Visiting Patagonia | Chile & Argentina | 2019

A friend and I visited Chile and Argentina, mainly focused on the Patagonia regions, in November 2018 for 11 days. We prioritized hiking parts of Patagonia and spent some time exploring Santiago (Chile) and El Calafate (Argentina). Patagonia was B-E-A-utiful but holy cow this was the most logistically challenging trip I’ve ever planned, mainly due to the Torres Del Paine portion (see below for those details). It was incredibly memorable, obviously due to the beautiful sites but also because of the sense of accomplishment in successfully orchestrating the logistics. You can find the full itinerary, and customize it, here. Below is a summary of the trip.

The total cost per person was $1,678. That breakdown was approximately:

Miscellaneous: $130 (border crossing)

Accommodations (refugios, campsites, hotels) within Torres Del Paine were nearly entirely booked up when we started planning (4 months in advance of the trip). We considered camping in the wild through the park so that we could still trek but it seemed unrealistic and expenses were mounting when considering how much food we’d need to carry for 4-9 days of trekking and how much gear we’d need to fly with. Ultimately, we ended up staying in a hostel in Puerto Natales and doing day trips via bus. Getting to Puerto Natales was a long journey, flying SFO → Phoenix → Mexico City → Santiago → Punta Arenas and then a 3-hour bus to Puerto Natales. Puerto Natales was the closest we could find to Torres, which is a 2-hour bus ride away.

Our goal for Torres on day one was to hike to the Mirador Base Las Torres (famous three granite peaks). We arrived by bus and found the entrance fee process to be very slow with many buses arriving at the same time. To further complicate things, it was cash only and we had no cash. We were really frustrated by this and honestly tempted to just go in without paying (which it turned out would’ve been pretty easy to do), but someone in line heard us talking about our predicament and gave us cash to get in. We were so incredibly grateful and PayPal’d him back. After paying the entrance fee, we thought we were at the start of our journey, meaning the start of our 11-mile hike was from that point on. There were shuttles that cost something like $7 to take your further in the park from the entrance, but we thought that would take away from our hike. Little did we know that our >5-mile hike from the entrance wasn’t part of the 11-mile round trip hike, which we realized once we got to the actual marked trailhead. That was a fun shock, considering we had to be back to the entrance by a certain time to catch our only bus home. That’s when we started to haul ass on the hike from the trailhead. Never running, but walking very fast. Luckily we were both in good shape so it was fun and this urgency added to the sense of adventure.

The hike itself was incredible, hiking along a valley and through a forest before getting to the steeper rocky climb to the vista point. We sat and ate at the lake before heading back down. We then hauled it back. We reached the welcome center, which was about 5 miles from the park entrance for our return bus, and realized we wouldn’t make it by foot so we asked anyone we saw walking to a car for a ride to the entrance. Luckily we got one but still got there too late to catch our bus. That sucked.

We waited at the entrance building to thumb a ride to Puerto Natales, along with about four others who were doing the same. A shuttle driver ended up giving us a ride. My first hitchhike, and I was so grateful but had no intention of doing it again.

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On day 2 of Torres, we had our backpacks with all belongings because we were taking a bus from the park to El Calafate. Our plan was to do a lighter hike. The weather was worse that day with intermittent rain. We decided to take a shuttle from the entrance to check out Mirador Salto Grande and the surrounding area, which was about 14 miles from the entrance. We again found ourselves without a ride back to the entrance and needing to thumb it, and this time we were about 0/15. We started the walk back, running for parts, but realistically knew there was no way we could go 14 miles in time for our bus. We eventually were picked up by a freaking angel, a man, and his two children in a rental car. I don’t know how he felt comfortable picking up two male strangers with his infant children in the car, but I was so damn grateful. We made it back in time for our bus to El Calafate. Our toughest challenges were behind us after Torres. 

El Calafate was a really nice little town in Argentina where it’s popular for expats to settle. There were many options for good food and it felt very safe. This was also our base for seeing Glaciar Perito Moreno in Los Glaciares National Park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site home to one of the world's few glaciers still expanding. This was incredibly beautiful, truly a standout part of our trip.

We headed here to hike Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. What was unique about this park is that it’s actually a small town where people live, nestled right against some of the most beautiful hiking in the world. Fitz Roy was beautiful and unique in that there was a wide open plain to hike across, providing stunning views of the mountains, followed by an ascent up to the snowy peaks. Cerro Torre was on our second day when we had an afternoon bus to catch and unfortunately we didn’t make it all the way to peak. Partially due to time but also because clouds impacted the view of Cerro Torre to the point that we really couldn’t see much.

Our last stop, taking a break from nature and getting a sense of what life in Chile’s capital was like. This was a fun place to visit that had a strong sense of culture with street art and a busy nightlife in certain neighborhoods, art museums, and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. There is some really great food to be found here as well. Like in El Calafate, we never felt unsafe.

Hope this helps to inspire some fun travel experiences as the world starts to open up! Be sure to check out everything else we did on our trip here.