42% in Argentina which means that relative to the days we spent per country, our daily spending for Argentina was about 25 Euro and for Chile about 31 Euro.

Accommodation: In the North and South, we stayed at quite some AirBnBs (either a room in a shared house or an apartment to ourselves), which worked out cheaper than a room in a hostel or guesthouse. In Patagonia, we camped a lot which saved loads of money. Camping for both of us usually cost less than 2 beds in a dorm and wayyyy less than a double room.

Infrastructure: Travelling by bus was easy, even though some routes in the South booked up a couple of days in advance, so required some pre-planning. Along the Carretera Austral, we hitchhiked, which worked really well and saved us lots of money!

Illnesses: None of us got ill, but the long hikes took their toll on our bodies: my knees were in bad pain on and off during our whole time in Patagonia and Mathijs‘ ankles were not always happy either. All in all we managed really well though, given all the challenges we had!

Safety: If I would have written this chapter in Ushuaia, I would have said: all good, no issues. However, when we arrived in Buenos Aires, my big backpack got stolen off a bus which was super annoying and made me realize that there are still some safety issues – not so much in peaceful Patagonia, but definitely in the bigger cities.

Itinerary: We visited both countries very thoroughly and managed to see everything worth seeing (for us). We zig-zagged our way from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile all the way South to Ushuaia in Argentina, crossing borders between both countries multiple times. A big part of our trip was spent in Patagonia on numerous hikes. Later, we flew up Buenos Aires, and after a short detour to Uruguay and Paraguay, made our way to Iguazu Falls, from where we crossed into Brazil.

Highlight: Impossible to say since we spent so much time in these 2 countries and saw so many amazing places. Hiking in Patagonia in general was awesome, the Huemul Circuit very special, as was our boat tour to the O’Higgins glacier. At the same time, Bariloche’s surroundings and the street art of Valparaiso were really cool too. You see!? Impossible to tell.

Lowlight: Getting my backpack stolen in Buenos Aires. As in places: Punta Arenas (the penguins are cool, but the city itself sucks).

Click on the photos below to see our full photo albums of Argentina:

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And Chile:

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Argentina, Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Punta Arenas & Ushuaia – at the end of the world

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After our trekking adventures in Torres del Paine, we took a short bus onward to Punta Arenas. Here, we were on the mission to see king penguins! Luckily we had two days in town, since for the first day all tours were fully booked! We had not expected that. Luckily we did get on a tour on our second day… a long day tour! The only way to get to the king penguin colony is either by tour or by rental car. Since rental cars were very expensive, we opted for a tour, but regretted it later. It was not very well organised, everything took forever and we spent most of the day waiting, sitting around and seeing things that were not interesting such as a dusty museum and a kitschy square.

Finally we arrived at the king penguins, where we had one hour to see them (and take as many photos as possible). They were not as far away as we thought, but even with our 300 mm lens it was hard to capture them well. But they were awesome!! I especially liked the funny way they are walking around with their wings spread out for better balance.

There was one really big group and then one spot with fewer penguins. Too bad there was an ice cold wind going on, watching the penguins would have been more enjoyable otherwise. All in all, it was really cool to see these gigantic penguins. If we’d do it again, we would go for the rental car though…

Our last stop in Patagonia was the city „at the end of the world“ – Ushuaia. To get here took us about 12 h from Punta Arenas. Originally we would have had some more days here to do some more hikes, but our buffer days melted away when we had some waiting days here and there during the last weeks due to full buses, campings or tours.

In the end we just had one full day left, so that we decided to make the most of it and book a sailing tour in the Beagle Channel which was much recommended online. And it was really cool!! Only the weather…not so cool. It rained for most of the tour and we had to stay inside for a long time. Watching some more penguins was fun, but I hope our camera didn’t get any damage through using it in the pouring rain!

Weather got a bit better (read: less rain but still rain and grey clouds) when we got to the cormorant rocks, where these birds are nesting. Some of them already had chicks which they were feeding – sooo cute!!

The last stop was a small sea lion colony. It was fun to watch these playful animals jump into the water, swim about and fight (tease) each other. There’s some animals that always put a smile to my face, and seals are definitely one of them!

As mentioned, it was a great tour and for sure this would have been an awesome experience if the weather was better. After all this rain, the wind and cold of the past months, we were pretty done with Patagonia at this stage though! Ready to board a plane up North to sunny Buenos Aires…

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Amazing days in Torres del Paine

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Time to cross the border again, back into Chile for one last time! We took the bus to Puerto Natales where we spent two days organizing things and relaxing a bit more. The reason was that we had to wait around for our bookings in Torres del Paine national park. This park is mainly famous for its „W-trek“ which I have always wanted to do.

However, since the park has become very popular in the last few years, you have to usually book months in advance even to get a camping spot! Something we didn’t feel like doing since we would have had no idea at what time we would be in Torres del Paine back then. So we chanced it and checked just a couple of days before if there were any free spots… and we got lucky! Seems like there’s always some cancellations, so step by step we found some campings and put together our itinerary which was a bit unusual, but still doing the complete W trek: We would start with a hike to the Torres Base, then go back down and sleep at Camping Central. The 2nd day would be a long hike with heavy bags from Central to Paine Grande, skipping past the middle part since all three campsites there were fully booked. We got 2 nights at Paine Grande, from where on the 3rd day we would hike back and see the Valle Frances that we had skipped past the day before. Day 4 would bring us up to Grey Glaciar, where in the last moment we still got a spot for a night at Grey Camping. On the 5th and last day, we’d only have to descend back down to Paine Grande and take the catamaran and bus back to Puerto Natales. A bit complicated and doing some extra kilometers compared to the usual W trek, but we were super happy that even without booking months in advance, we had found a way to do the W!

Day 1

We set off early by bus at 7 am in Puerto Natales. The drive took about 2 h to Laguna Amarga where we bought the tickets and waited for a shuttle bus for the last 7 km. It was crazy! There were so many tourists waiting and once the bus arrived, everyone just stormed to it and started pushing. There was way not enough space for everyone! It felt like being back in Mumbai at rush hour, seriously. I hope they get themselves better organized soon and give out numbers according to arrival.

Once at the camping, we set up our tent and then headed up with a small, light day bag to the mirador of the famous Torres. And let me just say it right away… Wow! Wow.

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Amazing, aren’t they!? What lay before reaching this viewpoint was a 3 h hike mainly uphill with many breaks, taking it slow to make sure we would only reach the Torres at the time when they were forecasted to be out of the clouds. As you can see, it worked out! The views along the way were ok but not that spectacular. It’s really about THAT view in the end…

Unfortunately, the hike is very popular (understandably) also with day hikers and tour groups, so sometimes we had to overtake many people or walk in a line for a while. Since we started a bit later than most people though, we avoided most of it luckily!

Day 2

We woke up early since we knew this was going to be the hardest day. 25 km up and down with our big heavy backpacks! We woke up to rain… so had to postpone the alarm once again and wait until it stopped which luckily didn’t take too long. We quickly packed up and got going, hiking through the hills with views of different lakes. In the beginning it was still drizzling now and then but it cleared up more and more so that we got some nice views! Overall, this day really surprised us since we hadn’t expected much in terms of views.

Around noon, we reached the middle section and had lunch somewhere between Camping Frances and Italiano. This middle part was the hardest since I was low on energy and the trail was very rocky – meaning one had to watch every step and it was exhausting for the ankles. But the views made up for it all and pushed me to keep going!

The hike from Camping Italiano to Paine Grande (which we jokingly referred to as „the Big Pain“ over the next few days) was easier again and offered some awesome views of the „Cuernos“ when turning around. It was a beautiful hike, but I was also very glad when we finally arrived at Paine Grande Camping.

It’s a big campsite that was already busy when we arrived and got even busier the next day. It felt a bit like sleeping in a dorm with 100 people. Not too much fun, hence our nickname „the Big Pain (in the a..)“. At least they had an indoor cooking area, warm water showers for the first 15 min when shower time started (Lol) and nice mountain views!

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Day 3

The third day was easier because we could do it with just a small day bag again – but it was annoying in a way since we had to hike back all the way to Camping Italiano where we had come from the day before, and where the trail into Valle Frances forks off. And then back again to the Big Pain at the end of the day! Kilometer-wise it was even longer than Day 2, but at least with a much lighter load this time. And with such great views, we can’t really complain too much about hiking the same trail three times, right!?

From Italiano, we ventured into new grounds, today hiking very fast in order to catch the mountain chain still a bit cloud-free since it was supposed to get worse over the course of the day. It may sound like we’re a bit over-obsessed with weather in the last few weeks, but for us hiking for 5 h to then be at the viewpoint some hours too early or too late to properly enjoy it would suck big time. And usually our planning works out alright… Like on Day 3 again! The first viewpoint Mirador Frances greeted us with nice views and little clouds.

On the way further to Mirador Britannico, we got some very good views and were lucky to be the first ones to reach the viewpoint and have it to ourselves for a few minutes (before more and more people arrived…). We really enjoyed the 360° views from a rock high up at the viewpoint, and made our way back down when it started to snow, more and more clouds coming in and more and more crowds of people coming up…

The hike back was boring apart from some nice glacier views in the beginning – we already knew the trail very well by now and just wanted to get it done.

Day 4

On to new trails and adventures! We had an early-ish start again to avoid most groups (and overtook the others quickly). We first hiked up to Camping Grey, past many viewpoints and lakes. It really is a beautiful national park, there is a reason why it is so popular! Slowly, the glacier came into view on the horizon, giving us very promising beautiful views. Did I mention it was a perfectly sunny and wind still day? You don’t get many of these in Patagonia, so we were excited to go and see more of the glacier!

At the camping, we first set up our tent quickly and again took a small day bag only for the rest of our hike today. Our first goal was a viewpoint just a couple of minutes walking from the camping which gives you really cool views of the glacier and floating icebergs. We have seen quite some glaciers in the past few weeks, but they’re still amazing us! I think we spent about an hour here, walking and climbing around to get different views and enjoying lunch.

We still wanted to hike a couple of kilometres further though – we had hopes of getting even closer to the glacier. We had to cross two wobbly suspension bridges which was cool but a little scary too, at least for me. The gaps between the wooden planks were a bit too large in my opinion…

But I made it past these obstacles and we climbed higher and higher until we reached The. Most. Awesome. Viewpoint. Ever! The view across Grey glacier was stunning. I was speechless for a while and we both agreed that this might beat the Torres in terms of best view on the W trek. Words can’t describe it properly, so here are some pictures…

After properly soaking it up and tattooing it to my (hopefully) eternal memory, we slowly made our way back to the camping. What a day, what an awesomely perfect day!

Day 5

This was the day we cared least about. We had seen Grey glacier very, very well the day before – so the only goal was to get back down to the Big Pain and catch the early catamaran and bus back to Puerto Natales. The 3 h hike was in grey weather and felt more like „getting it done“ than anything else. We loved our time in Torres del Paine, had some truly amazing views and saw really pretty landscapes – but we were annoyed by how overrun the park is, and how tourists are being milked for every penny even if staying in overcrowded campings. Sometimes, we badly missed our quiet hiking time on the Huemul Circuit! But still…Torres del Paine is a highlight and we wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on it in a million years.