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 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.

Torres del Paine Backpacking Trip Part II

May 29, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

Despite a long first day of hiking (see Part I), I was determined to visit the suspension bridges and glacier viewpoint north of Refugio Grey. This part of the trail is known as John Gardner Pass and has a reputation as the hardest part of the O-Trek. On the O-trek, hikers come from the opposite direction and have a steep hike over the pass before crossing 3 suspension bridges along the glacier on the descent to Refugio Grey. For those doing the W-trek, it’s common to hike up to either the viewpoint after the second bridge, or all the way to the third bridge. The third bridge was too far for me with my late start, but I was pretty confident I could get to the viewpoint.

I started my hike at 6pm and was making really good time until I got to a mirador just before the first suspension bridge. What I didn’t know is that the Park recommends anyone doing the day hike to start no later than 3pm. I don’t think it’s a hard rule, but it is a good idea from a safety perspective. I ran into a ranger at the mirador and while he was really friendly, he advised me against going to the viewpoint and recommended the first bridge instead. I reassured him I had a “turn-around time” and if I didn’t make it by then, I would come back to avoid hiking in the dark (even though I was prepared and could have hiked in the dark).

He didn’t stop me and I continued up to the first suspension bridge, but the interaction really made me doubt myself. I’d been so confident I had enough time to get to the viewpoint, and now I was second guessing my ability. I know there’s a lot of inexperienced hikers in the park, so these recommendations make sense, but I also have a good self-awareness and I think that because I’m pretty risk adverse, I make good choices.

I decided I had to at least cross the first bridge. It has a big ladder to get up to the top of the bridge and it’s quite intimidating! I held on tight to the rope handles as I crossed to the other side. There were some other hikers returning from their day hike, so I stopped to talk with one guy and told him about my interaction with the ranger. He reassured me that the view was definitely worth it and encouraged me to keep going. Apparently that was all I needed and I quickly took off again, setting my doubts aside.

I’m really glad I did. My initial instincts had been right and I made it to the viewpoint with enough time to hang out for a bit and still get back to the refugio before dark. This was a case where the Ranger definitely had good intentions, but I was the person who knew my abilities best. I don’t like to break rules in the backcountry (and I definitely don’t advocate for it), but I later confirmed that they are recommendations rather than rules. Technically, everyone who hikes up to the Towers for sunrise is breaking the rules, and that is literally hundreds of people.

It took me an hour and 10 minutes to hike 4km up to the viewpoint. It’s uphill the entire way (~300m in elevation gain), so it was definitely a workout and I did it at a very quick pace. I saw another small group of people just before the second suspension bridge, but I didn’t see anyone for the rest of the evening after that. The viewpoint is located 5 minutes past the second bridge and has a beautiful view of the glacier. What made it even more special was that I had it entirely to myself! I hung out for ~20 minutes and took some selfies before starting my hike back down.

It was a lot faster on the way back, but I tried to pace myself because I was completely alone on the trail and didn’t want to get injured. It took me a little under an hour to get back and I arrived at the refugio shortly before 8:30pm. In total, I hiked 19km on day 1, so it made for a long day and I still hadn’t eaten supper!

We ate quickly and got ready for bed, realizing how woefully unprepared we were for the refugios. I’m so used to camping that I forgot we would have electricity and didn’t bring anything to plug my phone into the outlet (just a power bank). Nor did I think to bring shampoo for the shower, because I honestly forgot it was an option. But I still greatly enjoyed a hot shower on my first night before falling asleep.

There were a lot of people doing the same itinerary as us on the W-trek, but most of them do the hike to the suspension bridges on their second morning. The reason I had to cram this hike into my first day was because we had booked a kayaking tour for day 2 instead. It was quite windy, so I was convinced the kayak tour would be cancelled, but to my great surprise, it was scheduled as planned!

It’s always windy in Torres del Paine, so it takes a fair bit of wind for them to cancel the tours. Because of this, I was worried that the tour company, Bigfoot Patagonia, didn’t have a very good safety culture. I’m happy to report that is far from the truth! They pre-emptively cancelled the afternoon tour and both tours the following day because it was forecasting high winds, but our morning tour was what they consider “borderline”, so they decided to run it. For additional safety, they increased their guide-to-tourist ratio from 1 guide per 2 kayaks to 1 guide per kayak, meaning we had a dedicated tour guide for just me and Seth.

It was almost 40km/h winds, which I would never even consider going out in in Canada, but our guide was fantastic! Me and Seth were in a large double boat, so it was very stable. I doubt I’ll ever get to kayak in such windy conditions again, so we embraced it and had a lot of fun. Our guide is Chilean, but in Patagonia’s offseason, he does kayak guiding on Vancouver Island, so he was excited to learn we lived in Vancouver and we had a lot of fun talking about different trips!

The tour leaves from Bigfoot Patagonia’s base at Playa Grey and you kayak around the headland to the ice garden, which is a little bay where ice from the glacier gets caught. We paddled around the garden and along the shore to some waterfalls draining down the mountain. You can’t go too close to the glacier for safety reasons, but the wind briefly died down for ~10 minutes and we took the opportunity to paddle into the channel for a fantastic view of the glacier. The calm didn’t last long, but we got an excellent tailwind on the way back to base. If you ever get the chance, I would highly recommend this tour. We debated between Glacier Grey and Perito Moreno for our kayaking adventure, but I’m glad we picked Grey. The balconies at Perito Moreno are so close to the glacier already that kayaking seemed unnecessary.

We finished our tour just before lunch and decided to eat at the refugio. It absolutely poured while we were cooking, so the second it stopped, we hit the trail to cover as much distance as possible before the rain re-started. Seth was still popping pepto-bismal, but overall feeling a lot better than the previous day. We only had to hike 11km back to Paine Grande, so we knew exactly what was ahead of us.

We were much faster on Day 2 and made it all the way to the mirador, which is the halfway point, before the rain returned. Pretty much the entire hike is exposed, but there are small treed sections, so we took a break in the forest when it started drizzling. It rained on and off through the rest of the afternoon, but it never heavy enough to really get wet. We ended up doing the full hike in just over 4 hours, so we were about an hour faster than the previous day, arriving at Refugio Paine Grande around 4pm.

Because Paine Grande is one of the main arrival/departure points for hikers, it’s one of the flagship refugios. It’s an absolutely gorgeous building since its location next to Lago Pehoe makes it easier to transport supplies. The other refugios are much more remote, and as a result, the structures and facilities are more rudimentary. Refugio Paine Grande has modern architecture and huge windows looking towards the lake and the horns.

We didn’t really get to know the other campers in our room at Grey since I spent such limited time in the room. Two of our bunkmates at Paine Grande were from Hong Kong and halfway through their O-trek, while the other two were solo American and Canadian hikers who were doing the W-trek in the opposite direction. I got some good tips from them for our hike to Mirador Britannico the following day.

We took it easy for the rest of the day and enjoyed the views before making supper. I mentioned in my last post that there are very strict rules about where you are allowed to cook in the park, and this was probably one of the most annoying challenges. What’s really unique about Torres del Paine is that, you don’t actually have to bring food with you. If you really want to pack light, you can pre-order your meals at every refugio and get a “packed lunch” to go. A lot of the people staying at the refugio opted to eat all their meals in the dining hall, as well as some campers, but it is very expensive ($100 per day, per person).

What I found annoying is that the refugio’s only cater to people paying for meals. The cost was one reason why we opted to bring our own food, but it was also because I love dehydrating and prefer to eat comfort food in the backcountry. But if you want to cook your own food, your only option is to use the campground shelter. It’s not the end of the world, but some of the shelters were very crowded and cold. It was also really good that we brought all cold-soak lunches, because there’s no cooking allowed outside the shelters (because of the fire risk), so you can’t heat or cook food for lunch unless you’re at a campground. Regardless, it was our last night staying in a refugio, so we took advantage of the hot showers and got a good night’s rest! Check back for Part III.