My Patagonia Adventure, 2014
Summary – Patagonia is a beautiful place with extreme weather, especially wind. The touring agency, Cascada, was excellent. Patagonia is not easy to get to and involves difficult flight schedules on unreliable airlines.
Drama – Would my nephew, Andrew, be ready for a tough first trip out of the country just after finishing his first semester of grad school? Would my recent back and foot injuries cause problems? Would we make our connecting flights? Would I be able to get any sleep? Will all the photos I inserted into this document make it onto the blog, or will I have to set up a separate gallery for Patagonia? I do. Look for that on the site somewhere....
I’ve wanted to go to Patagonia for a few years. The name alone conjures images of mountain landscapes and exotic wildlife at the extreme end of South America. With my 50th birthday approaching in 2014, I started to think about going by myself in January of 2014, but as things go, I heard from my friends in New Zealand that the new doctor they’d hired at their office was let go in June of 2013, and they were a tad desperate for help there, so I put the trip off, arrived in New Zealand the end of September, 2014 and celebrated my 50th in Waimate, New Zealand instead.
I got back to the US the end of March, 2014 and, as I planned my year, wanted to keep some time open for the trip in December, 2014 or January 2015. My nephew, Andrew, had expressed interest in the past about going to Patagonia, though not necessarily with me, and once his school schedule settled, I opened up discussions with him about going along since I had been unable to find anyone else I would want to go with who could pay their way (I’d even looked at websites that try to pair up travelers – weirdos). While in New Zealand I’d met a young lady who was from Chile, and she told me to just go there and we would be able to find tour guides, etc., and the majority of people would speak English. That was not good enough for me, and I certainly had the money to do things a little more properly.
I recall assigning Andrew the task of figuring out what we might want to do, but after a while of nothing getting done, I contacted a travel agent I’d worked with before and started looking at the internet to see what was up. I finally found a trip that fit both of our schedules: a 7 day trek around the W trails in Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia run by Cascada Tours. The travel agent was a little dubious and did a check on them as they didn’t have a particular certification she was used to dealing with, but she found them to be acceptable and we moved ahead. She booked the hotels and transfers and I eventually took on the flights, as the schedules she produced were awful – several days with huge layovers each way, and quite expensive.
One thing gnawed at the back of my mind; I was planning on going back to New Zealand in January of 2015 and getting the work visa had become a total pain. Initially I would send it by Fedex and get it back in two days for free. Now New Zealand had subcontracted out some of the “work” and charged $40, and the length of time it would take was not easily predicted. As I understood it, I could not apply for the work visa until I had my medical registration certified, and I could not get that done until I was able to send them a certificate of good standing from the state of Pennsylvania, the only place I’d practiced medicine since my return six months ago. They required the certificate of good standing be within 3 months of my start date. That would require me to send off my passport in early November to get the visa, and the trip would start the 13th of December.
We went ahead and booked the trip. I paid for the whole thing. The only questions remained whether I would get my visa in time and how and when Andrew would get home. Andrew could not move his last final, which he took on the 12th of December, and his mom went and got him after he took the bus from Pittsburgh, so that question was answered. The visa was much more complicated: apparently there had been some changes and some things I misunderstood in my application. Things change for New Zealand immigration when you cross two years of living there. I did not think this applied to me as I’d always stayed less than six months every time. Putting logic aside and understanding bureaucrats, they wanted a full FBI background check, and I knew I would not be able to get that done before the trip, so I angrily asked them to return my passport (I didn’t get it until December 4th) and told my friends in New Zealand I would not be able to work there, likely ever again (not because of the immigration, but because of spite). I started looking for another job, which took up any free time I ‘d hoped to enjoy before leaving, including a urine drug screen the afternoon before we left.
The weather was fine for our departure and Andrew was ready on time. We found the parking I’d reserved at a hotel without trouble and took their shuttle to the airport. A helpful United employee got our boarding passes and luggage all sorted in just a few minutes. We were through security in only a few minutes as well and had plenty of time to kill. The first amusing scene of the trip was eating our lunches in the international terminal at a restaurant with small screens with internet access at each seat, both reading Wikipedia entries on Patagonia and discussing unusual things we found.
After lunch we found seats at the gate but discovered our fellow passengers to be a different sort of people, the sort that would jam the areas between the rows of seats with enough bags to make them impassable. We were headed to Lima, and the majority of the people at the gate looked like they were South Americans. I got up to wander and go to the bathroom, and I found the gate adjacent to ours had people sitting in it and thought of moving there until an airport official came in and threw everyone out. That seating area was for a flight to Tel Aviv in another 2 hours, and they closed it off completely with tall portable barriers. Unfortunately, that also shut off the nearest bathroom, but only Andrew had to walk around to the other side of the terminal to go before the flight left.
Outside of my butt hurting from sitting 8 hours, my entertainment screen not working and having to eat chicken for the meal, we had no trouble getting to Lima. We had to check in there for the rest of our boarding passes, and at that time we were moved to an earlier flight to Santiago as our scheduled flight was delayed too much to make our connection (it was then cancelled). Even then, the earlier flight left an hour late, and we arrived in Santiago without knowing what time it was. There were no clocks around while we rushed to the passport control area. The line was still long, but I got to a window at the same time Andrew did though we had to go alone to each.
This was the first spot of trouble. The flight attendants had handed us our paperwork, waking me up while doing so, and I didn’t realize I’d been given two of the same forms because they wanted both filled out. The passport guy held up two fingers and said, “You need two, DOS! Dos of these,” shaking the paper. I explained I thought I’d been given two by mistake, and he scratched around and found another pink paper with the right spaces on it and I quickly filled it out and was processed through.
I thought Andrew would be waiting for me, but he was nowhere to be found. I walked all the way to baggage claim and back four or five times, finally grabbing his bag and lugging it around with me and mine. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I was very worried he’d also only filled out one form and, instead of doing it quickly, had gone back to get one and entered the long line at the end. I was really sweating it out, because I didn’t know what time it was and our next flight boarded at 8:10am. It was 5:50am in Lima, but what time was it in Santiago?
I spotted Andrew way back in the line, moving aimlessly. I rushed over to get the attention of a young woman with “Informacion” on her windbreaker, and she came over. I asked her what time it was. She got out her phone and checked: 7:55am! I told her about our boarding time and my nephew still in line. We found him after a while, and I waved to him over and over to get him to wave back (he finally moved his arm a little) so they could go get him and get him through the line faster. I was a bundle of energy as I fussed around and was told at one point to move away from the desk where Andrew was getting processed.
We rushed back to the customs area, right to the front of the customs lines. I got the attention of the first official-looking man I saw, showed him our boarding passes, and he said, “I will help you. Come!”
He took us under ropes and to the xray machine, where men yelled at us to put the bags through the xray machine quickly and then we were off. The man, who looked like he might be in his 50s, started to run with my bag, and we followed. He yelled to another young man and he grabbed Andrew’s bag and followed us. We ran to an elevator, but he lost patience and started running towards the exit. We went through all the throngs of people waiting for arrivals and outside onto the sidewalk. From there we ran to a stairway and ran up three flights of stairs, with the older man and I holding each end of my bag (as were running, he said, “You must be very generous to us!”). We headed back inside there and it was clearly the check-in area for our airline. He talked to a woman at the entry to the line and she let us run through to the front to check our bags. The woman at the baggage check said the bags had plenty of time to make it to the plane and we were ok. I breathed a sigh of relief as we left there, but now we still had to get through security. The man took us in a run to the stairs up and to the security gate. I gave him and the other man, who turned out to be his son, a twenty each (I thought a single twenty would be enough, but they both wanted one!).
We butted right to the front of the security line, got through it ok, and hustled to the gate. We got there at 8:15 – all that had only taken us 20 minutes. The plane’s departure was delayed 45 minutes, so we even had time to go to the bathroom and relax before we left.
The last leg of flying took us to Punta Arenas, a town right along the Strait of Magellan. We exited with our bags, and I spotted a man with an “O’Rourke” sign. I signaled to him and he met us at the exit. He handed us off to a driver who took us to our hotel. The road was under construction and otherwise ordinary, but to our left I could see the Strait. I’d read so much about Magellan as a kid; it was really something special to see it now.
Punta Arenas is a small city of about 120,000 with a lot of one-way streets. Our hotel, the Rey Don Felipe, had a nice lobby, and there was an American girl helping with check in, which took far too long, but also critically involved the extra copy of the immigration papers, which we would need at every point of embarkation and lodging from then on. We took our bags up to our nice room and then came down for an excellent lunch at the hotel restaurant. There I started to chat with a woman who was sitting by herself at the next table. She was from England, and she’d just returned from a week in Antarctica (some day!). It was Sunday there, and she was supposed to be at work in England the next morning, but that wasn’t happening.
We went back upstairs to shower. Andrew, as was his pattern throughout, was mostly focused on getting wifi access. We decided to go for a stroll and try to get some money from an ATM. A Santander bank was two blocks down, and Andrew figured out how to get money, and showed me, but then he said his card had never come back out! We struggled with the machine for a while, but we finally gave up and went back to the hotel.
After a little time relaxing, while Andrew worried about his card, we went to a scenic overlook near the hotel. It was a fairly nice day, likely in the 60s, with a fairly good breeze. From the viewpoint we could see the glories of the Strait and the hint of Tierra del Fuego in the distance. There were several tourist buses there with people taking photos as well. Here is where the first photo in the gallery would be.
We went down the hill a different way and seemed to end up in the less good section of town. There were many bars, strip clubs, and a few intoxicated men asleep/passed out in the streets. We spotted a row of restaurants and passed them to go to the water’s edge. There were some people playing in the water, but not many. We walked a good distance down the promenade along the beach and came to a statue of a ship with a fountain where some pretty girls were posing for pictures standing in the waist deep water. We headed back into the city and ambled about until we were back at the street with the restaurants. The meal was nice and didn’t take too long. On the way back I got a bowel crisis and was lucky to make it to the bathroom near the hotel’s desk in time. To his credit, Andrew, highly motivated, went out to see if he could find a store selling adapters so he could charge his phone. He returned very happy to have paid only about $13 for a set of adapters at a place run by some Asians. We were otherwise tired and looking forward to our next day and racked out pretty well even though it was still light outside when we went to bed.
I got up the next morning and went for a run. I’d hurt both my foot and my back the weekend before: my back on Friday doing bent over lateral raises at the gym, an exercise I approached with caution that day having completed an 11 mile run just a few hours before and noticing tightness in my butt before starting them. I often thought of my back as something akin to a steel-belted radial: it was tough. I hardly ever even had a twinge in it since I started a set of exercises every morning in my late 20s specifically because my back bothered me too often. Now I had a sore, tight area at the level of my pelvis on the left side. My foot hurt during that 11 mile run in the arch, but like many running aches and pains, I was able to get it settled down only to have it get much worse on Sunday. After that I took several days off running, including the last three before we left.
This run went well; my back was still tight and sore, but not bad, and the foot hurt only a little early on and then settled. For purposes of brevity, my foot never bothered me the rest of the time, but my back hurt every time we stood still for more than a minute and whenever I laid on my back the rest of the trip. I ran down to the water and then followed the running paths there along it for a nice 4 miles. As I got ready to cross the main boulevard along the water, I noticed a dog coming up behind me. I do not much like dogs when I am running; they tend to attack, or at least get excited, when they see a human, or anything, running. This dog looked like a German Shepherd mix, and he was not dissuaded by my yelling at him. He trotted across the road with me and followed me, or lead me (shepherding me?) the whole way out (about 1.5 miles), and part of the way back, despite my snapping at him frequently. Several other dogs took offense to his running and came across to bark at him (and once at me), but he continued on. Finally, a chubby man approached while I was on my way back. He was running/jogging much slower than I was, and the dog turned and followed him instead. The city had some exercise equipment right along the sea, so I stopped and did a set of dips and, later, a set of pull-ups, after the dog left me.
We got all ready and ate a nice breakfast. The pick-up wasn’t scheduled until 10:30am, so we went back to the bank to see if we could get Andrew’s card out of the machine. They said they couldn’t do it until the next day, so he got back on the wifi at the hotel and cancelled his card.
A bus pulled up a little after 10. There was one person on it, a tired looking American who worked in finance in New York. He was young and traveling by himself. He’d just gotten in from Easter Island that morning, after experiencing extreme delays everywhere he’d gone (a theme). We picked up a few others on the way, with about 10 or so on the bus when we left town. It was a two hour drive to Puerto Natales, where we would check in and get our guides and some lunch.
The drive from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales can best be described as boring. Not scenic in any way, it lent itself to sleep, which most of the occupants did. Our driver spoke no English, so I did not try to tell him to turn down the heat, which was oppressive.
Puerto Natales is a smaller city/large town on a different body of water. Its buildings were similar to Punta Arenas’: colorfully painted dwellings predominated. It had more charm, though. We were allowed to wander a bit after we ate, so we went to the water there and chatted some. We met two of our guides: Danny, a short, squatty man with an easy smile, and Consuela, a well-built female with a long rat tail braid hanging from her short hair. We signed various things and ordered our evening meals and were shortly on our way to a famous cave.
People were a bit more alert as we entered the scenic environs near the national park. We stopped near an interesting rock formation and got out: the Milodon Cave. Milodons were giant sloths; despite the statues there, they are not THAT large, more likely about the size of a big black bear rather than the hugest polar bear. The geology was very interesting, in that there was sedimentary and volcanic rocks in layers along with the general layers of rock lifted up with the collision of the tectonic plates. The cave had been eroded as the land was lifted up and the waters receded. It was very large, like two thirds of a football stadium, with paths through it. Well-preserved milodon remains had been found there, along with human tools. Here would be two photos of the Milodon cave.
We got back in the bus and cruised the last few hours to the park entrance. After they did their paperwork there, we had a relatively short ride to the Eco Camp. Eco Camp was a series of green dome tents arrayed along paths of elevated wood with a central bathroom area. Andrew and I called our tent the Hobbit Tent, since the entrance was quite low and made the whole thing look small. The bathroom area had a lot of clothes on lines drying there. The toilets were part of a composting network; we were supposed to put the toilet paper in trash bins, and there was a slightly complex way of getting a small amount of water into the bowl to flush. It smelled terrible, every time. But the showers had hot water, so that was a plus. We had some time to unpack and relax before meeting for a briefing and then a meal. We met our group then and ate with them after we found out the plan for the next few days. Most importantly I figured out my plan for running while there, and I would be able to do the first run in the morning before we left.
There was a bad moment: not tragic, but bad. I had a perfect blue-gray Icebreaker merino wool hat along and lost it somewhere between the Milodon cave and the Eco Camp. I had several other hats, but they were in no way perfect. I even went back with Danny, who would be our guide, and went through our bus looking for it. It was not the first time I’ve lost an awesome hat on a trip.
The Eco Tent did not have heat, but it was not that cold when we went to bed. During the night, the wind howled most of the time, with the noise enhanced by hard-hitting raindrops intermittently against the tent and particularly the clear plastic window above our heads. I didn’t sleep much but was at least lying down for a good bit of time.
I rose early for my run; initially I had aborted it due to hard rain and wind, but then it eased and got sunny (it was light a little after 4am). It was chilly and windy, but not terrible, and I had a very enjoyable five mile go along what I anticipated would be the first section of the day’s hike. The exhilaration lasted most of the morning while I showered, ate and did our final preparations. It was not deterred by an old man who was fussing about the granola at breakfast that he needed for his ill wife whom they were going to take off to see a doctor that day (I almost told him I was a doctor, but what was I going to do?).
We had to use our wits to pack before we left. We got a small (emphasis on small) dry bag into which we could put no more than 11 pounds of materiel that would be carried by a porter. The rest of our clothes and gear had to fit in a day pack or on our persons, and we were going to be gone for two nights. I stressed over whether to try to get the stuff I would need to run in as well; in the end I did, but I did not run until we got back to the eco camp because the trails were too rough and the weather was too bad (foreshadowing?).
Danny led us out of the camp around 10am. Our group of six included a couple from India (Let’s call them P and N) who now lived in Austin, Texas, and two very well traveled friends, one a professor (R) and the other a consultant (H) (their life stories made me much less interesting in comparison for once). We got along right from the start, and the pace was nice and relaxed. We did follow my running route, but we split off on a trail I’d thought of running but opted instead for the hillier route. It was sunny and almost warm. When the trails split after 2 miles, many took off some layers, and I eventually did as well, down to a merino tee shirt. The initial walk had been along the roads connecting the hotel and camp to the main road, then over a few bridges (with a little swing to them), all mostly flat. We then entered a scrubby area with good trails that went up and down a little (“Patagonia flat” according to Danny). It was all very pretty. Here would be a photo of me and of the trail.
But it soon started to cool down and the wind picked up again. Brief periods of driving rain also joined in, and we were soon back to all our layers. We walked single file with Danny in front, and our positions changed frequently. When you were close to Danny you could ask him questions, and sometimes he would stop and show us berries we could eat (good) and how the terrain changed periodically (he was quite keen on geology).
The wind was howling when we came to the first stream where he said we could fill our water bottles. It was crossed via a very swingy bridge, and the wind blew so hard the bridge was at times impassable. Photo of Andrew getting water from the stream and the wobbly bridge.The water was delicious, as it was every time we collected it from streams.
From then on the weather dominated us. The wind, probably gusting up to 70mph, was blowing into us from the right most of the time; we had a few breaks in more sheltered areas, but they were very few. We stopped for lunch (we packed our lunches from a table of ingredients at breakfast) part of the way up a hill partially protected by some rock outcroppings, but one gust blew Andrew’s pack about six feet along the ground before I could grab it. The worst weather of the day was from then on as we arrived in early afternoon at that night’s campsite. I’d thought Danny had said we would be in a big bunkroom there, but Andrew and I had our own cabin right next to the bathroom/showers. I was excited to have that much privacy, as I needed some sleep after the noisy night.
It had stopped raining and the sun came out. The wind was only a hint of what it had been as well, so Andrew and I decided to be the first ones in the outdoor hot tub we passed on the way to our cabin. We changed (I had brought a pair of running shorts, and Andrew had a suit) and ran quickly down through the chill. It was HOT, but only at the surface, and we quickly acclimated. We were joined by R and had a good time chatting and exclaiming about the view, proclaiming it the most scenic hot tub in the world. Photo of the mountains above the hot tub. In addition to the mountains above, the hillside was also lovely, there was a waterfall nearby, and the lake view was stunning. But the tub was on the slimy side, so we figured we would be best served by showering immediately upon exiting. It was really cold when we got out and hurried to the bathroom. Andrew was first in the shower, which H had told R did not have any hot water when he took a shower. Andrew screamed there was no hot water now, either. I got in and, not only was there no hot water, but the water was just off the glacier and as cold as liquid water could be! My feet were quickly growing numb in the standing water on the shower floor and I barely managed, with tremendous grunting, griping, and occasionally shouts, to get somewhat clean, motivated by avoiding all those rashes I’d seen people have after dirty hot tubbing.
Traumatized, I was determined to do nothing that would make me need another shower before we left (turns out the propane tank for the water heater was empty when we went. They changed it later in the afternoon). That meant neither going on the late afternoon hike to a scenic overlook Danny had planned, nor running in the morning. It took a long time to get warmed back up in our unheated cabin.
So, that left us with nothing to do. Nothing. Danny had told us we would not need to pack anything to read (insinuating we would be busy and tired), so I had not brought my Kindle (I had plenty of waterproof bags, but not much space). Andrew went to sleep, but I could not; instead I guess I meditated for a very long time. I did go on a walk to scout the trails for running. It rained off and on, and I coincidentally bumped into everyone in our group while I was out. None of us had gone on the supplemental hike
Finally it was time to eat. We heard about how awesome (or hard) the late afternoon hike had been (depending on the source) and ate pork chops and rice. The cooks had briefly done a skit based on “Gangnam Style”, which I give them credit for trying. The food was gone too quickly and we were back in the cabin for several hours more of boredom. I packed and repacked, all the while running some commentary to annoy and entertain Andrew and pass the time, and then, I found it, the next entertainment for the evening: a pack of gum. We both chewed it with gusto, commenting again and again on how much less boring it was now that we could chew gum.
My hopes for a quiet night and a lot of sleep were quickly dashed. Andrew had developed a mild cough the night before, but it persisted; a few coughs every few minutes for several hours, every one of them loud enough to wake me or keep me awake. The wind picked up again and at one point seemed ready to blow the cabin off its foundation. Of course, it also rained off and on.
Despite it all I felt rested when I got out of bed and was pleased to see a beautiful, sunny morning. Photo of mountain in the early sunlight. The temptation to try to run was strong, but there was not enough time. By the time we’d finished breakfast it was raining steadily with a very strong, gusty wind. We set off on what was supposed to be our longest hike up into the middle part of the W.
This was easily the worst weather of any day. It rained most of the time and was very windy. Along the lake it took all our efforts not to be knocked over. Fortunately there were covered and protected areas to give us breaks. We finally headed away from the lake and along a stream/valley into the mountains, an area that was quite beautiful and relaxing and resembled a young pine forest in the states. After we passed a camping area, the trail got rocky and steeper but still not that hard. I was dressed a little warmer, but my shell was not waterproof and by the time we reached one of the viewing areas looking out at a glacier, I was wet and cold. The wind was blowing rain in our faces and cameras as we tried to capture the moment there, but my tolerance was low. Photo of the glacier from the windy and rainy viewpoint. We descended back to a more sheltered area to eat our box lunches and get ready for the afternoon. I took off my wet coat and put on my merino wool jacket, which made a huge difference.
We had to go back down the way we came and then cross the stream near the camping area on another wobbly bridge to head to the next camp. We’d cut short the hike by about 2 hours because the upper viewing point was fogged in. Initially we traveled through an area where a fire had destroyed much of the vegetation a few years before, and then the rest of the afternoon was a mixed bag, but the weather was improving as we neared the next camp. We were all motivated to get done, and I even mocked running the last part to get there, as it started raining again at that time.
This lodge was big, with a large cafeteria, a bar, and many rooms. The six of us would share a room around the corner from a wood stove and the bathrooms. The room quickly filled up with clothes drying in every part. Never one to relax, I was wandering all around, but there were not many unoccupied spaces. We finally got dinner, and then someone came up with a deck of cards so we went to the bar and played rummy for a while. It was heaven compared to the last spot. We turned out the light with me worried about Andrew’s cough keeping me up from his bunk above mine. Quickly someone started snoring, Andrew was coughing, and there was a boisterous crowd somewhere nearby with a woman who laughed like a turkey gobbling, but with the aid of earplugs and well placed blankets, I had my best night’s sleep, which was not saying much.
I was first up and wandered around. The weather had been terrible during the night, and it was still raining and very windy. Alejandro, a guide associated with our group, had spent the night in a tent outside and woke up to find nearly a foot of water in one corner. By the time we’d packed and finished breakfast the weather had settled some. It was still very windy at times, but not raining as much. We were to do the left part of the W that day, and at the end, board a boat that would take us near the glaciers and back to a drop off point from which we would hike to meet a bus back to Eco Camp. We were optimistic about the boat until we reached the halfway point, at which time Danny radioed the boat and was told it was way too rough for them to come out for the voyage. At the same time we were trying to take in the views of the glaciers from a look out while dealing with the hardest winds of my life. The strongest gusts had to be near 100mph. Most people were posing for pictures bending way into the wind or videos of their pants flapping (Photo of Andrew and I posing in the high winds). It was an interesting spot, but I really love glaciers and couldn’t hide my disappointment we wouldn’t be seeing them up close.
Instead, we did plan B, which was hike back to the lodge and then catch a different boat, on a different lake, to a different place where we would hike and do some sightseeing. After lunch the boat came, and it looked too small for the large crowd waiting there. We had to sit on the roof, and I was prepped for the worst wind and cold of the journey, but it wasn’t bad at all and we had a good time cruising over. Photos from the boat. This seemed to lighten everyone’s mood.
Once there we walked to view a nearby waterfall, an area that had lots of trails to scurry over. Photo of waterfall.
We saw and did what we could there and took the bus back to the eco camp. Everyone was still in a good mood. I got a chance to talk to Alejandro and he was very nice. He’d heard I wanted to run and pointed out a trail just outside the eco camp that went up into the mountains. I was so excited to get back to camp and change and run! It felt like home!
The trail was fantastic: muddy and impassable in parts but with lots of other optional routes carved out. I passed hikers going both directions who seemed surprised to see me. It was supposed to rain so when the wind picked up and a drizzle started, I got wary, but it never panned out and I was fine the whole time, if not underdressed. I was elated again when I got back from those five miles.
I didn’t have much time, though, as I was going to go to yoga there soon (they had a yoga tent and fairly regular classes). I did my own post-run stretching and showered, then headed over there. I had a hard time finding it and was a few minutes late. There were three women taking the class (a fourth showed up much later), two from our groups, and the yoga instructor, who was a very pretty girl (Alejandro had pointed her out to me, saying she was the ugly girl there when our bus pulled in. I said she was so ugly I could not stop looking at her.). I am very inflexible, and I was continually laughing at that deficiency as I struggled through the maneuvers and poses. It was very relaxing, though, and at some point I achieved a conscious state of mind-blankness that was quite pleasant. I talked to the instructor briefly about how I’d never done yoga before while I was putting on my shoes – very nice, and made me sad I wouldn’t be able to do the yoga again before I left.
The high spirits continued that night amongst us as we had a lively dinner and conversation before heading back to our tents. I was so happy to put my iPod on and READ! One thing had come up while we were away that I needed to settle. I was under the impression we did not return to the US until the 24th, but everyone else said they were leaving a day earlier. When I finally got access to our travel documents again we were to arrive in Newark the 23rd after all. I had made all the plans correctly and remembered the dates wrong! What a relief. So, a great day! It was satisfying in so many ways despite not getting the boat to the glaciers.
When I am in a mood like that, it is often hard for me to sleep. That was the case that night. Andrew was coughing some, which didn’t help, and it was quite chilly in the tent after it got dark. I was under every possible layer of blankets, which is saying something, and finally was warm enough (I had them pulled over my bald head with a space to allow air in and out). At some point in the middle of the night, I thought it might help me sleep if I peed. The problem was it was really cold, and I didn’t want to have to go outside, even if that meant peeing right next to the tent. I debated my options a while and finally determined I would pee in one of my spare water bottles without going outside. I hoped Andrew was asleep (he was) and I moved around outside my blankets to try to accomplish this as quickly as possible. It was not easy in the dark, and my fear of peeing all over made things go even slower (it is also not easy to pee with a 50 year old prostate when it is really cold). Finally I was rid of as much as I could and sealed up the bottle and put it aside (I emptied it and cleaned the bottle first thing in the morning). I crawled back into the warm bed and did fall asleep, deep enough I had to be awakened by my alarm, a rarity.
It was REALLY cold in the tent then. I kept looking at the plastic window, as something seemed odd about it, and it finally registered that it was partially covered with ice! I put a fairly warm running outfit on and went outside to head to the bathroom. There was snow everywhere, about a half inch of icy snow! The day before the summer solstice! We were around the 51st parallel south, the equivalent of Calgary and London, and not at high altitudes (less than 1000ft), so it was quite remarkable. I went back in the tent and got my camera for some pictures and videos. Photo of tent with ice and snow on it.
On my way to the bathroom, I saw P outside and he told me there was a fox right behind his tent. I couldn’t see the fox easily, so I went into the bathroom to get ready to run (there was a small area between the two entrances that was enclosed and covered, though not warm). When I was ready to go I followed the fox tracks around the camp for a bit but could not find it (we saw it later. It also got sprayed by a skunk that morning). Photo of fox getting sprayed, courtesy of P.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning otherwise and I had a most enjoyable run back the way of the first day’s hike. I did 5 miles, really feeling it in my legs, probably from the harder run and yoga the afternoon before (and sleep deprivation).
Today was to be an easy day, as the last big hike was postponed a day due to poor weather up in the mountains. Instead we were to go for a hike in an area where the guanacos were numerous, see some interesting coral formations, and get a feel for the non-mountainous areas near the park. We didn’t leave until 10, so I had a little time to do even more reading.
The bus dropped us at a fairly barren area (Photos of the scenery and guanacos) and we tramped up the grassy terrain until there were lots of guanacos, none of which would let us nearer than 20 feet or so. There was often a fence to our left as we walked, and that area was home to many guanaco skeletons of various sizes, all apparently victims of the pumas, the apex predators there (they would chase the guanacos to the fence, and the ones that couldn’t jump it were easy prey). There were very pretty vistas all along, especially with the snow still in the higher elevations. We walked without much purpose, enjoying not having a destination or big agenda for the day.
We approached a scenic lake (Photo), and the bus took us to a place where we were supposed to walk over the grass to the beach. I was walking with Alejandro and we soon got into near quicksand-like mud and swampy grass. “Alejandro, where are you taking us!?” I chided him cheerfully. He rerouted us more to our left where it was a bit drier and we made it through a guanaco herd (photo) to the lakeshore, which was covered by huge boulder-like pieces of coral called thrombolites (photo). We spent an inordinate amount of time there, in a brisk wind, time I spent trying to skip a stone on the heavy surf (I managed only one skip out of many tries).
After walking back we took the bus to the blue lagoon. This was a lake with a small lodge where we ate lunch and used the toilets. We hiked afterwards to a hillside with a nice view, where we also did a group photo (photo of view and group)
We started to head back, stopping briefly (but not as brief as it should have been) at an area where the guanacos were breeding, actively as it turned out. The females are fertile within weeks of giving birth, and most of the young ones had been born in the last 4 weeks. From there it was a brief ride to a waterfall (photo) that was a bit bigger than the other one we’d seen the day before. It was windy and cold, but bearable, and we all milled about. At one point the trainee guide, Consuela, attempted a maneuver on the cables serving as a safety barrier and went right over, landing flat on her back on the small bit of land between the barriers and the cliff to the falls. Everyone was startled, but she shook it right off and moved on.
We had another nice dinner before adjourning to our tents to prep for our big hike the next day: up to the towers after which the park is named, somewhere between 12 and 14 miles total, the right side of the W. I had been waiting to use a new Camelbak pack I’d bought with more room for gear than my first one, which just had small pouches for keys and cereal bars, etc. I could easily fit all I wanted in it and about 100 ounces of water, more than enough for a hike that long.
After a frustrating night of trying to sleep with Andrew coughing most of the time, I crawled out of bed around 5:30am and went for a run. That turned the tide for the better right off the bat. I went up into the hills near the camp on the trail I’d enjoyed and went farther (I would have loved to go even farther than that, but not enough time). It opened up into a pleasant valley on the other side at about the turnaround for 5 miles.
There was a bit of wishy-washiness about our departure. We all were gung ho, but the weather report suggested only a small, maybe one hour window at the towers where they would be visible, so we did a tour of the camp, including the composting facilities and the employees’ quarters, and then finally left around 10am. We followed the trail from the first day and turned up into the hills. There were three pretty good climbs to a high point and then a descent to the campsite along the stream where we would take our first break.
It was a very pretty trail at times (photo looking back and looking toward the camp) and I was full of energy, so Danny told me I could go as fast as I wanted to the camp. I thought Andrew and the others were with me, but when I turned around at the top of the last climb they were nowhere to be seen. I waited a while, but then set off at the pace I like to go and motored through to the camp, stopping only for an occasional photo and to let a thundering group of pack horses and their riders pass (the camp, or “refugio” is entirely supplied by horses).
We were told we would have to pay to use the toilets at the campsite, so I waited for Danny to turn up. He said to go anywhere, so I went behind the buildings by a waterfall and noticed a guy wagging his finger at me as I walked back to the group.
The next part of the hike wound through trees, with occasional crossings over the now narrow stream, moving steadily upward. As we neared the area called the moraine, or boulder field, near the top, it started to snow lightly. Once we moved out of the trees, it was snowing harder, and as we got about halfway up the rocky part, it was nearly a white out: we could see only a short distance and the wind blown snow was all over us. Still we trusted Alejandro and Danny – there would be a window around 2pm.
We kept going up; the trail was said to be steep, but I’d been on much worse. I took a pause to look around and noticed the sun trying to break through the clouds and made the pronouncement aloud to everyone. I was sure things were going to be fine. And they were. The terrain at the top was very interesting, mostly rock, with large and small boulders strewn around. The trail was easy to follow, with frequent orange topped poles along it. With little warning, we arrived at the scenic lookout. (multiple photos of the view of the towers and lake)It was well worth it! The sun was indeed peeking out, the wind had calmed to rarely experienced zephyrs, and the towers in all their glory loomed before us! The area had quite a few people milling about, posing for and taking pictures, and eating, all while chattering excitedly about the place. After the chill and the snow, I couldn’t get over how calm it was. Andrew bolted up the rocks to a higher area and I moved gingerly among them to a spot where I could eat in peace near H and R. Just then a German-speaking couple moved right next to me and chattered loudly for several minutes about what to do. They both were nearly touching me. So much for relaxing in nature.
Still exhilarated, I moved back to the beginning of the way down and waited for others to make their moves. H, R and Andrew all quickly decided to go, so I told them I would stay in the rear so they would keep me from going too fast on the way down. I paused to take this picture (photo of Andrew barely visible in the rocks) and shoot some video, and they were gone.
R had on a colorful hat, and I occasionally saw it, but I kept getting behind other groups and had to pick my way past them without being overly rude. I was going quite fast, slightly outside my comfort zone, and I was sure I would come upon them, but I didn’t. I thought they might wait at the entrance back into the trees, but they did not. Had I passed them? Should I go back and see?
I pressed on, nearly running when I could, rarely taking a sip from the Camelbak, getting around the slow moving hikers as quickly as I could. It seemed to take forever, but when I looked at my watch, I was making fantastic time. I thought I might make it back to the eco camp by 5pm, only 2.5 hours after taking 4 hours on the way up.
I arrived back at the camp area and was striding briskly through it when I heard, “Uncle Terry!” Startled, I stopped and turned to see where that had come from. It was Andrew, sitting on a bench working on his shoes. I’d walked right past him. I was a bit surprised he had been in front of me; I am a very fast hiker, but not as fast going downhill, so maybe that explained it. He told me he’d been having anxiety attacks as H had taken off so fast he couldn’t keep up and he’d never seen R, who was behind him, since getting into the woods. He decided to keep going and made it that far before taking a break.
I was very relieved to have found him and happy to have his company the rest of the way. We set off quickly and went fast the whole way, fast enough to even have me feeling a little tired at times. We were always looking for H and R, but we never saw them, even when we could see for a mile or so in front of us. I was sure they’d stopped and somehow we’d missed them. They were good hikers, but nothing I’d seen suggested they could go that fast.
It had been warm on the way down, enough so I’d taken off layers, but the nearer we got to the valley floor, the colder and windier it got. Finally, after passing a slow moving woman with poles, we were trying to get our jackets on and she pushed right through us so we had to pass her again! We covered the last 2 miles on the flats fast, but then Andrew hit the wall on the steep climbs to the eco camp. Tired and pleased, we thought we were the first ones back. It had taken us 2:45 to get down from the viewing area. I had held pee the whole way down and was very glad to go, and Andrew took a shower. When I was getting dressed after showering, R walked in with his shower stuff. He said he’d been back for a while, but H had stopped at the hotel they were going to the next day and also showered and had been reading for 30 minutes before R arrived. I humorously accused him of being FOS; there was no way H had been able to beat us down by that much!
At our meeting before and all during dinner (group photo), I kept going back to H and his amazing journey down, waiting for him to crack and admit he didn’t do it that quickly, but he insisted he had used his poles to rocket down, going very quickly the whole time. I began to believe him. P had seen a puma right at the junction of the trails, a point Andrew and I had crossed no more than an hour before them. We tried to have a little cocktail hour outside, but it was too chilly. A big condor flew right over us as we sat there. We all thought there was supposed to be a disco night, but every time it was mentioned we got no response. I went back to the tent after we finished eating, but Andrew hung out in the bar with the rest. Apparently some of the other group that did things with us really partied hard nearly every night. I would have gone if I’d known, but there weren’t any cute girls there to motivate me much.
I slept in the next morning, planning to run back in Punta Arenas and getting some sleep as Andrew coughed a bit less and I was tired enough to sleep through some of it. We left after breakfast around 9am. One of the girls had to catch a flight that day, so she was very tense and had a short fuse about delays, though the guides reassured her over and over that there was only one flight and she would be able to get to the plane very quickly once there. We stopped in Puerto Natales again and ate lunch. I bought some snacks before we left and gave Danny a big tip (I had tipped rather generously everywhere else as well - they all deserved it, though it was a bit of stress trying to ration my money out – I got back to the USA with an empty wallet). The trip otherwise was even more boring than the trip out.
We were dropped off at our hotel at 2:30 and I was out on a run by 3pm. It was VERY windy, but not that cold. I was in a long sleeved shirt and shorts, but everyone else looked bundled up for winter. I again ran five miles along the water and stopped to do some exercises at the beachside exercise areas. It felt weird to be back in civilization.
H&R, who’d stayed behind at the hotel near the Eco Camp, told us the cemetery in Punta Arenas was interesting, so we walked over there once we were cleaned up. An American guide who’d ridden back with us recommended a restaurant near there, so we hoped to include that in our walk. The cemetery was indeed interesting; large tombs with elaborate decorations. I told Andrew, “They like their dead much more than we do.” (last photo)
The restaurant was closed (it was 6pm) when we got to it, so we wandered around for a while and then went back to the hotel, where the restaurant didn’t open until 7pm. We had another excellent meal there, which revived me from a sudden attack of fatigue while we were waiting for our food.
Andrew spent most of the evening on the internet, chatting with his girlfriend for a long time and coming in after I’d already gone to bed after finishing repacking. I was beat and barely had the patience to put up with his coughing for another night, which went on for a long, long time, including while he was sitting in bed looking at his phone. I didn’t know he was doing that until the phone rang. He didn’t answer it so I had to, knocking a pillow off the bed while I did so. No answer, but I took in the tableau of him coughing and looking at his phone while I had my eyes open. I then reached with my eyes closed for the pillow on the floor and hit my head hard against the wall next to the bed. It was a long night.
Initially we were told the shuttle to the airport would pick us up at 7am, but there was a note under the door they were not coming until 8am, which was much better. I went back to bed but couldn’t sleep. We ate and did our last rituals before the car picked us up. Now, we were back at the mercy of the airlines and passport people.
The first sign of trouble was at check in in Punta Arenas. The woman at the desk was young and had an older woman helping her. They struggled for a while and then told us they could not check our bags all the way through to Newark because that section of the trip was on another airline. I told them we only had a short layover there and it would be very hard for us to get our bags and recheck them, but they told us it was not hard and someone would be there to help us. I was skeptical, but what options did I have?
Our first flight left late, but we had a long layover in Santiago that got used up quickly when there were no signs telling us where to go (two floors up or down, I can’t remember, but we did both several times). Finally Andrew talked to a guy out on the street amongst the crowds and he told him where to go, but the guy kept telling me to calm down and pointed repeatedly to his ID for some reason (perhaps it was my wild-eyed staring at him). We did find the floor for departures. I talked to an agent about our bags and trying to move our flight to Lima up, but there were no earlier ones we could make. We also had to go through passport control again. It took well over an hour, and this time we went to the window together.
The plane was already there when we got to the gate. We knew it could not be delayed or we were screwed with our Lima connection, so at least that wasn’t a problem. We waited a long time and Andrew kept going up to the counter to see what was going on, as they seemed to be doing everything but getting us on the plane to leave. We left a little late but arrived in Lima a few minutes early. Now it gets bad. Again, there were no signs. There was a woman standing at an entry point into a queue who didn’t speak English well but said, I think, that to get our bags we had to go through passport control, then baggage claim, then customs, then go back outside to the entrance to check them in and go through passport control again. I was smoking mad as we lined up for passport control, and fortunately the line was short.
The woman at passport control seemed confused. Were we the first passengers ever to have to recheck their bags? After discussing our situation at length, she said she was not going to allow us through; instead we should go to the LAN airline desk (there, I said it. They SUCK!!!!) and get them to get our bags for us. All of this was taking a considerable amount of time.
At the LAN desk, we got the same guy who’d switched our Santiago flight when we’d arrived there on the way down. He said he took care of everything; they’d found our bags and were taking them to the United plane. We should check with United in 15 minutes.
We still did not have boarding passes, so we went through security and ran to the gate, which was fairly far. Finally, while we were running, it dawned on us there was no reason to run at that point. Andrew seemed to be having a panic attack, though it couldn’t be a panic attack because we had plenty of reasons to be anxious. We got to the counter at the gate with some trouble and got through to a woman who was very calm and figured out what we needed quickly. We got our boarding passes and were told to check back in a bit about our bags. I got ready for the flight with tooth brushing and ablutions while Andrew tried to chill. We checked back in about 20 minutes, as they were starting to board some passengers, and the bags had not made it. Still, we had. They actually searched our carry- ons before we boarded and then we were off.
A United rep in Newark told me that we had to wait at baggage claim until it was obvious our bags didn’t make it, so we did (about 45 minutes total), and then we were able to go through customs and to the baggage problem desk. While we were in baggage claim it was announced another United flight from Brazil had not been loaded with all the bags, so a large number of people from that flight were in line with us. We got things sorted as best we could, getting a claim number to follow, and we took the train to the shuttle bus stop. From there it was to the hotel, where Andrew got a cup of coffee and we headed home on an uneventful journey except for me fighting sleep a lot. Our bags were delivered three days later (the 26th of December), with mine arriving first; the delivery guy had grabbed the wrong bag for Andrew and another guy had to drive down from Wilkes Barre in the afternoon with it, ending the saga of my Patagonia adventure. We both kept journals on little moleskine notebooks I’d bought for that purpose, and I’ve since made a video which is on youtube at:
Having been to many scenic places, I would suggest anyone who was interested in such a trip first go to Iceland. It is beautiful (the women especially), not that cold (but windy), with good flights, easy travel and lots to see. New Zealand is as pretty as Patagonia but a much longer flight with a big time zone difference. You would need much more time there. Patagonia is for the stout of heart, but it was a great, great adventure, and I would see if you could get flights on a different airline than LAN. I try to find the humor in everything, and I hope you found this funny, but it wasn’t as funny as I’d like it to be, but because it is so long I kept out some humor. If you think I should put it in, let me know in the comments.