PATAGONIA - The End of the World

1st stop - Punta Arenas. Furthest south I've ever been! Our taxi dropped us off at our hostel around midnight, and we met Mel's friend Isaac who had been studying in Patagonia for 6 weeks. The next morning, we walked around town and saw the coast, went to a lookout spot, bought some matching penguin beanies, ate churrascos (beef sandwiches) and went to a museum in an old mansion...not exactly sure what the museum was all about. There were a bunch of fancy rooms, displays about the history of Patagonia, and a bunch of Mapuche jewelry. Overall, the museum wasn't too exciting and I got tired of reading everything in Spanish pretty quickly, but we did get to wear some giant slippers over our shoes. FAVORITE PART!

2nd stop - Puerto Natales. There wasn't much to see in town but it's where everyone stays before heading out to Torres del Paine, Patagonia's national park. Our hostel was great and mapped out a plan for us in the park, rented us our camping equipment and made us omelets in the morning!

3rd stop - Torres del Paine. SO MANY GUANACOS!!! They're a type of llama and on the drive into the park, they were everywhere! I feel like I was a little more excited about them than everyone else but how often do you see llamas just wandering around? There were also a bunch of Ñandus, which are giant birds like ostriches, flamingos in some of the lakes, and eagles. We took a ferry to Refugio Paine Grande, left our packs, and hiked to the Glacier Grey lookout point. I had never seen a glacier before and it was sooooo huge and amazing.

 

 After looking at the glacier, we hiked back to the refugio, ate some lunch (bread, sliced chorizo and pebre), grabbed our packs and headed out toward the next campsite, Italiano. The trail was gorgeousss and we got to drink right out of the rivers and cross a rope bridge to get to camp. This was our first hike with packs...EVER, but it was a lot easier than I expected and I just couldn't stop thinking about how amazing it was that I was backpacking Patagonia. So crazy.

 The next morning, we started trekking with our packs down what we thought was the trail to the last refugio at the base of the peaks. We had been hiking for about an hour when the following conversation happened:
Aaron: Hey, doesn't this kinda look like a valley?
Melanie: No.
Aaron: But there are mountains on both sides of us, I'm pretty sure this is a valley.
Melanie: Aaron, there are mountains everywhere!
Everyone: Oh nooooo...

We were definitely in the French Valley, going a full 90 degrees in the wrong direction. After kicking ourselves in the face for not double-checking the sign at the trailhead, we decided to set down our packs and keep going up the French Valley, then cut out our planned hike up to the peaks the next morning to watch the sunrise. We were sooo disappointed, but the Valley ended up being incredible, we saw some avalanches, which sounded like the loudest thunder you've ever heard, and it was cloudy and raining all the next day anyway, so we wouldn't have seen any sunrise. Somehow everything worked out perfectly!!! Finishing our hike on the third morning was hard in the rain, and we were all cold, soaked and exhausted but I loved every minute of it. Torres del Paine was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and I want to go back and hike the entire W trail, or maybe the O someday!

 4th stop - Calafate. The same day we finished hiking Torres and left the park, we took a bus back to Puerto Natales, switched out our wet clothes at the hostel and got right back on a bus to go to Calafate in Argentina. Early the next morning, we got on bus number 34567875678 to Parque Nacional de los Glaciares to see Perito Moreno. It's one of only 3 glaciers in Patagonia that's actually growing, and it is HUGE. It flows into Lago Argentino, the biggest lake in Argentine Patagonia. We took a boat out to the base of the glacier and it was crazy to feel the waves when chunks fell off into the water, and see all the icebergs floating by. After the boat, the bus took us to a lookout point above the glacier and dropped us off for a few hours. There wasn't much to do except stand there and watch little chunks of ice fall off the glacier into the water, until a giant piece of the glacier fell into the water and made a huge wave. By far one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Pictures are all from Garrett's camera...mine got stolen out of my checked bag at the airport, along with Aaron's. So sad but at least we have these! That's all for now, after Calafate we spent another half-day in town and came home. Unforgettable trip!