Doug

After checking out in Puerto Natales, we hopped on a bus for a 3.5 hour ride to Punta Arenas, the southernmost settlement on mainland South America. We were surprised by the size and overall feel of the city. Originally a penal colony used by Chile to establish a territorial claim to the Magellan Straight, the […]

After our last breakfast at Pampa Lodge on Friday the 13th, we grabbed the rest of our luggage and hopped back into a van for the return trip to Puerto Natales, stopping for a self guided tour of the Milodon Cave about 30 minutes out of the city. The massive cave (200m deep, 80m wide,

Our last day in Torres del Paine was going to be a boat ride and shorter, 6 mile hike to the French Valley; then we looked into the hike and realized it was 6 miles one way and a steep climb. Given how tired and sore we still were from Base Torres, we decided we

For our second full day in Torres del Paine, we opted for an easy morning and afternoon catamaran ride on Lago Grey to see the Grey Glacier. After the hike the day before, we were both grateful for the rest and looking forward to getting up close to another massive glacier. We rode over with

While we were in the neighborhood, Tori and I decided to do one of the most iconic hikes in Torres Del Paine, the 22 km (~13.7 mile) hike to the Base Torres viewpoint to see the Las Torres (The Towers). We tried to prepare for this over the winter, but there’s not much terrain in

El Calafate to Puerto Natales We gave ourselves a bit of an easy morning before heading out; it was a short, 4ish hour drive from El Calafate to Puerto Natales, where we’d stay one night before returning the rental car and taking our transfer to our hotel just outside of Torres del Paine. Traffic was

(Town of) Perito Moreno to El Calafate We left the town of Perito Moreno early on Friday morning for the 8 hour drive down the famous Rt. 40 to El Calafate. The entire drive would be a fairly monotonous slog across the Patagonian Steppe and we wanted to do it one go so we could

The Marble Caves The Marble Caves and Cathedral started forming about 15,000 years ago when retreating glaciers carved out General Carrera lake, which in turn started slowly eroding the marble in the area. Tori and I stumbled across them watching Noraly Shoenmaker’s “Itchy Boots” YouTube channel when she featured them on her own trip through

Chaiten to Villa Amengual We had a relatively short day of driving on Tuesday, so we slept in a little bit before getting on the road and really kicking off Phase 2 of the trip. The clouds were hanging low and we resolved to try and enjoy the day as much as possible even if

Today officially kicked off the second phase of the trip and the first leg of the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway). This part of the journey can’t be completed over land in Chile and is the one that I was most worried about logistically. Options include one long ferry, a combination of driving and shorter ferries,