Latin American Journey's end - Santiago, Mendoza & Valparaiso

After docking in Punta Arenas, 38 hours after leaving Puerto Williams, we spend a day catching up on the sleep we missed before taking a flight a few thousand kilometres back up the continent to the Chilean capital, Santiago. Being left with only one week before we took our flight out of the continent across to New Zealand we still had a few final things we wanted to squeeze in…

We spent a few days in Santiago, a really attractive clean city, sat just to the western edge of one the highest sections of the Andes, where numerous peaks tower almost 7000m above the city (Santiago only being about 300m above sea level) - really putting into perspective the enormity of the Andes. We have been at a few places during this trip where we were surrounded by mountains over 6000m, though we have generally been at about 4000m ourselves, so are only ever looking up at something that is approximately 2000m higher than where we were. Staring up at close proximity to something that is almost 7000m’s higher than where you stand however, is pretty humbling.

The surrounding areas are Vineyard country, though instead of taking a vineyard tour around Santiago we crossed the Andes back into Argentina to visit the Argentine wine capital of Mendoza. The border crossing back into Argentina takes you over the mountains, past a couple of Chilean ski resorts, an Argentinian Ski resort, past the highest peak in the Andes called Aconcagua stading 6986 meters above sea level and down into the flat lands to Mendoza.

Mendoza is essentially a desert town, sat on the eastern edge of the Andes - though thanks to an efficient irrigation system that was put in place by the original settlers it is now an abundance of greenery & life not normally associated with a desert. It is also partly due to this irrigation system that the area can produce around 90% of all the wine Argentina produces, the main grape being the red Malbec. One of the main ways that travellers take a tour of the vineyards is by hiring a bike & cycling from one to the other. Though due to the fact we only had 1 full day in Mendoza, it was about 30 degrees C, & we wanted to put more effort in the drinking than the cycling, we splashed out on a chauffeured tour with a small group of 4 others around 4 exclusive smaller vineyards with a cellar tour & tasting at each, an English speaking guide & a 5 course meal complete with the appropriate wine accompaniment for each course…nice.

Mendoza has a really nice feel to it - a nice mix of Latin & European influence, a vibrant, clean & safe atmosphere & on first impressions possibly one of our favourite Argentine cities - a bit of a shame we left it until the end of the trip & only 2 nights to spend here.

Crossing back over the Andes for one final time back into Chile we headed to the coastal city of Valparaiso - an old port city that was once the capital, now essentially a picturesque bohemian place with multi coloured corrugated iron buildings sat precariously on the coastal hillsides, with old tram elevators from the early 1900's built into the hills taking you up. Unfortunately just a fleeting visit of 1 night, but nice to see before we headed off.

So now after a fantastic 7 months in Central & South America we are at the end of this stage, we now move on to the next leg of the journey in New Zealand. Latin America is definitely somewhere we will be back to in the future though…

Patagonia Pt. 3 - Journey to the 'End of the World' - Ushuaia & Puerto Williams

From Torres Del Paine we made our way further south yet again, across the Magallane Straits into Tierre Del Fuego (Land of Fire), heading for the Argentine city of Ushuaia - the southernmost city of the world. The whole area is owned in part by Argentina and in part by Chile and offers all the landscapes one could want to see... glaciers, lush woodland and a dramatic coastline. As we rounded the mountain range that sits to the northern edge of the city, the Bay of Ushuaia came into view just as the sun was setting over the city. Through the scattered cloud the sunset acted as a spotlight over the Bay of Ushuaia & the Beagle Channel, announcing a landmark stage of the trip for us. From staring at a map on the wall in our front room at home thinking what a bloody long way away Ushuaia was to actually pulling into town, felt like quite an achievement.


Ushuaia makes quite a big deal of it’s ‘Fin Del Mundo’ (End of the world) status, & whilst there is no denying the remoteness of the place - it is actually a remarkably well equipped & modern city. Ushuaia was originally established as a penal colony and so we took a tour around the old prison that was built by the convicts themselves and opened in 1902. The prison was intended for repeat offenders and serious criminals but among the convicts was supposedly the infamous Tango crooner, Carlos Gardel. One area of the prison is now used to house a museum on the history of the prison and Ushuaia as well as a couple of art galleries but it has largly been left unrestored. The prison used to hold 600 prisoners, 800 in its peak but was only designed to house 380 in single cells. It closed in 1947.

While in Ushuaia we took a sail boat out across the Beagle Channel to a Sea-Lion & Cormorant colony - very nice but seriously cold sitting out on the deck of the boat with the cold Antarctic wind blowing in. The original natives from Tierre Del Fuego (the Yamana), apparently used to walk around naked the entire time, just covering themselves in sea lion fat to be a little more water resistant - that sort of cold weather attire evens puts your average Geordie to shame!




We took a hike around the Tierre Del Fuego National Park, created in 1960, of which only a very small part is open to the public along the shoreline and few small hikes wihtin the park. It stretches 60 km north of the Beagle channel along the Chilean border.

We only realised the full extent of the ill feeling between Argentina & Chile over Patagonian territory disputes when we tried to organise a boat 60kms across the Beagle Channel to the Chilean town of Puerto Williams -which ended up taking us several days. We eventually managed to pay a boat an extortionate amount of money along with 4 other people to take the journey - Argentina clearly aiming amaking as difficult as possible for tourists to get across there.

Puerto Williams is essentially a Chilean Naval Base town, is further south than Ushuaia & actually should lay claim to the ’Fin Del Mundo’ title, as it is the southernmost inhabited town in the world - it just doesn’t go on about it. It certainly has a more remote feel about it than Ushuaia as horses & cows freely roam around the town finding food in any property they stumble into, plenty of wrecked boats line its shores & the towns 2000 inhabitants regularly run out of basic supplies - being entirely dependent on a once weekly cargo ship that arrives from the Chilean city of Punta Arenas (the nearest Chilean city) after a 38 hour journey, loaded with the towns needs for another week.

It was for this cargo ship that we had made the trip over to Puerto Williams, as along with 10 others we each paid about £100 to board the ship for it’s return leg from Puerto Williams to Punta Arenas, along the Beagle Channel & up through the Magallane Straits.





This was a total no frills journey, the ship only had 4 beds, all of which were occupied - so we spent the 38 hours in a basic chair. Having already done our fair share of long distance journeys, we decided to go armed with a few bottles of wine to increase our chances of getting some sleep - also helping to increase our popularity with the rest of our fellow shipmates! Along the Beagle Channel we sailed past 4 or 5 glaciers, coming down off the Darwin mountain range, straight down into the channel, had Albatross & Dolphins travelling alongside us & once again experienced every variation of weather imaginable. Whilst 38 hours in a basic chair on a no frills cargo ship is not something we are looking to repeat in any particular hurry, it was a great adventure & quite a fitting finale to an incredible 5 weeks in Patagonia.

Patagonia Pt.2 - Perito Moreno, Fitz Roy & Torres Del Paine

El Calafate is a small town on the shores of Lago Argentino, quite a quaint place in its own right, though primarily in existence these days to serve as a hub for a couple of key tourist attractions - in particular the incredible Perito Moreno Glacier, located about 80km away in the ‘Los Glaciares National Park‘. This immense Glacier is 30km long, 5km wide, towering some 60m above the water with a further 120 meters below the surface of the lake. What makes it so exceptional aside from it sheer size & beauty, is the fact that it is constantly advancing - up to 2 m per day, as opposed to most other glaciers around the world that are currently retreating. Huge icebergs are constantly calved from the front of the glacier, crashing into the water below creating a continual natural spectacle.

We booked a trip that involved some trekking on the glacier with the aid of crampons: firstly we walked around the manmade walkways at the face of the glacier, taking in the panoramic views of the glacier, then taking a boat across the lake getting up close to the front of the glacier (obviously avoiding the constant falling chunks of ice the size of our boat) and then spent a couple of hours trekking on the ice avoiding the many crevasses and sinkholes, witnessing some of the purest bright blue colourings within the ice & topping it off with a glass of whiskey complete with ice chipped straight from the glacier…..nice.

After Perito Moreno we moved on a few hours through the Patagonian wilderness to the small town of El Chalten - a place only established during the 1980’s due to the influx of people wanting to hike in Fitz Roy Mountain range that it sits at the foot of, not to mention the political reason for Argentina to claim the land & create a town before neighbouring Chile did - the ongoing dispute over Patgonian territory being one of the biggest bones of contention between the two nations these days. El Chalten only has a population of approximately 1800, & only installed its first & only ATM during late 2008. Prior to that, a nominated resident would collect everyones bank cards and pin numbers and make the trip to El Calafate once a week to get cash out for everyone... now thats putting your trust in someone!

Being part of the Southern Continental Ice field & Los Glaciers national Park, the area has some of the most stunning scenery and it is all accessible within a day hike from El Chalten. We did a few day hikes (in preparation for the 4 day trek we had coming up through the Torres del Paine National Park further south in Patagonia), through beautiful woodland, watching insane Magallenic woodpeckers nearly knock themselves out banging the trees so hard.... past the foot of glaciers taking in the views of the Fitz Roy Massif and Cerro Torre - some of the highest peaks in the area and were not disappointed with the views… well once it had stopped snowing and the sun came out anyway!

Back in El Calafate, we opt to indulge in the ‘Patagonian Lamb’ as a treat…. a whole lamb, split down the middle with legs splayed out on a type of crucifix, slow roasted (all day) over burning logs. After being advised to only order 1 main meal between 2, the banquet that came out did not disappoint… 3 different joints of meat on a hot plate with roasted vegetables…. Easily the best lamb we have ever tasted!

The next day, 5 hours on a bus through a never ending bleak landscape, we crossed the border into Chile to the town of Puerto Natales the gateway to the Torres del Paine National Park.

Puerto Natales is a very cold & bleak Patagonian outpost, the two main highlights of the town itself we found to be the hostel we stayed at - ‘Patagonia Adventura‘ - run by a very friendly & helpful couple who helped us plan the logistics for our 4 day trek through the Torres Del Paine National Park, & a coffee shop that specialises in all variety of hot chocolates & all manner of chocolate based delights called La Dulceria…we’re putting on a bit of weight in Argentina & Chile by the way!

So after a couple of days waiting for the weather to clear up a little in Puerto Natales, we made our way out to the Torres Del Paine National Park to spend the next 4 days trekking around the ’W-route’. Fortunately the park is well equipped with mountain refuges at various convenient intervals during the route, saving us from the pain of camping. As it turned out the refuges weren’t even like the basic mountain refuges we had in mind, but at least 2 of them were as well equipped as hotels - the only difference being all the beds were in dorms.

The park itself is hailed as the finest National Park on the entire continent, & from what we saw we’d be inclined to agree. It is a mass of glaciers, ice bergs, turquoise lakes, windswept forests, huge granite towers that drive up vertically 3000 meters out of the ground, a set of peaks known as the ’Cuernos’ - or ‘Horns’ in English, due to their resemblance of their unusual shape, coupled with their distinctive two tone black tops & lighter coloured base, combining to make for a very unique & striking landscape. During the 4 days we experienced all four seasons of weather conditions - a couple of days of sunshine, a little rain, the unbelievable winds that Patagonia is famed for & even 3 inches of snow on the ground one morning.

Just to touch on the wind again for a moment - it really is like nothing else we have experienced before, it almost always blows from west to east, coming in off the huge expanse of the Southern Pacific Ocean without any land mass to obstruct its force until it hits Patagonia. It is the main reason why this area down at the southern tip of the continent is so synonymous with tales of ship wrecks. 95% of all trees in Patagonia are either bent over in a left to right direction or completely devastated due to it’s power. There are more dead trees & snapped trunks in Patagonia than anywhere else certainly we have ever seen, & it can make for quite an apocalyptic landscape.

On the second night of the trek we were upgraded from the dorm room we had booked to our own private log cabin, which initially seemed like a real result, we quickly started having second thoughts when the wind picked up so ferociously during the night that it felt like the rather flimsy log cabin was going to get blown away - literally the whole room including the bed would move when each gust would hit. It was quite an unnerving experience, the log cabin was sat on the shore of a lake, & as the wind was gusting you could hear it approaching ferociously across the water, we were bracing ourselves for impact every time the gust made it’s way off the lake onto the land & came crashing into our cabin with terrifying force. We’ve never wished for a wind ‘off switch’ more than we were that night. The only benefit of being kept awake all night by the wind, was that we were awake to see the sunrise, our cabin being at the foot of the eastern side of the Cuernos peaks, the sunrise cast a dusky orange pink glow across the entire face of the peaks - of which we could get some nice photos without actually having to get out of bed…small mercies & all that!

The four day trek around Torres Del Paine was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far, it was nice to be able to do it in the Patagonian spring time as well as there were far fewer people on the trails than during the peak summer season - we only passed a handful of other people on the trail each day so we were really able to appreciate the remoteness of the place of the magnitude of the landscape - unforgettable.

Patagonia Pt. 1 - The Lake District

We flew from Buenos Aires to Bariloche, a town known as the ’Gateway to Patagonia’ in the Argentine Lake District - a place similar to something between our own Lake District at home & certain elements of the Canadian Rockies. We were immediately introduced to the highly changeable Patagonian weather with a dose of snow & freezing winds - very different to the weather we had left behind in Buenos Aires only 2 hours earlier.

Bariloche is the largest town in this area, situated on the shore of lake Nahuel Huapi with beautiful views out across the Andes. The town itself is very much like a European Alpine resort in appearance & acts as the main town for the largest Argentine ski resort, Cerro Catedral - at this time of the season pretty much closed except for a couple of runs on the very top of the mountain, but which the bus loads of kids from BA were still seeming to enjoy. There are many small souvenir shops, boutiques, local micro breweries and lots of chocolate shops for which it is famous for all over Argentina.

The best way to make the most of Bariloche & the surrounding area is with a car, so after a couple of days in town we hired a car for a week to explore the area. We spent a day travelling around the ‘Circuito Grande’ also known as the ‘7 Lakes circuit’ within the Nahuel Huapi National Park that encircles Bariloche - (during which Claire‘s camera inexplicably decided to completely stop working, conveniently just out of warranty as well…you can imagine our surprise!?!);

We took another day taking in the ‘chico circuit’ or ‘small circuit’ which takes you through some of the early European colony areas & is also where some of the most panoramic views in Argentina can be enjoyed;

A few days were spent on tour south of Bariloche along Route 40 to El Bolson, a small ‘hippy’ town famous for its artesian beers, crafts fair and a woodland area called ‘Bosque Tallado’. Bosque Tallado is a forest that burned down a few years ago that has been brought back to life by local artists, who have sculpted pieces of work out of the burned trees and logs;

The last few days were spent in Esquel, famous for the Old Patagonian Express narrow gauge Steam locomotive that still runs weekly, and driving through the Los Alerces National Park where we met an Argentine couple (Gaston & Laura) that invited us to sit and join them in one of the main Argentine traditions by the shores of a lake, drinking ‘Mate’ - a herbal drink shared from one cup through a metal straw, which is far more popular than Coffee or Tea in Argentina. We ended up giving them a lift back to El Bolson, as the weather turned bad and their camping intentions quickly vanished. We rounded the week off with a trip to see a unique phenomenon… a black glacier. Glacier Tronador is black in the lower sections due to it running down the flanks of an extinct volcano, & hence the ice collects a huge amount of volcanic sediment, colouring the lower half of the glacier black & grey.

When enquiring about buses to our next destination, El Calafate, we were surprised to learn that it involved a 40 hour bus journey predominantly on an unpaved road… not really fancying that we booked ourselves a 1 hour flight with Aerolineas Argentina. When we arrived at the airport the following morning, we were told the flight was cancelled - much to the annoyance of many of the passengers, but with us not having work or an agenda to keep to and being cheapskate travellers now, we were more interested in what they were offering in terms of compensation….which turned out to be a night in a 5* hotel in Bariloche, seats on the next plane out the following morning, dinner at a nice restaurant in town and breakfast the following morning - all in all not a bad deal…TUI, take note!

After one of the best nights sleep and food we had experienced in a while we made our way down to El Calafate, though not quite with Aerolineas Argentina - the company we had originally booked with, but with a chartered plane from the Argentine Air Force - something of a no frills affair, but quite amusing all the same. The skies were completely clear during the flight and the views on the way down to El Calafate made the cost of the flight worthwhile in itself. Flying down the Eastern edge of the Andes, to our left we had the vast Patagonian steppe and a multitude of lakes of varying colours, to our right the ‘Los Glaciares National Park’ with perfect views over the Andes, the Fitz Roy mountain range and the whole Southern Continental Icefield, the 3rd largest ice mass in the world, after those of Antarctica and Greenland.