Chile – Torres del Paine, Fjords, Glaciers & safely home!

Posted on by patevans

 

Sending this from Sydney as we are now home, after a 6 weeks that will take a while to fully appreciate all we saw and did.  A 3 hour drive from Ei Calafate, Argentina took us to Chile and after we crossed the border we were handed over to another driver (felt like a prisoner exchange), who took us to our hotel, Los Torres. On the way we saw lots of guanacos (related to llamas) and a couple of condors flying low down, near us.  Our hotel was well situated in the National Park Torres Del Paine.  We had an all inclusive package which was a total waste as Dick was still sick so hardly ate anything, neither of us drank anything and Dick wasn’t well enough to do any of the guided walks through that beautiful national park.

 

Guanacos, there are 3000-4000 in the Torres del Paine National Park and 70 – 80 pumas.  We didn’t see any pumas but our guides regularly see them.  They eat rabbits and guanacos.

 

Condors flying just above us on our drive to the hotel.

 

We did make it to the lamb bbq for dinner and shared that meal with two Australian couples, so that was a pleasant, social meal.

 

Outside the hotel which was located at the start of many walks in the park
Dick slept a lot but we did get out for a 3 hour walk on a picture perfect day.

 

Lunch stop on the walk
Beautiful blue lakes
Our walk was a very small part of the ‘W’ trail, which goes through the mountains.

 

We saw the pack horses coming back from a supply delivery to the overnight camps along the W trail.

 

The next day we signed up for a full day tour which included some scenic stops.
And a small waterfall
Plus a boat trip to another glacier

 

As Dick was still not well, he stayed inside the boat but still got some glacier/iceberg pics.
Another impressive glacier

 

On our last stop we had a beautiful vista
And we saw two armadillos up close, but I only got one in the photo.  They seemed to like hanging around the campground where we had an end of day drinks and nibble session.

Since Dick was not getting better and still not eating, we decided to check out from the park a day early and go to Puerto Natales, the closest town with a hospital and the start of our next cruise.  Another two hour drive in a bus got us to our hotel.  Fortunately the owner was a lovely woman who lent us money for a cab so we could go straight to the hospital.  This doctor reinforced the need for a strict diet and antibiotics, after examining Dick, and she recommended we go on the cruise as they have a doctor on board. In the end our unplanned stay in Puerto Natales was quite pleasant, helped by having a wonderful host and an excellant restaurant at the hotel, which is in the top 100 restaurants in Chile.  A sleep-in and rest day before boarding, Skorpios lll at 3:30pm also helped.

This was the boat, Skorpios lll and our cabin was on the port side front on the 4th deck, so we had good windows and fabulous views. There were 79 passengers from 12 countries, and probably 50% spoke Spanish. In this pic the boat is intentionally beached.

The plan for the 3 night trip was that we would see 11 of the 48 glaciers in the southern icefields.  We lost track as we saw so many glaciers, and we had already seen quite a few before we got there.  We are posing in front of Amalia Glacier.

 

We got quite close to El Brujo Glacier but the rocks were slippery to walk on and then it rained.
Later that day we went out in an ‘icebreaker’ boat. Was quite a different experience as we crunched through the ice.

 

This is the ice we were travelling through.

 

One of their traditions on the ice breaker boat was to have a 12 year old whiskey with 30,000 year old ice (or was that a way of warming us up?) and they gave us the nice glasses as a souvenir.  

 

We walked on the terminal moraine to Bernal Glacier. This picture shows where the glacier used to be and how much it is receding.  

 

They went all out with a fancy buffet complete with iceberg feature for the Captain’s Dinner.  We had a couple of laborious speeches from the Captain in Spanish (and translated), as they followed some formal cruise traditions although sometimes we were reminded more of ‘Faulty Towers’.

 

We were on an english speaking table, with Scots and English. There were no other Aussies on board.

 

Our waiter was particularly kind to us (although he spoke no English). He organized these special gluten free desserts for us so we didn’t miss out as the others had about 20 desserts in the formal dinner. Rest assured we did not eat them all but we gave it a good go.

 

Our last stop was Santiago, which meant another 3 hour bus ride to the airport at Puerto Arenas and a 3 hour wait for the flight getting us into Santiago around 7pm.  There we were taken to our hotel and told not to go out as there were protests in the street next to our hotel.  A day trip to Valparaiso was already organized for us, and we liked the guide who met us at the airport, so we kept with the schedule and enjoyed seeing another very colorful part of Chile.

 

We visited Valparaiso, the port city, that previously played a key role in shipping before the Panama Canal was built. You can still see it is an operating port. Dick feeling much better.

 

Valparaiso features colorful buildings, originally all painted in distinctive bright colors so that owners could pick out their houses from the harbour.

 

Amazing murals everywhere

 

Quirky houses

 

And a series of funiculars throughout the city.
So many colorful murals throughout the town.

 

The murals were a lot of fun and give the city a real vibrant feel.  It was quite a relaxing way to end our trip.

Final reflections on the trip.

Six weeks was probably too long and we included too much travel without giving ourselves enough rest time; very few rest days.

17 flights, 25 hours on buses/car transport (not counting all the day trips or airport transfers), 11 guided day tours, 2 train trips, 19 different beds, 3 cruises and numerous other boat trips; all meant we were constantly on the go, (often starting before the crack of dawn) and regularly missed meals.  I think that all contributed to our ill health for a significant part of the trip, in addition to the altitude issues.

South America or what we saw of just Peru, Equador, Argentina and Chile was really interesting with amazing natural wonders and incredible history woven into every aspect. Neither of us knew that much about the history, but each day we learned more that layered on and gave us a cohesive overall picture from pre-Inca times to after liberation from the Spanish. Dick asked so many questions about dates etc that one guide asked him to stop asking questions.

Glad we had the opportunity to see so much and would encourage others to do it at a more relaxed pace.  Thanks to all for coming along on the trip!