As I began my journey to the bottom of the Earth I wasn’t sure what to expect. Granted, I was aware that what I’d see would be incredible and eye opening, but I was unaware of the magnitude of it all. Before I dive into the details of my trip and the happenings along the way, I figured it’d be best to give a little information about exactly what I did. Two weeks before I embarked on my adventure I hadn’t even booked my trip. I kept telling myself each month that I’d have plenty of time to get everything arranged. Well, being the procrastinator I am, I looked at the calendar one day and realized that I only had a couple more weeks before I had to go back to work. I decided it was best to start using the Google machine and typed in “Patagonia tours” (My ability to research even impresses me sometimes). Luckily I was able to read a couple testimonials about what the best place was to hike and how to get there.
I settled upon Torres Del Paine National Park, where I would complete the “W” Circuit of the trail. What most people (myself included) don’t realize about Patagonia is just how enormous of an area it is. Inside the Patagonian expanse there are 14 cities and upwards of 15 national parks that engulf the Chilean and Argentinian southern landscape. Thankfully I was only made aware of just how many parks there were after I got home, as I’m sure it would have complicated things far too much for a brain like mine.
Digressing, Torres Del Paine is actually the most visited national park, with about 140,000 visitors per year. Of those 140,000, around 60% of those tourists actually come from outside of Chile. As far as the hike goes, the W trek would last me about 5 days and 4 nights, with a grand total of 45 miles worth of steps.
Day 1:
In order to get to a place so far south, quite a bit of traveling was required. My first day started at 3:00am to catch my 4:30am flight to a small port town called Punta Arenas. After arriving in Punta Arenas in a minor state of deliria, I set off to find a taxi that would take me to my hostel for the night. My taxi driver decided to treat our ride into town as if we were in the Gran Prix and whose rearview mirror seemed to lack purpose or place. I should note that this taxi drive would be an omen for my future rides to come.
As a warning to anybody traveling to Chile, never arrive anywhere on a Sunday. I found myself wandering around and peering into closed cafes and boutique shops. Being ravenously hungry when nothing is open is a terrible condition I wouldn’t wish upon any soul. However, after walking for what felt like hours (probably 20 minutes tops) I stumbled into a place that said “Abierto.” As I flung open the door with excitement I was met with a rather odd scene. Everything in the restaurant was decorated with hearts, roses, and I Love You signs. In my state of deliria I had forgotten it was Valentine’s Day.
I was looking around at nothing but couples holding hands and oozing over each other while I walked in with a massive backpack and hiking gear. I proceeded to have a meal with my hot date (my Kindle) and tried ignore the peculiar looks I was accruing. The rest of the day was rather uneventful and for dinner I decided to make a smarter call and found a Pub.
Day 2:
While I had assumed that eventually I would see some fellow North Americans along my trip I wasn’t expecting it to be so soon. As I was eating I saw this couple walk into the café and plop down right next to me. They were talking with a fairly heavy southern drawl and debating about whom amongst them had wrote down the wrong address for some store. I was reading my book when the waiter came up to the lovely couple and tried to talk to them in Spanish. I enjoyed that much more than my book. The language barrier was as thick as the Great Wall of China and after some intense hand gestures and pointed fingers, they managed to get ham and cheese sandwiches.
It was time to head to my next destination to another port town called Puerto Natales. Before getting there I needed to take a taxi to the airport and then a bus to the city. I should also add that each day whenever something was intriguing or noteworthy I would, well, write it in my notes. During my taxi ride to the airport I had noticed it was extremely windy and wrote, “Taxi ride to the airport that was so windy it felt as if the driver periodically dozed off every few seconds only to wake up and correct himself, very reassuring.” Well, no more than 30 seconds after I wrote that down I looked at the rearview mirror to discover, much to my delight, that he actually was falling asleep!
I was absolutely terrified and should note that this little taxi ride happened to be right next to a cliff that led down to the depths of the ocean. For some reason my tiny little brain could only cough and make weird noises as an attempt to keep my driver from taking a hard right into the ocean.
Day 3:
After surviving the cab and bus ride, which wasn’t much more reaffirming, I finally made it to Puerto Natales. I was excited about Day 3 because it was finally the day I could put my imagination to reality. I left from Puerto Natales to Torres Del Paine, which took about three hours. Prior to getting on the bus, if you had told me I was going to hear two people behind me discuss American politics and whether Google has some evil scheme in works I would have promptly told you I have some magical beans for sale. Well, lucky for me that did happen and while I enjoy eavesdropping more than I should, I really just wanted to nap before I started a grueling day of hiking.
One bit of research I should have done prior to coming down South was the whole weather ordeal. As it turns out, Torres Del Paine has a microclimate. While there is some scientific definition for it I’ll just say this; the weather forces you to become incredibly skilled at shedding and re-growing layers of your clothes. The first day of hiking really tested these abilities. The first couple hours the weather was very agreeable and allowed me to walk with only a shirt on. The next couple hours turned from high-speed winds, to rain, to a full on blizzard. Now, I’m not one to complain, especially when you’re in such a beautiful place. However, after hiking uphill for three straight hours I was hoping to be rewarded by seeing the magnificent “Three Towers” I had seen countless times in pictures. Much to my dismay, it was snowing so hard and so foggy I didn’t even get to see half a tower.
I think one of the most overused clichés out there is saying “it’s such a small world,” but I guess it’s still around because it happens so often. Let me preface this by saying that on my trip I decided to wear a Giants hat. When I got to the very top of the hike I walked by someone who said “Go Giants!” so I figured I’d ask him where he was from. As it turns out he grew up in my same hometown and even knew where the street I lived on was. Small world, right?
Day4:
Wearing a Giants hat was far more attention grabbing than I had hoped or expected. While I have no qualms about meeting people from home, I’d be lying if I said I wanted to go to the bottom of the world to meet people who live twenty minutes away from me. After exchanging pleasantries and supporting the local teams, I returned back to my second day of hiking. The weather was pretty mild considering the circumstances and the hike that day was fairly flat because I mainly had to circle around a couple of lakes to reach my next destination. I made it to the second Refugio with plenty of time still left in the day and so I wandered around the campsite for a while until it was dinnertime.
During dinner I finally got to meet some people not only outside of the Bay Area, but also well outside of the United States. I sat down next to a couple living in New Zealand and the girlfriend reigning from Belgium. Across from us were two people who had met while hiking, one being from England and the other from the Netherlands? (sorry Erik). Anyways, they were really awesome to talk to mainly because it was wild hearing everyone’s journey getting to Patagonia and also exchanging where else in the world we had been. After dinner we all said our good lucks and went off to our various spots to sleep.
Day 5:
The third day of hiking was absolutely brutal. While it was a grueling hike, spanning 25km and most of it uphill, it was hard to get mad due to the fact that the entire trail was closed the previous day because of hazardous wind conditions. It was about a 10-hour hike, but every foot was worth the effort. From the vast mountain ranges, seeing minor avalanches rumble through the valley, to walking through a creek upstream, every part of the hike that day provided a beautiful landscape that I was sure could only be found in this part of the world.
I then met up with Hannah the British girl and Erik (the Dutch?) to go have dinner at our next refugio. I learned that Hannah had recently graduated and was, like most people, prolonging the inevitable job search and instead traveling parts of the world. Erik, well, god bless that man, but his incredibly thick accent proved to be a bit too much for me so I just smiled and nodded at his stories. After dinner we all once again parted ways fully satiated and ready for bed. For me, I returned to my tent, drank a couple cups of boxed wine and read my book until my eyes could no longer bear the weight of their lids.
Day 6:
The fourth day of hiking was rather easy in terms of length (11km), however, the gusts of wind were protruding through the valley at speeds of 70mph. This made it difficult to walk forward without feeling like you had taken two steps backwards. Had it only lasted for a few minutes I would have found it amusing, but since it lasted the entire hike it became quite irksome. I had finally made it to the lodge and was greeted with a fairly beautiful cabin with a nice fire going and big comfy couches. When I went to check into my campsite it made me realize how far globalization has reached. If I wanted to I had the opportunity to buy a snickers bar with the choice of using cash or credit, all while being a mere half mile from a massive glacier.
The night before I figured it a good idea to buy some wine so I could have a couple glasses and save some money on the cost of expensive beer. As it turned out I only had a couple glasses despite the fact that I had bought a liter of box wine (classy I know). Being in a cheap spirited manner I figured I would salvage the boxed wine and put it in my pack to use after my day of hiking. Even though I was careful and put my wine in another little baggie and decided to not implore my downhill trekking technique of running, I was still quite surprised when I opened my pack.
I looked at the wine and nothing seemed amiss. I kept rummaging around until I felt some weird wet spots littered amongst my clothes. As it turned out I had managed to spill a healthy amount of wine into my lonely and only long sleeved shirt, which was quite disappointing. Along with that I had the disservice of splotching my sweatpants with wine as well. This was incredibly upsetting because I had appointed those as my eveningwear and I regarded them rather highly in my two-pant selection.
Day 7:
The last and final day of my hike was fairly uneventful, as I had to simply hike down to the place I had just came from the previous day. Due to the lousy weather I tried to go faster than the normal pace and made it back to the lodge early so I could relax until the catamaran ride.
While waiting in the catamaran line I met some really awesome people, couple from Minneapolis who was moving to Miami (Stephen and Lauren) and Eugene from Seattle. The line I might add was extensive and a lot longer than the boat appeared to hold. Still I figured we should make it as I saw a solid amount of people leaving the boat. With about 10 people to go in line we were stopped and told we would have to wait another hour for the catamaran to drop off people and come back for us.
Utterly disappointed, we were left to wait outside in the freezing cold. I mean freezing. The weather was no more than 40 degrees with at least 50mph winds the entire time. Stephen, Eugene, and I waited in line while Stephen’s girlfriend Lauren waited inside due to her unfortunate disposition of getting food poisoning the previous night. We chatted about various places of travel, both Eugene and Stephen had been to places I'd only seen in National Geographic magazines (Laos, Tanzania, Vietnam, the African Safari, Singapore, and Japan) just to name a few.
It was fascinating to get the inside scoop on places I'd always wanted to visit but had no idea who actually traveled there. Getting a travelers perspective on such unique spots was truly invaluable info because I'd only read about the dangers and diseases and I knew it didn't accurately portray these exotic places I'd longed to see. While waiting Stephen and I managed to kill a liter of wine which as usual, seemed to warm my body temperature and the talk of travel managed to pass the time quiet fast.
However, upon disembarking off the catamaran we were met with the lack of transportation, aka there wasn't a single bus that was ready to take us back to civilization. After much talk and heated conversations people started to realize we were basically stranded here at the bus drivers’ transgression. We arrived at 2:30 and were told we would have to wait until 7 to get the next batch of buses...in typical Chilean fashion nothing went according to plan. We ended up waiting until 5 when a really kind Israeli girl said that she had just found a taxi that would take us for $4 each and they had 5 seats left. Luckily there were four of us and we jumped at the opportunity faster than you could imagine.
I could wrap it up by telling you about how changed I was as a person or how enlightening such an incredible journey was. However, while that may all be true and indeed I felt like it allowed me to put a new perspective on traveling, I’ll leave you with the final note that I have left in my phone from the journey:
“Just my luck, I guess this is what happens when you take a cab home at 330 am but homeboy is also swaying into different lanes and of course he's starting to get drowsy at the wheel, god dammit. Even had to roll down the windows to stay awake, but who the hell said I wanted any of the windows open, it's freezing out”
(Clearly I was suffering from the deliria I had experienced on my first day of the adventure)
I settled upon Torres Del Paine National Park, where I would complete the “W” Circuit of the trail. What most people (myself included) don’t realize about Patagonia is just how enormous of an area it is. Inside the Patagonian expanse there are 14 cities and upwards of 15 national parks that engulf the Chilean and Argentinian southern landscape. Thankfully I was only made aware of just how many parks there were after I got home, as I’m sure it would have complicated things far too much for a brain like mine.
Digressing, Torres Del Paine is actually the most visited national park, with about 140,000 visitors per year. Of those 140,000, around 60% of those tourists actually come from outside of Chile. As far as the hike goes, the W trek would last me about 5 days and 4 nights, with a grand total of 45 miles worth of steps.
Day 1:
In order to get to a place so far south, quite a bit of traveling was required. My first day started at 3:00am to catch my 4:30am flight to a small port town called Punta Arenas. After arriving in Punta Arenas in a minor state of deliria, I set off to find a taxi that would take me to my hostel for the night. My taxi driver decided to treat our ride into town as if we were in the Gran Prix and whose rearview mirror seemed to lack purpose or place. I should note that this taxi drive would be an omen for my future rides to come.
As a warning to anybody traveling to Chile, never arrive anywhere on a Sunday. I found myself wandering around and peering into closed cafes and boutique shops. Being ravenously hungry when nothing is open is a terrible condition I wouldn’t wish upon any soul. However, after walking for what felt like hours (probably 20 minutes tops) I stumbled into a place that said “Abierto.” As I flung open the door with excitement I was met with a rather odd scene. Everything in the restaurant was decorated with hearts, roses, and I Love You signs. In my state of deliria I had forgotten it was Valentine’s Day.
I was looking around at nothing but couples holding hands and oozing over each other while I walked in with a massive backpack and hiking gear. I proceeded to have a meal with my hot date (my Kindle) and tried ignore the peculiar looks I was accruing. The rest of the day was rather uneventful and for dinner I decided to make a smarter call and found a Pub.
Day 2:
While I had assumed that eventually I would see some fellow North Americans along my trip I wasn’t expecting it to be so soon. As I was eating I saw this couple walk into the café and plop down right next to me. They were talking with a fairly heavy southern drawl and debating about whom amongst them had wrote down the wrong address for some store. I was reading my book when the waiter came up to the lovely couple and tried to talk to them in Spanish. I enjoyed that much more than my book. The language barrier was as thick as the Great Wall of China and after some intense hand gestures and pointed fingers, they managed to get ham and cheese sandwiches.
It was time to head to my next destination to another port town called Puerto Natales. Before getting there I needed to take a taxi to the airport and then a bus to the city. I should also add that each day whenever something was intriguing or noteworthy I would, well, write it in my notes. During my taxi ride to the airport I had noticed it was extremely windy and wrote, “Taxi ride to the airport that was so windy it felt as if the driver periodically dozed off every few seconds only to wake up and correct himself, very reassuring.” Well, no more than 30 seconds after I wrote that down I looked at the rearview mirror to discover, much to my delight, that he actually was falling asleep!
I was absolutely terrified and should note that this little taxi ride happened to be right next to a cliff that led down to the depths of the ocean. For some reason my tiny little brain could only cough and make weird noises as an attempt to keep my driver from taking a hard right into the ocean.
Day 3:
After surviving the cab and bus ride, which wasn’t much more reaffirming, I finally made it to Puerto Natales. I was excited about Day 3 because it was finally the day I could put my imagination to reality. I left from Puerto Natales to Torres Del Paine, which took about three hours. Prior to getting on the bus, if you had told me I was going to hear two people behind me discuss American politics and whether Google has some evil scheme in works I would have promptly told you I have some magical beans for sale. Well, lucky for me that did happen and while I enjoy eavesdropping more than I should, I really just wanted to nap before I started a grueling day of hiking.
One bit of research I should have done prior to coming down South was the whole weather ordeal. As it turns out, Torres Del Paine has a microclimate. While there is some scientific definition for it I’ll just say this; the weather forces you to become incredibly skilled at shedding and re-growing layers of your clothes. The first day of hiking really tested these abilities. The first couple hours the weather was very agreeable and allowed me to walk with only a shirt on. The next couple hours turned from high-speed winds, to rain, to a full on blizzard. Now, I’m not one to complain, especially when you’re in such a beautiful place. However, after hiking uphill for three straight hours I was hoping to be rewarded by seeing the magnificent “Three Towers” I had seen countless times in pictures. Much to my dismay, it was snowing so hard and so foggy I didn’t even get to see half a tower.
I think one of the most overused clichés out there is saying “it’s such a small world,” but I guess it’s still around because it happens so often. Let me preface this by saying that on my trip I decided to wear a Giants hat. When I got to the very top of the hike I walked by someone who said “Go Giants!” so I figured I’d ask him where he was from. As it turns out he grew up in my same hometown and even knew where the street I lived on was. Small world, right?
Day4:
Wearing a Giants hat was far more attention grabbing than I had hoped or expected. While I have no qualms about meeting people from home, I’d be lying if I said I wanted to go to the bottom of the world to meet people who live twenty minutes away from me. After exchanging pleasantries and supporting the local teams, I returned back to my second day of hiking. The weather was pretty mild considering the circumstances and the hike that day was fairly flat because I mainly had to circle around a couple of lakes to reach my next destination. I made it to the second Refugio with plenty of time still left in the day and so I wandered around the campsite for a while until it was dinnertime.
During dinner I finally got to meet some people not only outside of the Bay Area, but also well outside of the United States. I sat down next to a couple living in New Zealand and the girlfriend reigning from Belgium. Across from us were two people who had met while hiking, one being from England and the other from the Netherlands? (sorry Erik). Anyways, they were really awesome to talk to mainly because it was wild hearing everyone’s journey getting to Patagonia and also exchanging where else in the world we had been. After dinner we all said our good lucks and went off to our various spots to sleep.
Day 5:
The third day of hiking was absolutely brutal. While it was a grueling hike, spanning 25km and most of it uphill, it was hard to get mad due to the fact that the entire trail was closed the previous day because of hazardous wind conditions. It was about a 10-hour hike, but every foot was worth the effort. From the vast mountain ranges, seeing minor avalanches rumble through the valley, to walking through a creek upstream, every part of the hike that day provided a beautiful landscape that I was sure could only be found in this part of the world.
I then met up with Hannah the British girl and Erik (the Dutch?) to go have dinner at our next refugio. I learned that Hannah had recently graduated and was, like most people, prolonging the inevitable job search and instead traveling parts of the world. Erik, well, god bless that man, but his incredibly thick accent proved to be a bit too much for me so I just smiled and nodded at his stories. After dinner we all once again parted ways fully satiated and ready for bed. For me, I returned to my tent, drank a couple cups of boxed wine and read my book until my eyes could no longer bear the weight of their lids.
Day 6:
The fourth day of hiking was rather easy in terms of length (11km), however, the gusts of wind were protruding through the valley at speeds of 70mph. This made it difficult to walk forward without feeling like you had taken two steps backwards. Had it only lasted for a few minutes I would have found it amusing, but since it lasted the entire hike it became quite irksome. I had finally made it to the lodge and was greeted with a fairly beautiful cabin with a nice fire going and big comfy couches. When I went to check into my campsite it made me realize how far globalization has reached. If I wanted to I had the opportunity to buy a snickers bar with the choice of using cash or credit, all while being a mere half mile from a massive glacier.
The night before I figured it a good idea to buy some wine so I could have a couple glasses and save some money on the cost of expensive beer. As it turned out I only had a couple glasses despite the fact that I had bought a liter of box wine (classy I know). Being in a cheap spirited manner I figured I would salvage the boxed wine and put it in my pack to use after my day of hiking. Even though I was careful and put my wine in another little baggie and decided to not implore my downhill trekking technique of running, I was still quite surprised when I opened my pack.
I looked at the wine and nothing seemed amiss. I kept rummaging around until I felt some weird wet spots littered amongst my clothes. As it turned out I had managed to spill a healthy amount of wine into my lonely and only long sleeved shirt, which was quite disappointing. Along with that I had the disservice of splotching my sweatpants with wine as well. This was incredibly upsetting because I had appointed those as my eveningwear and I regarded them rather highly in my two-pant selection.
Day 7:
The last and final day of my hike was fairly uneventful, as I had to simply hike down to the place I had just came from the previous day. Due to the lousy weather I tried to go faster than the normal pace and made it back to the lodge early so I could relax until the catamaran ride.
While waiting in the catamaran line I met some really awesome people, couple from Minneapolis who was moving to Miami (Stephen and Lauren) and Eugene from Seattle. The line I might add was extensive and a lot longer than the boat appeared to hold. Still I figured we should make it as I saw a solid amount of people leaving the boat. With about 10 people to go in line we were stopped and told we would have to wait another hour for the catamaran to drop off people and come back for us.
Utterly disappointed, we were left to wait outside in the freezing cold. I mean freezing. The weather was no more than 40 degrees with at least 50mph winds the entire time. Stephen, Eugene, and I waited in line while Stephen’s girlfriend Lauren waited inside due to her unfortunate disposition of getting food poisoning the previous night. We chatted about various places of travel, both Eugene and Stephen had been to places I'd only seen in National Geographic magazines (Laos, Tanzania, Vietnam, the African Safari, Singapore, and Japan) just to name a few.
It was fascinating to get the inside scoop on places I'd always wanted to visit but had no idea who actually traveled there. Getting a travelers perspective on such unique spots was truly invaluable info because I'd only read about the dangers and diseases and I knew it didn't accurately portray these exotic places I'd longed to see. While waiting Stephen and I managed to kill a liter of wine which as usual, seemed to warm my body temperature and the talk of travel managed to pass the time quiet fast.
However, upon disembarking off the catamaran we were met with the lack of transportation, aka there wasn't a single bus that was ready to take us back to civilization. After much talk and heated conversations people started to realize we were basically stranded here at the bus drivers’ transgression. We arrived at 2:30 and were told we would have to wait until 7 to get the next batch of buses...in typical Chilean fashion nothing went according to plan. We ended up waiting until 5 when a really kind Israeli girl said that she had just found a taxi that would take us for $4 each and they had 5 seats left. Luckily there were four of us and we jumped at the opportunity faster than you could imagine.
I could wrap it up by telling you about how changed I was as a person or how enlightening such an incredible journey was. However, while that may all be true and indeed I felt like it allowed me to put a new perspective on traveling, I’ll leave you with the final note that I have left in my phone from the journey:
“Just my luck, I guess this is what happens when you take a cab home at 330 am but homeboy is also swaying into different lanes and of course he's starting to get drowsy at the wheel, god dammit. Even had to roll down the windows to stay awake, but who the hell said I wanted any of the windows open, it's freezing out”
(Clearly I was suffering from the deliria I had experienced on my first day of the adventure)