Planning your trip to Torres del Paine

About Torres del Paine

National Geographic Special Issue
featuring Torres del Paine on the cover

On the cover of the 2012 special issue of National Geographic issue listing the "100 most beautiful places in the world" (Torres was ranked 5th) and named the 8th Wonder of the World by voters on Virtual Tourist, everyone agrees: Torres del Paine is spectacular. It offers visitors stunning vistas of glaciers, cobalt blue lakes, massive carved walls of granite (and fossil-laden Cretaceous sedimentary rocks), as well as condors, guanacos, and expansive fields of wildflowers in the spring.

It is possible to enjoy the beauty of Torres del Paine without putting on your hiking boots (see recommendations below). However, most of the people who swarm to the park are there to trek.

The most popular trekking route is the "W", so-called because of the shape it takes with three out-and-back legs to see the three most spectacular views of the park: Baso Torres, the Valle Frances, and Glacier Grey. Trekkers with more time can do the "O" which adds a hike along the quieter backside of the park with its sweeping vistas. If you're really in love with the park, there are plenty of other hikes to do, such as the "Q" or day treks out to Laguna Azul, Laguna Amarga, or Lago Sarmiento, from which you can get spectacular views of the Torres massif.

Detailed park map (from CONAF)

The W (red) and O (yellow) trekking circuits

Planning your visit

Note: Prices quoted were for the Summer 2013 season and are in Chilean Pesos unless otherwise noted.

If you're looking for info about Southern Patagonia more generally, check out my post "Travel tips for Southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego".

Getting there

You can rent a car and drive into the park, but bus service from Puerto Natales is readily available (but gets full, book your bus tickets as early as possible) and can be booked at the bus terminal or, in many cases, directly from your hostel. Check with your bus service, but many take passengers to the Porteria y Guarderia Laguna Amarga (marked as a large blue dot in the trekking circuit map above) as well as to Hotel Las Torres and/or to the Lago Pehoé ferry terminal (from which you can catch the scenic ferry across Lago Pehoé that goes to and from Paine Grande).

To enter the park, each person will have to pay a one-time $18000 peso (~$35 USD) fee for foreigners ($5000 pesos for Chileans) in high season. This lets you back into the park for 2-3 days, depending on who you talk to. If you leave and think you might come back, talk to the rangers to figure out what the deal is. Also, if you enter the park before the ranger station opens or after it closes, there is no entrance fee. But given that the money goes towards maintaining this treasure of a park, if you can afford it, be a good person, pay.

Paperwork and receipts at the park entrance

Hikes and activities

There are so many facilities in the park that it is possible to do the circuit--especially the W--in pretty much any style you want, be it sleeping in your own tent and cooking your own food every night like a real swampbeast (me), sleeping in tents that are set up in campgrounds so you don't have to carry your own, sleeping in refugios and eating food you pay for, or sleeping in nice huts/lodges/domes and having porters carry your gear from spot to spot. Services in the park are expensive, though, so budget may decide which of these options are really available to you.

This is what I recommend you do if you...

...are short on time

If you are fit and can handle a good climb, get to Las Torres and hike up to Base de las Torres (depending on your speed, this will take you anywhere from 4.5-10 hours) and get within hugging distance of the Torres spires.

Base de las Torres

Alternately, get to Paine Grande and walk out to the Glacier Grey Mirador (about 2.5-4 hours round-trip from Paine Grande...you do not need to go all the way to Refugio Grey to get spectacular views of the glacier, you'll know the view when you get there).

View from the Glacier Grey Mirador

If you base yourself out of Paine Grande, you can day hike up to Paso John Gardner and back one day (a long and strenuous hike, but the views of the glacier rock) and out to the Valle Francés (more spectacular views) and back another day.

For 300° views of OHWOWMOUNTAINS, head up the Valle Francés

If you base yourself out of Las Torres (see options listed below), the views from Laguna Amarga and between Laguna Azul and Cascada Paine are arguably the best in the park. Getting to these places is easiest if you have your own vehicle or someone who will shuttle you (e.g. through a lodge).

Park panorama from a trail from Laguna Azul to Casada Paine

The catamaran ferry from Paine Grande across Lago Pehoé ($12000 pesos, 3 boats per day in summer leaving from the Pudeto parking lot for Paine Grande at 9:30 am, 12:00 pm, and 6:00 pm, arriving/departing Paine Grande 30 mins later for the return trip to Pudeto) gives you stunning views of the Torres and is absolutely worth taking. If you do nothing else in the park, do this. Buses go between Pudeto and the Laguna Amarga park entrace, and well as to and from Puerto Natales.

...are not a hiker

Take the ferry from Paine Grande across Lago Pehoé (see above). If you want to see Glacier Grey, there's also a ferry run through Hotel Grey (~$100 USD round trip).

My friend Serena enjoying the views from the Lago Pehoé ferry.

There are three major lodging options in and around the park:

1. Park-operated, hike-in, free campgrounds with limited services.
2. Campgrounds that include refugios/lodges, some of which are associated with hotels or "glamping" options, on the trekking circuit.
3. More traditional hotels off the trekking circuit.

All of the lodging options in the park that I am aware of have awesome views and either offer or can arrange sightseeing tours, guided hikes, horseback riding, and other excursions. The list below is pretty exhaustive, but there may be others out there (let me know if you find any!).

Options on the trekking circuit:

• Hotel las Torres at Las Torres (the "start" of the circuit)
• EcoCamp at Las Torres (my parents stayed here during their park visit and it was awesome, the views from the camp are incredible)

Domes at sunset at the Las Torres EcoCamp

Options off the trekking circuit:

• Explora hotel on the SE end of Lago Pehoé
• Pehoé Hostel on the E shore of the lake
• Cabañas del Paine at the S end of the park
• Hotel Lago Grey at the S end of Lago Grey
• Tierra Patagonia Hotel/Spa on the E shore of Lago Sarmiento
• Estancia Tercera near Lago Azul to the E of the park
• Awasi Villas to the E of the park
• Patagonia Camp (luxury yurts) to the S of the park
• Hotel Rio Serrano, Hotel Lago del Toro and Hosteria Lago Tyndall on the SW edge of Lago del Toro to the S of the park

...want to hike, but are not into hauling a pack or not keen on sleeping in tents

You're in luck! The network of lodges, refugios, restaurants, shops, and tents-for-rent already set up at the campgrounds in the park mean that you don't actually have to carry a pack (except for stuff like water, snacks, and your sunscreen and rain gear) if you don't want to.

If you want to sleep in refugios, lodges, or domes, you're limited to the W. If you're willing to sleep in a tent, you can do the full O with a porter.

Many trekking excursions organized through agencies in Puerto Natales or run through lodges or vendors in the park also include porters who carry most of your gear for you (ask). The company my parents used during their stay in Torres del Paine was Eco Camp Patagonia which offers everything from full circuit treks with porters to stays at their beautiful and unique dome village with day excursions to park highlights. Not cheap, but the staff is excellent and the setting of the camp really couldn't be any better. A list of other lodges is above. The two main vendors in the park are Vertice Patagonia and Fantastico Sur, which also offer guided tours.

What? This doesn't look like fun?

...are totally down with carrying a pack--this is trekking after all

Do the W if you are short on time (my group did it in 3 days, Lonely Planet recommends 4-5), the full O circuit if you have plenty (Lonely Planet recommends 7-10 days, but if you like long days you can do it in 5). When planning, add in at least two half days for transport to and from the trail from Puerto Natales.

There are two places to start:

1. From Las Torres (take a bus from Puerto Natales to the Laguna Amarga ranger station from which point there are little transfer shuttles to Las Torres)
2. From Paine Grande (take a bus from Puerto Natales to the Lago Pehoé ferry terminal, then take the ferry to Paine Grande)

Both treks can be done in either direction. There are arguments as to which way is best. For the W, I don't think it matters. For the O, the major difference is that you'll either be hiking up the extremely steep W side of Paso John Gardner with the glacial views to your back, or sliding down it with the views the whole time. Most people prefer the slip-and-slide with the glacier views. To avoid too much "I got used to hiking alone and what the hell is up with all these people now?" shock, do the W part of the trek first (I would recommend starting at Paine Grande and going counterclockwise).

Camping is only permitted in designated campsites, so plan ahead knowing your reasonable hiking limits. There are several free CONAF campgrounds, and if you are willing to hike long hours you could almost do the whole circuit staying only in free sites: Paine Grande (arrive and start hike same day) -> Campamento Italiano -> French Valley and back to Italiano -> Campamento Torres -> Refugio Dickson (not free) -> Campamento Paso -> out via Paine Grande.

The CONAF campgrounds do not require (and most do not take) reservations, just show up, they won't turn you away. Reservations can be made at the other sites, but they are not necessary if you are hauling your own tent. All have water and pit or composting toilets.

Bring plenty of cash in pesos in case you don't make your free campsite and need to camp in a pay site. And bring plenty of cash in pesos to buy yourself beer ($2000 pesos/can of Austral) at the refugios when you pass them. There are no fires allowed in the parks and cooking stoves may only be used in designated campsite spots.

Stressing out about how to pack for your trek? Check out my "How to Pack for a Trek to the End of the World" post, keeping in mind that Torres is so well-supported that you won't need a lot of things listed.

Drinking a bottle of wine that my friend Anneke surprised me with
alone in my tent on my 30th birthday in the middle of a rainstorm.
Special times.

...want a true wilderness experience

Go somewhere else. Torres del Paine is spectacular, but a zoo of humans. There's a lot of truly wild land in this part of the world. Get dropped off somewhere remote and enjoy knowing there are no other people as far as you can see, like I did when I wandered south of the Dientes del Navarino circuit on Isla Navarino.

Not another human in all this view. In stark contrast to busy Torres del Paine, where I didn't go a day without seeing at least 30-some people (and that was in the "quiet" backside...on the W it was more like hundreds).

...are a geobiology nerd (like me!)

There are microbial mats and microbialites (including some huge thrombolites) on the shores of Laguna Amarga and Lago Sarmiento. Pretty much the coolest shit I'd ever seen.

Me, pawing a lovely thrombolite on the shore of Lago Sarmiento

The campgrounds (in clockwise order from Torres)

Prices are for a tent site, per person, in Chilean pesos at the time of writing (December 2013).

There are two types of campgrounds:

1. Free CONAF campgrounds. These campgrounds have limited services, but always have some sort of toilet facility (either flush, composting, or pit), water, and a ranger watching over everything.
2. Pay campgrounds run by either Fantastico Sur (F) or Vertice Patagonia (V). All pay campsites have toilets, showers, and rental equipment/mini-stores (e.g. sleeping mats, sleeping bags, tents, fuel, stoves, beer...), and refugios/lodges where you can rent a bed (with or without sheets/blankets), pay for meals (which you may need to reserve in advance, full board runs around $50 USD) unless otherwise noted.

For refugio and lodge reservations and prices (which run about $50 USD pp/night and up without board, full board is an additional ~$50+ USD), contact Fantastico Sur (F) and Vertice Patagonia (V).

Note that campgrounds (particularly the CONAF campgrounds) may close without notice. Inform yourself when you enter the park and plan accordingly. Be prepared (with energy, time, and cash) to go to the next or return to one you just passed in case you find one closed. Camping outside open campgrounds is forbidden, and you can be fined or even imprisoned for not following park rules.

A friendly Zorro wandering through the edge of one campsite.

The first ten campgrounds are on the W trek. Prices listed are for tent sites.

1. Las Torres (F) - Refugio and pay campground ($6000 pesos/person/night for tent site) with showers, flush toilets, and awesome views. There are also hotel and lodge options here (Hotel Las Torres), and the EcoCamp that my parents stayed at that is like staying in a hobbit village and absolutely charmed my pants off...not literally, I behaved and kept my pants on except in the privacy of my tent, but I was thoroughly charmed.
2. Campamento Chileno (F) - Pay campground ($6000 pesos) with a restaurant on the side of a creek on the way to Base de las Torres. If you don't need restaurant access, continue up the hill to Campamento Torres.
3. Campamento Torres - Free CONAF campground in the woods with running water/toilets. Best place to camp if you want to watch the sunrise at Base de las Torres.
4. Campamento Japonés - You need special permits to go here, base camp for climbers. The normal "W" route does not go this far.
5. Los Cuernos (F) - Pay campground ($8000 pesos) with a restaurant, refugio, and dome/lodge options.
6. Valle Francés (F) - Pay campground ($4000 pesos) with toilets and showers, no cooking or rent-a-tent facilities yet, check if open.
7. Campamento Italiano - Free CONAF campground in the woods with composting toilets and a stream for water.
8. Campamento Británico - Free CONAF campground that was closed when I did the trek.
9. Paine Grande (V) - Pay campground ($4800 pesos) with flush toilets, showers, a cooking gazebo with stoves, and breathtaking views. The campground can get very windy. The Paine Grande lodge has a restaurant, bar, internet cabins, refugio, and lodge in a beautiful spot at the shore of Lago Pehoé. The Lago Pehoé ferry leaves from here at 9:30 am, 12:30 pm, and 6:30 pm. Don't miss happy hour at the bar from 5-7 pm (2-for-1 $3500 peso pisco sours when I was there).
10. Refugio Grey (V) - Pay campground ($4000 pesos) with a restaurant, refugio, showers, etc. in a field not far from views of Glacier Grey.

The campground at Paine Grande (Lago Pehoé)

The rest of the sites are on the "backside" on the "O" route, continuing in the clockwise direction from Refugio Grey:

1. Campamento Paso - Free CONAF campground in the woods with pit toilets and creek water. The steep and windy Paso John Gardner is between this campground and Campamento Los Perros.
2. Campamento Los Perros (V) - Pay campground ($4000 pesos) in the woods with a little store and refugio, close to the Mirador for the Los Perros glacier.
3. Refugio Dickson (V) - Pay campground ($4000 pesos) with a little store, showers, and refugio in a breathtaking spot with views of the glacier at the end of Lago Dickson.
4. Campamento Serón (F) - Pay campground ($6000 pesos) in a field with a little store and refugio.

Refugio Dickson. The views were...umm..."pretty baller".

Miscellaneous information about the park

There are streams practically everywhere and at the time this was written, the water was safe to drink, so you do not need to bring filtration or treatment equipment or a huge water bladder--a 1L (or even 0.5L) bottle that you refill along the way is plenty.

There are refugios and lodges dotting the trail that sell food and basic equipment like gas canisters and beer. So if you have cash to burn, you can save yourself some pack weight.

The weather can change rapidly (be prepared for rain) and the winds get very strong (two of the members of my hiking party--myself included--had their ponchos shredded in a rainstorm with heavy winds...so don't count on ponchos to save you; I also lost my pack cover to a sudden, strong gust). The sun, when out, can be intense. Come prepared with layers, rain gear, sunscreen, and good sunglasses to protect your eyes.

This should go without saying, but bring a camera. It's only, like, the most beautiful place on Earth.

Carry cash in pesos. Some of the lodges (e.g. Paine Grande and Hotel Torres) accept credit cards or USD, but the refugios and campsites do not. Wouldn't you be sad if you spent all day while hiking in the rain dreaming of a lukewarm beer at the end of your hike only to realize you were a few pesos short? That is the stuff my nightmares are made of.

Throwing together all of our change to try to
buy beers at Paine Grande.

Resources

In addition to lodging, Erratic Rock Hostel in Puerto Natales offers daily park talks at 3 pm (open to all), gear rentals, guide services, etc. as well as an excellent website full of info to help you plan your trip to the park. They also have a pub. Check them out.

Another website with lots of information about the park is TorresdelPaine.com

The Wikitravel page has fairly up-to-date info.


Got additional tips or corrections? Please post them!

Getting to Torres del Paine: hitchhiking on a yacht, long bus rides, and friendly faces

The Goal: Meet my friends in Torres del Paine

These past several months whenever people would ask me what my plans were next, I replied, “No se. No tengo un plan.” (I have no plans) I really enjoy the traveling life without a plan, doing what I want where I want when the mood strikes. However, there was one plan for this trip that I had been looking forward to for half a year: meeting up with my friend Serena and her fiancé Eric to celebrate my 30^th birthday in Torres del Paine.

Torres del Paine is Chile’s most renowned national park and is to Chile what Yosemite is to the United States. The park is centered around some spectacular walls of granite, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful place on Earth. It was recently named the "8th wonder of the world" by voters on VirtualTourist; also, my well-traveled friend Caleb recommended it as “the standard to which I compare all natural beauty”(check out his blog, he and his girlfriend are doing good things on their trip to SE Asia). Becaues of this, it attracts a zoo of backpack-laden tourists from all over the world to hike on its famous trekking circuit. It, along with the Andes in winter and the Atacama Desert, was one of very few “I must go here” goals for this trip.

The Torres. Pretty rad.

Serena and I met in 2005 when we were roommates during our three-month internships at NASA Goddard as part of the NASA Academy program. We bonded over things like arguing about which temperature to keep our room at (we worked out a compromise where I gave her all of my blankets and in exchange was allowed to keep the room at a cool-ish level), being the weirdos who biked to work, taking obscene numbers of photos with rockets, and sweeping the end-of-program awards ceremony. Unlike most summer program friendships where you stay in touch for a while but eventually drift back away into your own lives, many of us from that summer are still in touch eight years later. This is in part thanks to the Girls Heart Rockets running team that grew out of the program, first as an informal group named after an inside joke, but it quickly morphed into a seriously ass-kicking competitive relay team.

When I used “I’m going to be traveling in South America” as my excuse this year for not signing up for any Girls Heart Rockets races (glad to have a really legitimate excuse for a change versus my normal excuse that until we form a sister team “Cows in Space”, I’m too slow for Rockets), Serena responded, “Sweet, can I come?”

Serena, chowing down on a bell pepper after reaching Baso Torres.

Unlike all of my other friends and sibling who had said the same and even made promises to join me for parts of this trip for years only to weasel out in the end, within 24 hours Serena had committed, and within a few weeks we had made definite plans that the two of them would join me in Patagonia over my birthday.

So I had intentionally kept my trek on Isla Navarino “short” (if seven days can be called short) even though I would have liked more time to explore the island, because I wanted to leave plenty of buffer time to make sure that I could make it to Torres del Paine in time to meet up with them. Or at least I thought it was plenty of buffer time: I planned my Navarino trek to end on a Thursday, and the trek in Torres del Paine wasn't starting until the following Tuesday. Given that it took me 2 days to get to Ushuaia from Bariloche, I figured twice the time to make it half the distance should be plenty. Right? Right??

Leaving Puerto Williams: appropriately difficult for an island at the end of the world

There were only four options for getting off the island and to Punta Arenas (from which there are a good dozen or so buses a day to Puerto Natales):

1. A 1.5 hour flight with DAP airlines directly from Puerto Williams to Punta Arenas, leaving twice daily Monday-Saturday (the cheapest commercial option and by far the fastest)
2. Taking the same zodiac back to Ushuaia that I had taken to the island, then take an all-day bus to Punta Arenas the next day (with the bus, more expensive than flying)
3. A 36-hour scenic (but expensive) ferry ride that would get me to Punta Arenas Monday night: too late to meet Serena and Eric in Puerto Natales but maybe early enough to rush to meet them in camp after their first day of hiking
4. Attempting to hitch a ride on a yacht to Ushuaia, then bus to Punta Arenas

Since the flight was the cheapest and by far the fastest certain option, my first order of business once I returned from the trek (see Navarino Part VIII: The Feral Swampbeast Returns to Civilization) was get tickets for the first possible flight to Punta Arenas. I had been told before I left on my trek that getting onto a flight once I returned would be no problem—high season hadn't’t started yet—and that that would be better since the tickets were expensive and if anything happened to delay my return, I wouldn't want to have to forfeit the ticket.

But when I showed up at the DAP office (Puerto Williams is serviced by the famous Antarctic airline DAP via a small airfield outside of town) and waited the 30 minutes for whatever hamsters were running the computers to spin their wheels enough times to permit a search for ticket availability, I was informed that all of the flights were full. “¿Y manaña? ¿O Sabado?” I asked, and was then informed that the flights were full for weeks. I asked if there was any wait list or way to get on and they told me to return at 3 pm to see if there had been any cancellations. I showed up at 3 pm, and the office was closed. I tried again a few hours later and found them open, and they told me to return the following day at 2 pm. I did, and the office was closed. After this happened several more times I started to lose my patience with the folks at the DAP office...but I had yet to experience the full of their incompetence (I can only assume DAP pilots are as much above average as the staff at the office were below it...).

This has nothing to do with the story, but is a memorial plaque in the Puerto Williams museum honoring Captain Robert FitzRoy of the HMS Beagle, who visited Isla Navarino several times in his trips to South America

Meanwhile I went to scope out my other options. I was too late to get the next-day’s zodiac, the one for Saturday was full, and the weather for Sunday was looking iffy enough that they warned it may not go on Sunday.  So the zodiac was out. I wasn't keen on the expensive and slow ferry, despite the scenery (which with bad weather rolling in probably wouldn't be too spectacular anyhow) because it would mean missing the first full day of hiking with my friends.

So I spent a lot of time hanging out at the yacht club in hopes of meeting someone I might be able to catch a ride to Ushuaia with. It was a fun place to hang out regardless, full of fascinating people, and also had the town’s best internet signal (there are, it turned out, three places in Puerto Williams with an internet signal: the town library with terrible slow internet in a cramped space, the town museum with somewhat less slow internet that cut out often but in a really nice spot, and the yacht club which was about on par with the museum but had the distinct advantage of also having a bar). The first night back, this meant arriving with the intent of having a beer and seeing who was there, and leaving at 4am having drunk ALL the beers that the yachties and Chilean navymen kept buying me.

Inside the Club de Yates, coolest bar ever.

I had a great time there meeting and talking to people and especially enjoyed getting to know Ben and Anna (and their dog Osa), a San Franciscan couple my age who had sailed down from San Fran over the course of several years and were also looking to bum rides to Ushuaia in order to hop on a free trip to Antarctica that they had managed to charm their way onto.

My dancing all night after my trek got me two things: (1) very sick, and (2) an invitation to an asado at the yacht club the following day. The asado was being thrown at the club on Friday to welcome the sailors who were arriving for a friendship regatta being hosted by the Chilean Navy in order to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the founding of Puerto Williams. Free wine, free food, and fun company? I do not say no to such things. At the asado, my host and I put out the word that I was looking for a ride, but there were no bites. Still, I got to meet some real characters including the famous Charlie Porter, a glaciologist (officially a research associate at the University of Maine) living out of his two boats and house in Puerto Williams, but in one of his previous lives was a pioneering (and still legendary) big-wall rock climber in Yosemite and Patagonia.

On Saturday the folks at DAP had suggested that I show up at 11:30 at the airport to ask the captain if he could squeeze another passenger on what I assumed was an afternoon flight (since I asked at DAP if I needed to bring all my luggage with me and they said no). Apparently this is pretty standard there and my chances were actually decent—if they weren’t hauling a lot of stuff, they might have weight left over for me. So I slowly dragged my sick, wheezing self the 40 minute hike to the airport from town. I made it almost all the way there at shortly after 11 when, first, a plane took off (this worried me). Shortly thereafter a car full of carabineros who were dropping a friend off for a flight drove by (this unworried me somewhat) and picked me up. We arrived just as a vehicle full of the folks I recognized from my many trips to the DAP office was departing, and they told us that the flight had already left. It turns out that the staff at the Puerto Williams DAP office have no idea when their own planes leave.

Bridge on the way to the airport.

My carabinero friend was furious in the totally calm, joking Chilean way (tip from Charlie Porter: “The key in Chile is you never, ever lose your cool. Chileans communicate in jokes when they get pissed off.”), since he had also been told to show up at 11:30, and he was a ticket-carrying passenger. We spent an uncomfortable hour back in the DAP office trying to wrangle our way onto the evening flight, although at that point I never wanted to set foot in the DAP office again, having written them all off as utterly useless.

We were promised that if we returned to the airfield at 7:30 pm, the carabinero would have a ride and I might be able to squeeze on as well. To me this meant that there might be a flight leaving sometime that evening but they definitely wouldn't have room for either of us when we showed up, but I kept my mouth shut and agreed when the carabinero told me to meet him at the police station at 6 pm to drive over nice and early (since he, too, did not trust the info from DAP).

Tired, sick, feeling quite miserable, frustrated, and hungry, I returned to Patty’s, stopping on the way at the waterfront to watch the regatta which was now fully underway and to catch my sick, wheezy breath. I cooked myself some soup and chatted with the latest arrivals. I told Patty my plans to leave at 6 pm and try to catch the afternoon flight and teared up when we said our “maybe goodbyes”.

It was the first time I had come close to crying in over a month. Walking back to the yacht club heavy-hearted it struck me how deeply the place had grabbed onto my heart. My wild soul had found a place wild enough to want to stay.

Colorful boats (with the Yaghan scenic ferry in the back right) in Puerto Williams

How I hitchhiked on a yacht to cross the Beagle Channel

I wandered back across town to the yacht club, feeling suddenly lonely and craving the company of friends. After chatting briefly with Ben and Anna I curled up on the upper inside deck of the club to catch up on emails, rest, work on getting a blog post up, try to map out my transport options, and update Serena on my transportation situation.

Suddenly Anna appeared with the news that they had found someone to catch a ride with, leaving the next morning to Ushuaia, and that if I asked there might be room for me as well but I’d need to commit right then because they were heading over to the port station to get their passports stamped out (since Puerto Williams is in Chile, and Ushuaia in Argentina). I waffled since if I could get onto the flight it would be a lot faster, but I decided to walk with them anyhow since I was going that way in order to meet the carabinero for our attempted flight-catching.

Sailboats participating in the Puerto Williams 60th Anniversary friendship regatta

On the way over, the yacht’s captain Marcel informed Ben and Anna that he wanted to leave that evening instead because bad weather was rolling in. When he said that, I jumped, thinking if I could get to Ushuaia that night I could catch the early morning bus on Sunday, get to Punta Arenas Sunday night, and be in Natales in plenty of time. So I put on my gutsy mooch pants and asked Marcel directly if there might be room for me, too. He gave a sort of noncommittal response, so once we got to the station I asked, directly again, feeling really awkward about being pushy but sufficiently driven by desperation. He said yes, sure, why not, and I promised to supply wine to seal the deal.

And that’s how it happened that my fourth experience hitchhiking in my life was on a yacht.

Iorana, Captain Marcel's yacht

I felt guilty about standing up the carabinero, but figured he would make it to the airport without me as Ben, Anna, and I handed over our passports and Captain Marcel checked us out of the country. I suggested Patty’s place as a place for dinner before we took off. Marcel laughed since he was friends with Patty and was already planning on having dinner there. Ben and Anna had to pack for Antarctica (how often do you get to say that?), so Marcel and I walked to Patty’s together.

We chatted on the way and Captain Marcel told me stories about how he’d landed in this part of the world. How he’d worked chartering trips (and still does) around Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn. How he was now old enough to collect his Belgian pension and that it provided plenty to live on while he worked as a gaucho at Yendegaia. How he loved living without a phone and internet. How he had been married once for seven years and that was quite enough. How “I’m happy, I have no problems, I don’t want someone else’s problems.” And I could only nod my head and agree on that count.

Patty had a treat in store for us: a mountain of fresh king crab, the last of the season. I supplied the wine, an “expensive” (for Chile, where excellent wine is about as cheap as water) $12 USD bottle of Casillero del Diabalo 2012 Reserva Carmenere. Casillero del Diabalo is my favorite wine back home, and since discovering Carmenere in Chile it has become my favorite wine, and sweet shit this was good. Patty and Marcel and the others kept loading me up with so much crab that I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to walk. It was absurdly tasty on its own, and Patty makes a magic Mapuche merkén (like chipotle) spicy sauce (as well as a really good garlic mayonnaise, but her magic spicy sauce is my favorite) that made it mind-blowing. It was a meal that in a restaurant in Ushuaia—or anywhere else for that matter—probably would have run over $100. And that was just a regular dinner with friends at Patty’s place. (I miss her!)

There were several of these trays served up.

King Crab dinner at Patty's

Me, Captain Marcel, and Patty

It was around 10 pm when we wandered back to the boat, me with all my stuff, and loaded down with a belly-full of what must have been several pounds of crab. We grabbed Ben and Anna, hopped on the boat, untied from the Club de Yates, and were off. Marcel’s yacht, Iorana, was very comfortable, with a large aft cabin where he stores his wine and dried meats (and where we dropped our packs), a kitchen and dining table that converts to a large bed, a side couch, and a fore berth where Marcel slept. He set the autopilot and got up every few minutes to check on things while we sat and chatted. I was exhausted and although I  tried to stay awake and chat as long as I could, I soon fell asleep at the table for an hour, after which I was given permission to curl up in a corner and was out cold until we docked in Ushuaia at 4 am.

What I hadn't factored into my flash decision to take the boat was that I’d have to check in to Argentina before I’d be allowed to go anywhere, and the offices wouldn't be open until 9 am—well after the morning bus I had wanted to take had left (and as it turned out I wouldn't have been able to get on that bus even if the timing had worked out). Well, at least I’d get to sleep.

Marcel turned the boat radios off, determined to sleep as long as possible, and we all fell asleep to the sound of the thumping bass of a Saturday night party raging onshore. He woke us up at 10 am to go check in. We had breakfast (I supplied bread, butter, juice, and oranges, Ben and Anna supplied what fruit they had left from their boat, and Marcel spoiled us all with homemade rhubarb jam. We all waked over to the police station where they took their sweet-ass time (over an hour) checking us in. Then we said our goodbyes and scattered: Marcel to deal with customs, Ben and Anna to find their friend to help prep the boat for the trip to Antarctica, and me to try to book a bus ticket to Punta Arenas.

Anna on arrival in Ushuaia

Escaping Ushuaia

Ushuaia has no bus terminal, which made things difficult. Buses in Chile and Argentina generally cannot be booked online as a foreigner. The booking offices were all closed since it was a Sunday. At the info center I was told that word I hate so much, “imposible”, when I asked where or how I could secure myself a seat on a bus for the morning.

In fact, the info I was supplied at the info center was wrong. I had spent many hours in the previous days mapping out my transport options and knew that there was a Chilean bus company that at least in theory ran a bus Monday mornings from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas. When I asked at the info center about this bus, they said “no existe” and handed me a printout of the “complete” list of bus connections, which did not include the company that had the Monday bus. It later occurred to me that all of the companies on their list were Argentinian, which further confirmed my finding that Argentinians generally refuse to acknowledge that Chileans can do anything right (contrary to my experience, where Chilean outfits generally do the same thing for cheaper and in a more friendly way). They also told me that it was not possible to pay on board a bus in Argentina, and that because tomorrow was a holiday nothing would be open, so there was no possible way for me to leave Ushuaia until Tuesday. I didn't believe them.

Ushuaia is, however, a very beautiful town.

I was tired and grumpy and sick of information offices feeding me blatantly wrong information and being the absolute opposite of helpful. I started asking around town in shops and tourist agencies instead about where I could get a bus until finally one person pointed me down the street with the words, “5 blocks that way, be there at 6 am”. Sure enough, 5 blocks away, I found the office of a little tour agency with a little piece of paper taped in the window that showed the Monday bus I had seen on the internet leaving at 7 am.

I found a hostel that would let me pay $60 Argentine pesos (~$10 USD, depending on who you exchange money with) for a day of internet, use of their kitchen, and shower, and settled in, crossing my fingers that I could show up and get on that bus the next morning. Meanwhile, I randomly connected with an acquaintance from Bariloche who was in Ushuaia celebrating her very successful exams to be a tourism guide in Bariloche, and we caught up over dinner. I hope she makes it into the business soon, because, I had decided, competent providers of tourist information are desperately needed in this part of the world!

Marcel had generously offered to let me spend another night on the boat, so after dinner I wandered back to the boat, crawled into my sleeping bag (Marcel was off partying with boat friends), and woke up early the next morning (Marcel was out cold, so I left him a note to thank him and say goodbye) to see about the bus.

View of the boat mooring in Ushuaia at sunrise

I showed up at the tour office at 6 am, walking up the streets while the discos were still raging. There wasn't a soul to be seen outside except a stand of groggy police officers up early to keep drunk kids from getting into too much trouble. The tour office was dark, so I left a “I need a bus ticket!” note at the door and then tried to sneak into the hostel two blocks away for the shower that I hadn't used the previous day. I was caught by thoroughly disgruntled employee who I only confused with explanations, but in the end I think he was too tired to deal with me and gave up and let me shower. I was quick, and back at the tour office by 6:30, at which point the discos had dumped their load and the streets were full of kids who looked way too young to be drinking legally and girls in platform shoes and mini-dresses in the frigid cold while I was bundled up in a down jacket. The office was still dark, but I was relieved to see  a small crowd gathered outside.

I chatted with a man who turned out to be a Penguinologist from Oxford until the bus showed up and, much to my relief, they let me in without a ticket. Not only that, but they let me pay in Chilean pesos and gave me a very generous exchange rate that meant I paid about 60% of what I thought I was going to have to pay ($30000 CHP, which equals ~$60 USD). Score! I settled into my seat with Professor Penguin and breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Professor Penguin had celebrated his birthday the night before and a friend had baked him a cake, which he shared with me for breakfast. I felt like the luckiest person alive.

A final Ushuaia photo

After that it was 11 hours of tedium (= rest, sweet rest) interrupted only by a long hour and a half wait at the border crossing where, for some reason, they never bothered to stamp us out of Argentina. Then another stop at the ferry crossing across the Strait of Magellan between Rio Grande and Rio Gallegos where, because of huge swells they took us out of the bus and put us inside  (I didn't have time to grab my camera, so no photos or videos, sadly). This was fortunate because unlike all of the other long bus rides I had been on, this bus didn't feed us meals or snacks and I was getting hangry (= hungry + cranky, thanks Tom & Ellen for the brilliant word). Professor Penguin and I got hot dogs.

Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales: the final leg

We arrived in Punta Arenas at 6 pm, and 10 minutes before our arrival I was informed at all of the buses continuing to Natales for the next 24 hours were full. By this point this neither surprised nor phased me, I just asked about other bus companies and the bus steward actually called ahead for me and made me a reservation with another company. Because—I know this may come as a shock to my Argentinian readers (giving you guys shit, but you know I love you)—Chileans are helpful! And nice!

We pulled into Punta Arenas, I hugged Professor Penguin goodbye (he was transferring between two Antarctic trips to visit his penguin colonies), and the bus steward gave me directions to the other bus company. On my way I was tempted to stop and get dinner—food other than hot dogs and cake and cookies—but thought I’d check in first just to be safe. I showed up and was immediately whisked onto an earlier bus. Food can wait. I was finally on the final leg to meet my friends!

Surprise friend addition to the birthday tour: Anneke, my Australian friend I had met in Bariloche.
No one got swagger like Anneke.

I arrived in Natales three hours later (after a total of 14 hours sitting on buses) at around 9:30 pm. I set off from the bus station confidently, with a carefully-drawn map that I had made up with the help of the Internets in Ushuaia the day before in hand—only to end up standing in the rain, confused, turning in circles, trying to figure out where I was, hopelessly lost, because Natales had built a new bus terminal that was well off the edge of my nice little map. But less than a minute later someone came to my aid and the chatty, frighteningly made-up but good-hearted woman walked me most of the way to the hostel while telling me her entire life’s story.

I arrived at 10 pm where I was greeted by the hostel owner, who was expecting me thanks to my Bariloche pal Anneke who managed to make it down to join us for the trek and who had arrived the day prior. I was so very relieved to see Anneke, a familiar face, a friend to go play with. Anneke even fed me. I slept like a rock that night. The next morning at 8 am, Serena and Eric were there with their rental car, and off we went to our trek in Torres.

On the road with Eric

Postcard Contest 3: Trip Planning Challenge

EDIT Nov. 9:

The deadline passed with *zero* comments or suggestions. So I went ahead and bought my first overpriced bus ticket, thereby committing myself more or less to the plans I had tentatively come up with prior to posting. But I don't want a postcard contest to pass without a postcard-receiver, so I'll send a postcard to:

1. The first person to comment. Period.
2. The first person who can name the small mountain range at the end of the world that I'll be going to next.
3. The person who writes the most interesting thing about Tierra del Fuego, Isla Navarino, the voyage of the Beagle, or anything relevant to that part of the world.

Three postcards! I'm feeling all kinds of crazy this morning.

A view from the lake in Bariloche, where I am now. Why would I ever want to leave? But it's time for this nomad to move on.

Okay friends, I have a challenge for you.

I spent more time than I care to admit last week trying to map out the best (read: cheapest) possible way to get to my next destination(s) and keep thinking "there has got to be a better way". Before I commit to my tentative plan, I thought I'd send a line out and see if anyone out there has any better ideas.

This is where I want to go.

So here's the challenge

I am currently in Bariloche, Argentina. I want to get to Isla Navarino, Chile, which is pretty much the closest I can get to Antarctica until I manage to weasel my way onto a research expedition. Once there, I want to spend at least 6 days there backpacking in the mountains. Weather forecasts make me think sooner would be better than later...living in a bivvy sack through a week of downpour at near-freezing temperatures could get pretty not-fun pretty fast.

And then here.

After Isla Navarino, I need to get to El Calafate to meet up with some friends for the most epic 30th birthday party ever in Torres del Paine. Did I mention that I turn 30 on the 27th? Birthday presents in the form of bus tickets, penguin tours, and wealthy friends whose yachts I can hitch rides on gladly accepted. ;-)

Postcard goes to whomever reports back in the next 24 hours with the route I like best. Judging will be totally subjective.

Rules and Details

• Departure from Bariloche no sooner than the morning of Nov. 8.
• A minimum of 6 days on Isla Navarino, including the good-forecast period from Nov. 12-14.
• Arrival in El Calafate no later than mid-day on November 25th.
• I will not be doing any swimming.
• Please include realistic time estimates and details of routes, companies, transfers, travel times, etc. wherever possible.
• To be considered, include a final cost for the entire trip from Bariloche to the end destination at El Calafate.
• Optional side trip tips (with costs and details where possible) are appreciated and will not count toward the final trip price.
• Deadline is 18:00 Buenos Aires time (UTC -03:00) Friday, November 8, 2013.

Me, backpacking with the splitboard in Patagonia. Cut out the me minus the board and paste me into a scene at the end of the world.

Postcard Contest Disclaimer

Answers must be posted as comments on this blog to be considered, and can't be anonymous (if I don't know who you are, I can't contact you to get your address to mail you a postcard).

The prize for the winner will be a postcard from their choice of Bariloche, Isla Navarino, or Torres del Paine. If I can't find a postcard, I will print a photo and mail it. I make no promises to when the postcard will be mailed or when it will arrive (mail is slow here, and it may take me a while to find a postcard and a post office), but patience! You will get it!