urbaneer: Patagonia: Torres del Paine, Moreno Glacier & Train to the end of the world

Patagonia: 8 October - 22 October

We spent the last couple of weeks sampling the delights of what Patagonia has to offer – a beautiful trek in the Torres del Paine, a glacier up close and personal, as well as the southernmost city in the world Ushuaia:

Puerto Natales (Chile): Our starting point for the three day trek within the Torres del Paine National Park. Day 1: The wintery conditions and winds up to 80km/h didn’t see us do the intended 4hr trek, but instead we got to see the highlights of the park via our minivan. The definite highlight of day 1 was seeing the icebergs in Grey Lake – the blues were just incredible. Day 2: The sun was out, but the wind was still up to 50km/h, however, conditions were good enough to go hiking. For 4hrs we crossed over a hill ridge along a horse trail with beautiful views of the Paine Massive and the lakes spread out in the park. Day3: The main hike up to the base of the Torres. The wind had stopped, but the sun was gone. It was great hiking conditions for the 7+hrs roundtrip. We really enjoyed the varying terrain including the snowy slidy bits on the last leg. The towers are a stunning sight as they reach straight up for another 1.5km from where we hiked to.

El Calafate (Argentinia): Our base for flying into Patagonia from BA. From here we took the bus both to and from to Puerto Natales, before heading to the Moreno Glacier (Los Glaciers National Park), one of the main highlights around El Calafate. We didn’t have any particular expectations around visiting the glacier and only ‘added’ it onto our trip given we were there anyway. Little did we know that it would be one of our best things we did on the whole world trip. We were absolutely mesmerized by the sheer size of the glacier, the sounds it makes and the fun in trying to listen out and spot where the next icefall would happen. We watched the ice for hours and it never got boring. The weather was absolutely stunning adding to the picture perfect postcard day.

Ushuaia (Argentina): Our final stop in Patagonia and the only town in Argentina on the 'other' side of the Andes. The main reason for coming here was the train at the end of the world. Originally a prisoner train for a penal colony, now revived and converted into a very very touristy train. The national park around it was nice, but not as spectacular as the previous two we had seen. We didn’t do the trip to the Penguin Island as we found out about it too late and we still have an Antarctica cruise on our bucket list, so chances are high for us to return to this beautiful spot nestled between the Beagle Channel and the Andes at some point in the future.

Torres del Paine