30 Days Through Patagonia

March 30, 2024 - Perito Moreno Glacier

I was very excited in the weeks leading up to the Patagonia camper chapter of our journey. Our tent truck through Namibia and Botswana has been one of, if not my most, favorite activities during this trip so I was looking forward to returning to the camper life. Similar to our Sub-saharan Africa trip, we knew there would be cold nights that we were not equipped for so our first stop after the overnight bus from Santiago was to pick up cold weather supplies in Puerto Montt. This included all our sleeping gear, and we didn’t hold back out of fear of the cold; pillows, sheets, a comforter, AND two sleeping bags just to be safe. Lucky for us, we hit all the end-of-season sales and were able to pick it all up for significantly cheaper than I had expected. We also found a Wal-Mart-type store to grab sweatpants and long sleeves to supplement the few items we had picked up at used clothing stores in Santiago. Add on a pretty big grocery haul of canned goods and camping classics and we were ready to go.

We had a few choices of various levels of campers to choose from, but based on dates of availability and our overwhelming cheapness, we went with the very base model. This meant that, although the van could be a kitchen/dining room, a bed, and a means of transport, it could only do one of those things at a time, which took lots of breaking down, setting up, and having to move everything, every time, to access any items. But even with all that, I was more than happy with our new home for the next month and it was time to hit the road and get started.

I could basically end the blog post here with the phrase “and then we had 30 days of the most epic views and memorable hikes of my life. The end.”, but of course, I’m never one to use 10 words when 1000 will do. But in all seriousness, even though I will attempt to note some highlights, the month was an amazing blur of unending landscapes and vistas that really are unlike anything I’ve seen in my life.

What everyone calls Patagonia is essentially the bottom half of both Argentina and Chile, so fittingly we spent about a 50/50 split of our time between the two countries. The Argentinian part of Patagonia is primarily explored via Route 40, whereas Chile is known for its famous Route 7, the Carretera Austral. Although we started in Chile, we headed straight for the Argentinian border to hit the Eastern side of the Andes first. The first day traveling East from Chile to Argentina already knocked our socks off; the mountain vistas, the rivers, the lakes. It was all mindblowing at the time but it was just a peek as to what was to come. Our first border crossing with the van went off without a hitch...after we found the necessary paper from the stack when we were told that we wouldn’t be able to enter without proof of ownership. Non-existent crisis averted. Some of the stops we made while heading South included El Bolsón for some river walks, Parque Nacional Los Alerces for a beautiful lake hike and a night in Esquel, then a long day driving to the random one-horse town of Rio Mayo. This stop would become very memorable, not because of the views or hikes, but because in this teeny tiny town we found a pool bar, made friends with the locals, and Johnny tried a local whiskey, White Horse, which he found to be to his liking. A big bar tab later, we were tucked up cozy in our van in what was essentially a municipal city park.

March 21, 2024 - Parque Nacional Los Alerces

One of the stops certainly worth noting was Cueva de las Manos, cave paintings that date back over 9,000 years. It was shocking how well-preserved the images were in the arid desert air. I found it fascinating to learn that the handprints were created by mixing paint from various colored minerals with liquid, holding it in their mouths, then spraying/spitting the paint to create a negative image of a hand. A site worth visiting, it is still in the middle of nowhere, so as it got dark we tried our first night of “wild camping” in the parking lot of what couldn’t even be described as a one-horse town. Maybe a one-cat town? Bajo Caracoles was basically two buildings in the middle nothing that passed as a safe place to bunk up for the night.

The next day was a long drive day, passing kilometers and kilometers of scrub-type desert environment until we finally reached a town with a gas station, Esperanza, only to find that they were, in fact, out of gas. It was night two of wild camping in the gas station parking lot since we didn’t want to risk getting stuck somewhere as it was getting dark and we were running out of gas. Here might be the time to mention the roads. Possibly one of the most famous road trips in the world, and the roads are, pardon my French, merde. It is almost impossible to drive at night because “potholes” appear out of nowhere. The quotation marks around potholes emphasize my sarcasm…by potholes, I actually mean just entire sections of the road that disappear for a meter and then reappear on the other side with a big enough height difference to launch you off your seat if you don’t slow down in time. There were literal miles where Johnny had to just drive in a repeating “s” pattern, swerving between the epic potholes to avoid popping a tire or worse. There are also entire expanses of the road that are completely unpaved, throwing stones and requiring intense concentration to find the best route through the rocks and holes. So back to not wanting to run out of gas.

After a restful night of sleeping in the gas station-with-no-gas parking lot, we decided to head further south to the next town in search of gas and backtracking before making a run for the border to avoid possibly running out of fuel. Gas secured, we crossed back into Chile to one of the most famous stops of Patagonia, Torres del Paines. Not being the most poetic of writers, I’ll leave it to photos to try to express the marvel of the place, but honestly, I’m not sure any words or pictures could do it justice. Something that is worth mentioning is the color of the water. It’s insane. Every body of water is a different shade of electric blue, yet somehow also crystal clear.

  

March 25, 2024 - Lago Pehoe, Torres del Paine 

We had three straight days of hiking there. Many of the hikers we met were doing one of the multi-day hikes, but with day trips we managed to piece together over half of the main “W” trek with out-and-back hikes. We did the Cuernos lookout hike, Grey Glacier, and the namesake hike, Torres del Paines, to see the famous mountain peaks up close. The last km of the Torres del Paines Vista trail was a vertical rock scramble that felt much longer than 1 km but paid out in a lakeside view of the mountain. The hiking poles I had picked up on clearance at the start of the trip came in handy for both Johnny and me as we took turns with them to save our knees on the very steep descent. I was feeling all 28 miles of the previous two days as I dragged my feet the last few steps to the parking lot. That night we stayed just outside the park at Lago Azul and much to my dismay, I had to endure a cold shower after a long day hiking. Less than ideal, but in such a spectacular place, such small inconveniences are soon forgotten. 

March 27, 2024 - Torres del Paine 

The next day it was back across the border to Argentina, where we picked up two hitchhikers at the customs office. These were just some of many that we had already given rides to at this point, with many tourists and locals alike using hitchhiking as a common means of transportation. It was a long day to put down some miles to get ourselves to the town of El Calafate, a big tourist stop for most travelers in Patagonia as it is the jump-off point to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. We knew we were going to take a couple down days there as we were in desperate need of laundry and to get some internet time for business back home. A kitschy tourist spot, our visit wouldn't have been complete without a stop in the ice bar, where $9 gets you two drinks and a yeti costume to keep you warm in the ice cave. Very cheesy, but fun. 

After a visit to the glacier and a dinner of the famous Patagonia lamb, our time in El Calafate was complete and we were on our way to our next big park. Rather than paying to stay another night in town, we opted to wild camp on the side of Lago Argentino. Waking up to sunrise over the lake, completely on our own in the middle of nowhere was just one of those special moments that reminds you of what a unique adventure we were on. 

It was another long drive to get us to the town of El Chalten, a cool little spot that was born out of the rock climbers and adventurers trying to access the famous Fitz Roy Mountain in Los Glaciares National Park. A towering peak, the vistas are striking well before you reach the town. One of the more well-known hikes of Patagonia, it can often be crowded, but with shoulder-season on our side, the trail was relatively clear when we set off on the 12-mile hike. The biggest bummer was that the final kilometer was closed for "safety issues" which was only a half-truth as the park rangers were also protesting a recent layoff of National Park personnel. I didn't mind turning around as memories of the final km of Torres del Paines came to mind, but Johnny wasn't so easily deterred. Determined to see it at its full glory, he followed the river upstream until he was able to rock hop across the icy river to avoid the Rangers and make it to the lower lake viewpoint. Even without making it to the end of the trail, the views were absolutely breathtaking, especially given the fact that we were also being treated to the changing fall colors. 
 

April 1, 2024 - Mount Fitz Roy in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

Before leaving Los Glaciares National Park, we took the morning to explore with the van, then picked up some more hitchhikers when we passed back through town on the way out. The couple included a French public school teacher and it was interesting talking to her about their licensing and school assignment process. After dropping our riders at their intersection it was a day of just driving, and our wildest night camp of the whole trip. No side road, no cover, no parking lot, we just pulled a bit off the main road and set up the bed for the night. As soon as we laid down we felt the wind rocking the van and it was the coldest night thus far, with nothing to break the intense Argentinian wind. 

The next day would be our last of the four border crossings, taking us back into Chile and into the town of Cochrane where we'd have a couple down days and a small hike to a lake vista in the Parque Nacional Patagonia. We picked up some local Chileans on our way out and they shared some interesting insights into their country and culture. We even all stopped together to look at the Confluencia Rio Baker & Neff, a raging river junction where you can get right up close. That evening we rolled into what would be one of our final stops, Puerto Rio Tranquillo, famous for its marble caves. The weather was not on our side and the morning boat tours to see the caves were all canceled for the rain, but given the majority of the trip had been clear skies, we didn't have too much to complain about. That afternoon, we were pleasantly surprised when the camp owner found us and told us that the weather had cleared enough that he could send a tour out that day after all. It was a cold boat ride, but neat to see how the white marble shone through the teal-blue water.

At this point, we switched to a more relaxed pace for the last few days because we needed to wait for our ferry reservation, which had to be booked weeks in advance to guarantee a spot. We were slightly ahead of schedule because we had cut out one of the towns in Southern Chile due to forecasted bad weather so we found ourselves with a couple extra days before we were due at the docks. The last few things that Johnny had tagged were outside the town of Chaitén, but we took a couple short drive days before arriving and added in some additional camping spots, including the town of Coyhaique and a beautiful riverside spot outside Puyuhuapi that had the best cat in the entire world that we seriously contemplated trying to bring back to the states with us. We even sprung for our one and only hotel stay of the camper trip in the town of Puyuhuapi so that we'd have a warm place to hole up while we laundry for only the second time of the trip, joke was on us because the hotel heater broke. C'est la vie.

It was crazy how drastically different this part of Patagonia was compared to the arid scrub of Argentina. Everywhere we looked we were now surrounded by dense green forest that looked straight out of the time of the dinosaurs. There were some random hikes here and there along the way, but one certainly worth noting was the glacier waterfall, Cascada de Ventisquero Colgante, located inside the Queulat National Park. One of the easier hikes we did, it was only 3.3 km to the viewpoint. After admiring the beauty for a few minutes, we headed back down the trail only to hear what sounded like a low-flying jet pass by less than a minute after we had turned back. Turns out it was a big calving event and we just missed seeing a chunk of the hanging glacier break off; I couldn't believe how loud it was. Johnny was pretty bummed to miss it, but even hearing it was cool.  We also hiked the nearby Chaitén Volcano that had erupted in 2008. "Only" a 5 km hike, it was straight up the whole way, but worth the view it afforded at the top with an active volcano steaming on one side of you and a view of the Pacific Ocean on the other. 

With extra days to burn, we stumbled across a magical ocean-side campground where we ended up staying for 4 whole nights while we waited for our date with the ferry. It was a very relaxing way to wrap up the trip, with walks on the beach that included Johnny building massive bonfire piles in hopes that someone, someday, would light them, and collecting wood to grill out each night while watching the dolphins play during sunset. And before we knew it, it was ferry day and time to hit the road one last time. Johnny couldn't resist squeezing in one last hike on our way to the ferry port, Sendero Cascadas Escondidas, and although we had to hurry, it was totally worth it to see a waterfall in the lush, green forest that made me feel like I was in the movie Ferngully (one of my sister's and my favorites as a kid). 

The ferry was an interesting experience in and of itself. Technically part of Route 7, it's the only way to get back up North and it requires you to board a boat for a 45-minute ride, then drive off of the first boat, across an island for 15 minutes, then reboard a second ferry on the other side for another 3 hours on the water. It was a beautiful clear day to soak up some final views of Patagonia. After spending the night where the boat dropped us, it was a few more hours of driving and one more optional ferry ride to save some time and we were back to Puerto Varas and our 30-day camper van adventure was over. Like so much of this trip, the time passed incredibly fast and I was sad to see this chapter come to a close. 

In total, Johnny drove 5,386 km over the 30 days and the van company was impressed that we didn't have a single flat tire during the whole trip, a testament to Johnny's awesome driving skills. Over that month, we really lucked out with the weather with only a couple of rainy days. We had lots of sunshine, which can be very hit or miss in Patagonia in general, but even more so after the summer season. One of the last things to note about the trip was the wildlife we saw along the way. Although I didn't get great pictures as we whizzed past, one of my favorite parts of the driving was seeing the herds of Guanacos (llama-type guys) and the Lesser Rhea, a large land bird that looked like a smaller version of an emu. We also lucked out with a great view of a condor that was taking a break on the side of the road. There were flamingos and armadillos and foxes and rabbits, adding to the spectacular backdrop of the Andes. 

So much of our whole trip, (which is now in its 16th month) has been planned as we go, so Patagonia wasn't necessarily something that I had thought much about before showing up in Chile, but I am so grateful to Johnny and all the planning he did to make it happen. The level of logistics that went into this past month was immense and he really took the bulk of that work. And did a fantastic job. It was one of the most beautiful places in the world I have ever seen and will certainly become a special memory when thinking back on the whole adventure. 

Just Johnny showing off his sweet kicks he's been practicing.