Chile: Patagonia Adventure

TORRES DEL PAINE
When we last left off, we were waiting for our van at our hotel in Punta Arenas to take us to the Tierra property on the edge of the national park, Torres del Paine. Torres means “towers” and there are three granite peaks that give the park its name of “Towers of Blue.” We were the fourth and fifth passengers in the van which had already picked up a Japanese couple at the airport and a man who appeared to be Chilean or Spanish.
We were told the trip would be four and a half hours and a woman, not riding with us and presumably from Tierra, handed us each a small canvas sack with snacks.  We were headed north toward Puerto Natales where we would then take a critical right turn eastward toward the park and the hotel. The road was paved, but the ride jouncy (we were in the third seats back from the front), and we listened to or were subjected to, depending on your perspective, recordings of Frank Sinatra tunes, everything from “My Way,” to “Strangers in the Night.”  Strange in some way to be hearing this music in Chile. After two hours, we made a short stop at a roadside restaurant for restrooms and stretching our legs.

As we traveled north, the landscape changed from tundra looking sand and tufty plants to short trees with half bare branches, half leafed out in green (narre, we were told later) and a bit more green the farther we went.   

Just before Puerto Natales, we began to see lots of sheep and several ranches, and then had to wait twice while Chilean gauchos (they call them something else here) on horseback and a dog moved cattle across the road.  

Green hills now and then lots of sheep and the first lambs of the spring.

After a critical turn about half an hour from the hotel, we entered a gravel road under construction being paved. This was a really bumpy, unpleasant stretch of road.

Then the turnoff into Tierra Patagonia and another gravel road to get to the entrance. It’s a very low building, built partially underground and almost not evident as you come up to it. The architecture, by a Chilean architect (woman) is gorgeous. The inside hallways feel like being in a tunnel, but then you have big wide windows facing Lago Sarmiento on the back, picture windows in each guest room, and almost all glass in the open restaurant and lounges.  Lots of light-colored wood throughout.

I was vibrating from the ride by the time we arrived so we enjoyed lunch and vegged the rest of the afternoon until a lovely dinner in the dining room.

Today we signed up for the morning excursion to the Laguna Azul. This was a about a 3-hour outing in a van with three main stops ending up at the beautiful turquoise lagoon. In addition to our guide and driver, we were joined by the Japanese couple from the day before.

Apparently, it’s windy all the time here and with a temperature in the low 40’s, we needed to bundle up. And by windy, I mean really windy, so windy that it practically blows you over or takes off your hat or glasses. The Chief Penguin and I both wore two pairs of pants, one designed to help against the wind, and then several other layers. I put on a long sleeved shirt, my new warm fleece, and then my down jacket on top. In addition, I had gloves and a knit hat.  I needed every item!  

Javier, a native of this region, from a very small town in Tierra del Fuego, was our guide, and he was excellent! He studied ecotourism in college in Punta Arenas and worked in the park for some time before being hired by Tierra.  His speciality is the animals in the park, and we saw a number of families of guanaco along the road.

They are in the camel family and closely related to llamas. The large families usually consist of one male and the rest females.  You often see a lone male guanaco apart from the family, either an elderly one or a young one who might aspire to join the females.  And high up on the hills, there is occasionally a single guanaco acting as sentinel to warn the group of an encroaching puma.  

We spent the morning in the eastern sector of this very large park, stopping at one small lagoon, then going on to some significant falls, and then lastly to the Lagoon Azul, every time looking to see if the three pillars of granite were visible between the snow-capped mountains. Sometimes they were and sometimes not as the clouds scudded in.  

The weather here is very changeable and clouds and rain and sun come and go quickly. The excursion ended at the lagoon with a table of snacks in a secluded spot (read that, as less windy!). This hotel does things up properly—tablecloth, choice of beer, soda, tea, coffee, hot chocolate with or without Bailey’s Irish Cream, and an assortment of little cookies and fresh fruit plus candy bars. What more could anyone possible ask for at 11:30 in the morning?

We then returned to the hotel for a lovely lunch where we tried the local favorite cocktail. Not a pisco sour (that comes from up north), but a calafate sour, made with the calafate berry. The actual berries look like blueberries, but the drink is deep ruby and seemed to pack much more punch than a pisco sour!

Tomorrow we have full day excursion beginning at 7:30 am which includes a boat trip on a lake to see the Grey Glacier.  More to look forward to!

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).