Blogs from Torres del Paine, Magallanes, Chile, South America

I was sick with stomach issues all last night. No sleep so today I will rest. Unfortunately it is a travel day, we are heading to Torres del Paine National Park. The park was declared a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978. This beautiful wilderness park is popular with backpackers and mountain climbers. They have cabins where hikers can sleep and eat. They are shared cabins not individual cabins. There are campsites also. No camping without reservations and no campfires are allowed in the park. It is very windy here and a campfire could burn the park down which did happen when a camper burned his toilet paper and the flame flew away. Our first stop is a ranch where our group will learn about how gauchos live. A one hour horse back ride followed ... read more

Wednesday was our big hike. Patagonia is known for a few things, but hiking is a big part of it. They have a huge nature preserve in Chile called Torres del Paine national park. There are numerous day hikes you can do and many varieties of camping, but we set our sights on the most famous hike: Mirador Las Torres. We left the Airbnb at 6am (so nice not to have to repack before leaving!) in order to make it to the trailhead by 8. There are a few places you could stay closer, or in the park, but they were extremely expensive. Despite the drive we were happy with our choice to stay in Puerto Natales. We had read that it can be a 6-9 hour hike, so we wanted to start early. We got ... read more

I just spent AUD$30 to do a load of washing. It was money well spent. I will explain later. This story begins at the very pointy southern tip of South America, in Ushuaia. When we got off the cruise ship we were so glad to just walk away and forget about all of the instructions that had been given to disembarking passengers the day before. When you have to get off ... which bus number you will have to get on ... What plane you will need to catch (and no doubt wait an unreasonable amount of time for at the boarding gate). We didn't enjoy feeling like sheep being herded around on the first day of the tour and much prefer independent travel whenever it is possible. We took the opportunity to see the southernmost ... read more

R: Today was a day of multiple walks. The weather was only slightly better than yesterday and was still cold and windy. We were heading to Lago Grey today, so after much the same breakfast as yesterday, we boarded the bus and were on our way. It was about 40 minutes to get to Grey ranger station where there is also a visitor centre. The group had been split today as many people who were not used to hiking had decided to go for the easy walk option around the lake. Me? Well, no. I went in the advanced party of 4 who went to tackle the Ferrier lookout. We were promised amazing views over numerous lakes, and a very steep climb! We set off from the visitors centre with our guide Mauricio, Sergio (the Swiss ... read more

The next morning we were up early and out. It was raining quite a bit now so heading into the national park seemed a bit flat. But people were still enthusiastic so that was good. We travelled on a bright yellow, private overland vehicle. My sub-section of the group ended up at the "party" end of the bus which had train style tables and access to the music and USB ports. The bus came equipped with UNO and various other card games so we whiled away a few hours playing games, and getting to know each other. The bus was really comfy for long journeys however it did have little in the way of heating so the windows misted up with the rain beating against them so it was hard to see out. We stopped at ... read more