Patagonia.
The name evokes thoughts of an exotic, far-flung destination, much like Kathmandu or Zanzibar or Borneo. Home to one of the worlds most famous national parks – Torres del Paine – and some of the globes worst weather, Patagonia beckons the hard-core traveler looking for out of the way adventures.
Our guide, Roberto, couldn’t be blamed for the lack of pumas. He promptly picked us up at 4:30am for our Puma Spotting Tour we had booked for our first day in Patagonia. Given the early hour of the day, he was remarkably enthusiastic about our upcoming adventure. Before we had even entered Torres del Paine National Park and during the one and a half hour drive from Puerto Natales, we had discussed the habits of the puma, the Chilean political situation (“I grew up with the president of the country – we rode bikes together as kids!”), Roberto’s dating situation (“My girlfriend buys me steak, but she won’t cook it for me. She’s vegan. I respect that.”) and had bonded over our mutual love for skiing in the backcountry of our respective homelands. By the time we reached the gates of the park (“The rangers are still asleep – we’ll let ourselves in” Roberto said as we sped past the welcome/check-in building) the sun had lit up the sky and it looked as though we would have a beautiful day for sightseeing. The tour was expected to have us back in town by 1:00pm, but because the puma is an elusive animal and proved to be just that on this day, Roberto crisscrossed the park roads in his pickup truck for an additional two hours, desperate to provide us with a glimpse of the big cat. But alas, it was not to be, and Roberto joked that the trip had turned into a ‘bird tour’, as we were able to spot a falcon, owl, eagle and a pair of kestrals, as well as several guanacos and a beautiful grey fox before reluctantly exiting the park and returning to Puerto Natales. The scenery was breathtaking and we enjoyed our tour nonetheless, and were eager to revisit the park in a couple days with a rental car to more thoroughly explore the sights.
A kestral resting in the National Park
In between our visits to the national park we took a boat tour out to view the glaciers just outside Torres del Paine National Park. Our boat headed out of Puerto Natales (our base for our four days in Chilean Patagonia) bound for the Serrano and Balmaceda glaciers. Along the way we edged up to several waterfalls and got a look at sea lions and condors that inhabited the rocky spaces along the water. Disembarking from the boat we entered Bernardo O’Higgins National Park for a walk to the base of the Balmeceda glacier. While we gawked at the beauty of the glacier hanging above the blue waters of the lagoon at its base, the crew of the boat retrieved chunks of glacial ice, which were then broken down into cubes and chilled the whiskey we were served upon our return. The trip ended with a stop at an estancia, where we feasted on roast lamb and chicken and sipped glasses of the ranch’s own wine.
With one more day to explore the national park, we set out early with our rental car and made the two hour drive from Puerto Natales. We made several pitstops at viewpoints along the park road before parking and taking a walk to view the Salto Grande waterfall and then continuing onwards to a lookout over Lake Nordenskjold to the Cuernos – the Horns – of Torres del Paine.
While this concluded our visit to Chile, it wasn’t the end of our trip through Patagonia. Next, we cross the border into Argentina and continue our journey through Patagonia in the next TheRhumLine.
The Rhum Line 