Relaxing in Santiago

June 19, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / Leave a comment

This is my last post about my Patagonia trip! It was a great trip, but I this point, I feel like I’ve been writing about it forever, so I just wanted to do a quick wrap up about Santiago before I move on to some more BC related activities.

To be honest, before the trip, I didn’t really care about Santiago. It was a convenient place to leave from, but I would have preferred to have more time in Buenos Aires rather than Santiago. I ran out of steam planning the trip, so I didn’t plan anything for Santiago and left everything to Seth for our last 3 days.

But I ended up loving Santiago! I’m hesitant to say I liked it more than Buenos Aires, because I only saw a small portion of Buenos Aires, but I enjoyed Santiago so much more than I expected. This is partially due to the fact that we had no strict schedule, so we slept in and ate lots of good food and drank lots of wine and pisco sour. There is definitely some petty street crime in Santiago and we were advised to keep our phones physically attached to us by a cord because phone theft is super common. But overall, Santiago is a very vibrant city. It has a lot artwork all over the city and it was surprisingly gay (which is a compliment!). We saw a lot of pride all over the city and many openly gay couples, which I just didn’t expect to see in South America, so it was a really nice surprise.

As usual, we started with a walking tour of the city to get our bearings and we learned a lot of really useful history. Apparently Chileans have a pretty “jaded” attitude in general, and have a history of being agnostic about religion and bitter about politics. They were under a dictatorship for 20 years in the 70’s/80’s, and as a result, Chileans are frequent protestors. They have a strong sense of justice and will march in the streets for whatever they believe in, which we definitely witnessed.

Our tour guide gave us a detailed history of Santiago, which I won’t share for fear of mis-remembering some of the finer points. But what was striking was Santiago’s economic situation. Chile’s currency is super stable compared to Argentina, and for a long time Chile was doing really well, but Santiago has hit a rough patch since the pandemic. 3.5 million people have migrated to Chile during the pandemic, but there’s been limited economic growth. All the shops in the downtown had been shuttered and in their place, a lot of street vendors have popped up with desperate people looking to make money.

It’s not really related, but our guide also highlighted how Santiago is somewhat lacking in a culture of its own. Santiago was conquered by the Incas and the Spaniards; followed by an obsession with the French (which is really obvious in the architecture), so a lot of their culture is just borrowed from elsewhere, which contributes to the sense of bitterness and indifference from the locals. At least, this was my tour guide’s POV, it could be that he is just the one who’s jaded! Feel free to counter this argument!

Over our 3 days in Santiago, we visited a lot of attractions. We took the funicular up to the top of San Cristobal Hill and we visited both the National History Museum (wouldn’t recommend), and the Pre-Columbian Art Museum (would recommend). Museums are a bit tricky because a lot of them are only in Spanish, so plan accordingly.

Our favourite part of the city was St. Lucia Hill, which was conveniently located right next to our hotel. Our tour guide referred to it as the “gem of Santiago”, and we would definitely agree! It’s just a hill/park in the middle of the city, but it has all kinds of fascinated infrastructure scattered around it. The most obvious thing is to hike up to the top of the hill, where there is a tower lookout and a great view, but if you have the time, just let yourself get lost in the space, because there’s all kinds of different pathways and structures. It’s a fun place to explore and we ended up going there twice.

Another small attraction that I really liked was Alice’s Room, which is a small Wonderland themed cafe. It’s super popular, so we were lucky to get in without a reservation one morning. You really go to this place for the decor, the food is great too, but they’ve completely committed to the theme and it’s just fun to look at all the little details. Highly recommend if you have the time!

Otherwise, our last visit was to the Concho y Torro winery. It’s a very popular winery and even I have seen some of their wine in liquor stores in Canada, most notably, Casillero del Diablo. The tour was fantastic and quite different that other wine tours I’ve been on. The most memorable part is that the winery has a tasting vineyard where they have planted all 24 different varieties of grapes that they use to make wine. Now obviously, it’s not ideal to plant all 24 varieties of grapes in one place, but they don’t make wine with these grapes, they just allow guests to wonder the vineyard and taste any of the grapes that they want. I’ve never actually done this and was surprised that a lot of the grapes actually tasted pretty good. It was cool to wander around and try chardonnay and merlot and pinot grapes.

But the coolest wine fact I learned in Chile was about the carmenere grape. Carmenere is a grape that the world thought to be extinct for a long time, but was randomly found growing in Chile in 1994. So the wine was revived and you can now get it only in Chile. We sampled a few different Carmenere’s in Chile, and bought some from Concho y Torro to take home with us.

So overall, it was a great end to the trip! Seth planned most of our activities, which was a nice break for me and I enjoyed the relaxing aspect of this part of the trip. We were on the go early and often for our hiking adventures, so it was nice to have a proper rest in Santiago before returning home. Patagonia was definitely a memorable experience for me and I feel certain I will be back to explore more mountains and maybe one day (hopefully), we might make it to Antarctica.

That’s all for now, thanks for following along on our journey!

Torres del Paine Backpacking Trip Part IV

June 12, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

Continued from Part I, II, and III. The O-trek can only be hiked in the counterclockwise direction. I thought this was the case for the W-trek as well, but I learned that lots of people hike it clockwise, meaning they start their trip with the towers. I’m really glad we started from Paine Grande, because it meant that we reached the towers on our last day, which is a high note on which to end the trip!

Hiking to the Towers for sunrise requires a very early rise. I wanted to be hiking by 4am, so we got up at 3:30am and the campsite was already bustling with other campers and day hikers. I know a lot of hikers weren’t able to get a reservation for Chileno, so it’s not uncommon for people to hike all the way from the Campsite at Centrale to see the sunrise. Many of the day hikers were taking a break at the picnic table before continuing up to the towers.

Seth is definitely not a sunrise hiker, but I was pretty much buzzing with excitement all night about how fortunate we were to experience the towers on a cloudless day. It was pitch dark when we set out; I carried our shared pack and thanks to our early start, we were able to move at a leisurely place. It’s not the most fun to hike in the dark, but I honestly have some really fond memories from this hike. The night sky was incredible and it felt really special and romantic to hike up a mountain by starlight.

The first two kilometres are mostly in the trees and aren’t too steep. Eventually you reach a junction where the ranger station and outhouse are located, and from there, it’s all uphill. It was steep, but honestly, I found it easier than at Lago de los Tres. The main downside is that the trail is incredibly busy. It kind of felt like we were on a pilgrimage with hundreds of other hikers all following the same route (like the many hikers who had come before us).

The trail gets a little confusing just before the towers. You reach a certain point where you can start to see the peaks rising out of the darkness (it’s magical!), and I think people get overexcited and start climbing the rocks directly towards them. It’s a big boulder field, but you’re supposed to follow the trail, as some sections are roped off for safety reasons. I had to focus on following the trail markers rather than the people and we made it to the top with lots of time to spare.

It was very busy at the lake, but there is a lot of room to spread out. Unfortunately, a lot of people were ignoring the roped sections, but we stuck to the sanctioned area. We found a nice place near the water and sat in the dark to wait for sunrise.

Similar to Lago de los Tres, once you start hiking, it’s freezing! I took off my sweaty clothes and put on every other layer I’d brought with me. You’re not allowed to cook in the park, so we couldn’t bring our pot to make breakfast and ate some protein bars instead. I was so cold I decided to finally test out my emergency bivvy, which I’ve never used. It definitely helped trap a lot of heat, but it has its limitations, so it was a good reminder that it would be a long cold night if I ever have to survive outside with only a bivvy.

Finally, the sun started rising on the other horizon. At first, the daylight only illuminates the towers, but once the sun comes up, they turn a very vibrant orange. It lasts for around 30 minutes and it was every bit as magical as I hoped it would be! I felt so content sitting there watching it. I feel like there’s always one thing you miss on a big hike – either you skip a summit, or the weather is bad – but I felt like I got to experience everything that I wanted in Torres del Paine, and I left the park feeling very content.

Once the sun fully came up, most people left the lake and it was pretty empty. We hung around for a while longer, taking more photos and warming up. The sun makes a huge difference in the temperature and we layered down before starting our hike back. I didn’t want to feel rushed at the towers on our last day, so I had booked the last bus on the day, which didn’t leave until 8pm. This was definitely a mistake as we ended up spending 4 hours at the visitor centre, but it made for a more leisurely day.

We hiked back down to Chileno, past a steady stream of hikers still coming up, and had our breakfast at the campsite. We hung out for a bit, chatting with some other hikers, before starting our hike out of the park around noon. From Chileno, you do have to hike back up the canyon to Windy Pass, but it’s only ~1km and then it’s all downhill for the rest of the day. At this point, most people who were doing the towers were already beyond Windy Pass, so it was a pretty empty trail down to the base.

It was the hottest day on the trek and we switched out to shorts and t-shirts for the first time! The hike to Centrale is gorgeous as you continue back down the valley. The trail is completely exposed, so you have views the entire way. From Chileno to the towers and back to the base is ~15km, but we were fast on the last section.

There’s a huge hotel at the trailhead and then you walk another kilometer parallel to the road to get to Centrale Campground and the Visitor Centre. From there, you take a shuttle bus to the Park Entrance, where you can catch your bus back to Puerto Natales. We debated trying to get an earlier bus, but apparently they only leave at like 3pm and 8pm. We just missed the 3pm shuttle, so we decided to stick around the Visitor Centre and got beer and empanadas to pass the time.

It was a long time to hang around, but we befriended some other hikers who were also killing time before starting their hike the following morning. They were quite young and I found it very entertaining listening to stories about their adventures and missteps. The one thing I didn’t love about Torres del Paine, or Sendero al Fitz Roy, is that I felt we didn’t really befriend that many people.

I love meeting people hiking and I’m pretty good at making friends. When I hiked the Milford Track in New Zealand, and Mount Assiniboine and Lake O’Hara in Canada, I felt like I met so many interesting people on the trail. It’s definitely possible at Torres del Paine, but I think our combination of staying in refugios and cooking our own meals (plus the fact that Seth was quite sick for the first 2-3 days), didn’t lend itself that well to connecting with people. This was exacerbated by the fact that you can pay for wifi, so a lot of people were just hanging around on their phones in the refugio. I’m sure many people have a different experience, but this was my particular experience. It may have just been a timing thing.

But overall, it was an incredible experience. Like I said, I felt very content when I left the park. I feel that we made lots of good decisions in how we structured our trip and we got incredibly lucky with the weather. I’m sure I’ll be back to Patagonia again someday, but at this time, I feel more of a draw to return to Los Glaciares over Torres del Paine. I think I need to return for the Huemel Circuit, and one day, Antarctica!

Torres del Paine Backpacking Trip Part III

June 5, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

Following up from Part I and Part II. The weather forecast for Day 3 was our worst while on the trail. There wasn’t any heavy rain in the forecast, but more concerning was the alert for 80km/h winds. It was only 11km to our next campsite, but we wanted to attempt the day hike up to Mirador Britannico, which is another 11km round trip, so overall, it was our longest day of hiking in Torres del Paine.

The clouds looked pretty foreboding when we left Paine Grande, and as anticipated, it was incredibly windy. But the moody weather produced some of the most striking photos of the stunning landscape! The dark clouds hung around the mountains, without always obstructing them, and occasionally the sun would break through, splintering rays of sunshine across the hillside. It was really pretty and we both loved the hike from Paine Grande to the ranger station at Italiano, which is where the day hike starts.

We arrived around lunch time, so we ate at the picnic tables as it started to rain. There’s a washroom with a big overhang for bag storage, so everyone leaves their backpacks while hiking up to the mirador. We re-packed our bags, putting everything we didn’t need in Seth’s, and everything we might want in mine. A lot of people just do the hike with a water bottle, but conditions were marginal and it is a remote trail, so I’m glad we brought all our essentials, as we did use them.

I struggled with the hike to Mirador Britannico. I think my biggest problem was that I’d heard from other hikers that it was an easier-than-expected trail. Even though there is 600 metres of elevation gain, I heard that it was pretty gradual and I didn’t properly manage my expectations. A large portion of the hike is a gradual incline, but it’s not the full story. The first kilometer of the trail is pretty flat, but then it gets quite steep very quickly and is surprisingly technical, with lots of tree roots and boulders. It was raining throughout the entire climb and I started overheating in my rain pants, so I got pretty cranky, despite gorgeous views of the surrounding glaciers.

After a while, the hike definitely flattens out, with one steep push to the top at the very end. About halfway to the summit, the rain transitioned to snow, so the visibility was pretty poor. I definitely questioned turning around, but couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I picked up a lot of the slack for Seth on day 1 (giving him my hiking poles and carrying a bunch of his gear), and he came through for me on day 3. He ended up really liking this section and carried our shared pack most of the way there. On day 5, we transitioned again and I carried the pack for our sunrise hike when he was struggling, so overall, I guess we do make a good team!

We were pretty slow, but eventually we made it to the top! We didn’t get much of a view, but it was still a pretty cool experience. My new problem was that it was very cold and my pants were soaked through from the lack of breathability in my rain pants. This was definitely a flaw in my set-up, so I’m glad we had brought lots of extra emergency layers in our backpack and we layered up and enjoyed our snacks. Fortunately, my pants are quick dry, so they dried out really fast on the way down, which was helped by the fact that it finally stopped raining.

There were a lot of day hikers doing the mirador when we were hiking up, but somehow we got passed by almost all of them. We only passed a handful of people on our descent and by the time we got back to Italiano, there were less than a dozen bags remaining. So this wasn’t our swiftest hiking trip, but we stopped to take more photos and videos on the way down and my mood improved a lot.

We hiked the last 2km to Frances Campground, where we’d be staying for the night. There’s no big refugio at Frances, just some small dome structures, but they are expensive, so we opted to stay in one of the permanent tents instead. Both Frances and Chileno Campgrounds have elevated tents that you can book. They’re basically those platform tents that people set up on top of their cars, but in this case, they were elevated platforms in the woods. They were massive inside, so it was pretty cool, but a bit annoying to climb in and out of. We were later arriving to the campground than other days, so we quickly ate supper and went to bed!

Lucky for us, the weather started to shift on Day 4. There was still some wind and rain in the forecast, but it tapered off throughout the day. We had to hike 16km from Frances Campground to Chileno Campground. Chileno is a smaller site, but it’s one of the most popular because it’s the closest campsite to the Towers. We left Frances and had a pretty easy walk to Los Cuernos Campground, which is a bigger and nicer site than Frances. It has a proper refugio, unlike Frances, but it’s still smaller than Grey or Paine Grande.

The morning hike was mostly in the trees, with a short walk along the lakeside beach. It sprinkled rain for an hour or so, but it cleared up after that and we didn’t get any more rain on the trip. Most of the day was a slow ascent along the mountainside, which looks out over Lago Nordenskjold, an absolutely massive lake. The trail peaks after ~7km at Mirador Cuernos, and we decided to stop for lunch, it has a gorgeous lakeview, but it’s still pretty windy.

The weather improved in the afternoon and the clouds started to disperse as we continued meandering along the mountainside. Eventually you come to a branch and you can either continue back towards the park entrance, or take a connector trail up towards Chileno. It’s a great shortcut when you’re hiking the W-trek and it’s an absolutely beautiful section of trail. It’s mostly meadows as the trail ascends through the foothills towards the pass to the Towers, but the real benefit was that it was almost completely empty (we only saw 4 people)!

The sun finally showed its face in the late afternoon and it was the first time on the trail where we could hike in shorts and t-shirt. We took another break to enjoy the view, before continuing our trek up to the main trail. The trail merges just before Windy Pass, which is a high point along this section. It was surprisingly not windy in the pass and there’s a gorgeous view looking down over a canyon to the Rio Ascencio. The trail was much busier, but it was mid-afternoon, so not as busy as it would be in the early morning when everyone is starting their climb to the Towers.

From Windy Pass, you descend along the open canyon trail to Chileno Campground. It’s a really cool campsite in that it overlooks the river and has a nice bar where you can enjoy a drink after hiking the Towers. But it was the least accommodating campsite we’d visited. The refugio at Chileno is tiny, so most people who stay there, stay in the platform tents (which is what we did).

The problem is that this refugio is highly focused on profits – if you’re not staying in the campground, they charge you to use the bathrooms (which are NOT well maintained), and they want everyone to pay for meals in the dining hall, so they only provide one single 4-person table for everyone who wants to cook. It was extremely annoying considering we did pay a lot of money for a tent. Plus, you’re only actually permitted to use this table when they’re not actively serving dinner, which means there’s a blackout between 5:30 and 8:30pm. So we ate very early and then hung out before going to bed.

An early night was required because we were planning to hike up to the Towers for sunrise. We got some experience sunrise hiking on the Sendero al Fitz Roy, but the hike to the Towers is double the length of what we did in Argentina, so we planned for a very early rise. However, we got incredibly lucky with the weather. The clouds continued to clear all evening and when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, I almost lost my mind over the star-speckled sky that greeted me. We were incredibly remote, so it was easy to see the milky way and I stumbled around in the dark enjoying the night sky before heading back to bed. Check back for the final story in Part IV.