Blogs from Puerto Natales, Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 16

Up early today to catch our 7.30 bus into Torres del Paine national park. We didn't take long to polish off the hostel's complimentary breakfast of 3 pieces of toast and a mug of coffee. The bus left on time but turned around 5 or 10 minutes outside Puerto Natales - 3 girls had caught the wrong bus. The drive to the park takes a couple of hours along a dirt road and through a barren landscape. At the park we have to pay £15 each entry fee, which seems pretty good value; plenty of people think it's a bit steep though. In the park there are loads of amazing things but a couple of highlights - the 3 Torres del Paine themselves, huge and very famous pillars of granite, and Glacier Grey. There are ... read more

Hola So the next part of our journey takes us to Chile. We really wanted to go to Ushaia but due to time constraints we had to give it a miss. Getting to Puerto Natales from PM was a mission in itself. After another!! 20 hours bus journey to Rio Gallegos we had to get a 4 hour bus journey to Rio Turbio and then get another bus to cross the boarder to Chile. We helped out another English older couple get to PN too so hanging with them passed the time. It turned out to be lucky that we had decided to give Ushaia a miss though as if we did want to go there there were no buses for 2 days! Maz met this guy from Hong Kong on the bus who began to ... read more

Howdy all, My apologies for the delayed blog. Much has happened! If you remember my last entry, Bryce and I had just finished a six day excursion into the Peruvian jungle. Our next adventure took us into the Peruvian Andes for a 4 day guided hike to Machu Picchu (the famed ancient Inca ruins). The hike itself was beautiful and at times quite challenging. Our elevation at the beginning was 3500 meters (approx 11,300 feet). Day one of the hike was not that bad as we only climbed up to 3700 meters (approx 12,000 feet). However, once we set up camp, Bryce and I made the mistake of getting into a Canada vs. Peru soccer match with our trek group's porters and cooks (there were a couple of other Canadians in our trek group to make ... read more

After the trip down southern Chile aboard the Puerto Eden we were very excited about our forthcoming visit to probably the most celebrated national park in the entire continent. We'd tried to buy pretty much everything we'd need, although we were still pinning our hopes of hot dinners on a camping stove (bought on eBay some weeks before) which we were to collect at Puerto Natales post office. We were also worried about the weather, we'd heard all sorts of conflicting weather reports (heavy snow being a recurring theme - the park is probably no more than a thousand miles from Antarctica). After much faffing, and our visit to Ushuia and the Tierra del Fuego, we were ready. Luck was on our side and we had collected the stove without incident, so early one cold morning ... read more

Well after our extremely long bus rides we were rewarded with two fantastic hikes in both Chile and Argentina with Doris (who did all the planning) and Michael. On the Argentinian side we hiked for 4 days and 3 nights around the Mount Fitzroy peak, and on the Chilean side we hiked for 4 nights and 5 days in Torres del Paine national park. It would be next to impossible to say which of the parks offered the better scenery, rahter they both offer something different. The Chilean hike seems to offer more rugged and raw terrain while Mount Fitzroy and the surrounding area seemed to be more fresh and pure. Our Mount Fitzroy hike started off just outside El Chalten and consisted of a three hour hike or so through a valley heading straight for ... read more