Category: Patagonia

Today is a travel day. We left the camp at 10 and were driven to Punta Arenas, about a 4 hour drive, much of it over unpaved, rocky roads. One thing I haven’t written about is how unpopulated Patagonia is. In both Argentina and Chile we traveled literally for hours without seeing a house, just wide open land!

We were dropped off at hotel where we could store our suitcases for the day. Punta Arenas seemed like a very sleepy town. Ships leave from there to cruise the Chilean fjords but we didn’t see any tourists or ships.

We found a restaurant for lunch. After lunch we walked to the cemetery which was the one highlight according to Lonely Planet. Many of the plots included pictures of the person buried there. Here are pictures of the cemetery.

Rick’s camera had a protective screen over the view finder. The screen had gotten broken so we walked to the “duty free” zone to look for a new screen. We aren’t sure why it was call the “duty free” zone because everyone was there and it was more like a shopping district. We went to several stores but couldn’t find one that fit.

We walked back to the hotel along the water. Here’s a picture of an old dock filled with imperial cormorants.

We picked up our suitcases and took at taxi to the airport where we boarded a flight to Puerto Montt. We arrived in Puerto Montt and rushed to the Hertz counter because they were staying open late for us. We rented a Toyota Yaris and drove about 25 minutes to our hotel in Puerto Varas. Once there, we fell into bed. It was a long day.

Today we did a beach walk along the Grey Lake and boat ride to the glacier in the park. We left late, at 11, so we had a relaxing morning. It was very, very windy for the beach walk. We walked across a suspension bridge and a rocky area that was really, really, really windy to a little island from which we could see that Grey glacier and an iceberg. Here are pictures from our walk.

The lake water is grey from silt from the glacier. The silt is so dense that it prevents sunlight reaching the bottom so there is very little plant and animal life in the lake.

After our walk to the island we crossed the windy, rocky area again and returned to a picnic area for lunch. Then Rick and I had to walk back across the rocky area to get the boat to the glacier. The rest of the group went for a another walk.

There were about 10 officers from the PDI, policia de invescionnes and 2 dogs boarding the boat with us. We didn’t realize it but the boat was also dropping off people to do the W trek, a famous 4 day trek through Torres Del Paine. The officers were going to the drop off point because a woman had gotten lost in the woods. One free pisco sour was included with the boat ticket. Interestingly the officers drank their pisco sours while on the way to start their mission. Also we visited the glacier before dropping off the officers.  It seemed weird to us that they didn’t get dropped off first.

The glacier has three fronts moving into the lake. The ship went quite close to all three and gave people plenty of time for pictures. The glacier was beautiful!  I thought they did quite a good job. Here are pictures from the boat ride.

After about an hour of moving around the glacier we went to the W drop off point and the officers, dogs and a couple of trekkers got off. Then we headed back. We had to walked back across the windy, rocky area.  Four times in total across the rocky area.

We returned to the parking lot and found our van. It was almost 7:00 so we had assumed they had taken the rest of the group back and come back for us but we were wrong. They took the rest of the group on a long walk. One of the people we talked to didn’t go on the long walk because they had gone on a really difficult walk yesterday and his big toenails were black. They sat in the cafeteria for several hours. Needless to say they were angry, not at us, but at Patagonia Camp. I agree this walk was not handled very well.

We didn’t get back until 8:00 so we went directly to dinner. Our friends from the ship had already eaten since they heard we would be back until later.

Today we are on the fauna excursion. We saw lots of guanacos, a grey fox, condors, cara cara, upland geese, and ibis but no puma 😕. Here are pictures of the animals we saw.

It as a very gentle walk which ended at a rock overhang. Under the rock there were cave paintings that have been carbon dated to 4,000-7,000 years ago.  Here’s a picture of the cave paintings.

 

Additionally we stopped at several lookouts.

Here is a picture of our new friends, Chris and Jim.

When we got back we hooked up with our friends, David and Alison, from the boat. We had a fun evening with them and Jim and Chris.

Here are pictures from our yurt window of the sun rising on the towers.

Our excursions today are the mirador and condor walks. The first hike was considered easy and the second was medium. Here are some pictures from the first hike.

After the first hike we went to a picnic area for lunch. We had selected our lunch at the briefing the previous night. At the lunch site there was an armadillo who was very cute. Here are pictures

The second hike was steeper than the first but not too bad. We saw a couple of condors while hiking. Here are pictures from the second walk.

We returned to the hotel and had a drink with Jim and Chris. The hotel had a lamb tasting before dinner. Similar to the lamb roasted at the ranch, they seem to rub salt on the meat before they grill it so it’s too salty in my opinion. We also had dinner with Jim and Chris. It was a great day.

 

Today is a travel day. We are headed to Patagonia Camp in Torres Del Paine. We met another couple, Jim and Chris, at our hotel that are also headed to Patagonia Camp. They left at 8 while our car was scheduled for 9. We had a very nice driver and a very nice car. It took about 3 hours. We saw lots of guanacos and rhea on the way. I didn’t get a picture of the guanacos but here’s a picture of the rhea

We had to show our passports at the Argentinian border and then again at the Chilean border. We had heard horror stories that it took 4 hours at the Chilean border so we were glad it only took us about 45 minutes.

After we cleared the border who did we meet but Jim and Chris. We were all transferred to a Patagonia Camp van. None of us could figure out why they left an hour before us. We drove about another hour and a half to the camp. Much of road was rough and unpaved.

We had lunch and then were ushered to our yurt. The view from our yurt is fantastic. Here are pictures of our yurt.

That evening there was a briefing about the excursions for the next day. We had dinner after selecting our excursion.