Torres del Paine
Tuesday, April 9
The term “Patagonia” is not the name of a country, but rather refers to the southern tip of South America, which is divided into Chile and Argentina. Patagonia is vast and has countless national parks. We started our Patagonia trip on the Argentinian side of Patagonia and then continued on to the Chilean side.
Since Patagonia is a very large and quite expensive region to travel to, you have to carefully consider which places are most important to you and plan your itinerary accordingly. Many of Patagonia's "sights" and national parks are also quite far apart, which makes good planning in Advance even more important. Patagonia is very sparsely populated or unpopulated in most places, so you can't rely on public transportation and need a rental car for the national parks. We really wanted to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier in southern Argentina and therefore planned to travel to southern Patagonia. After a few days in Argentinian Patagonia, we boarded a bus and drove a few hours further across the border into Chile. The next place we wanted to visit was the small town of Puerto Natales in southern Chile.
Puerto Natales was our starting point for hikes in Torres del Paine National Park, which we also definitely wanted to visit. We had a comfortable hotel room with a beautiful view of the landscape and the ocean, and we had a rental car with which we made our tours into the national park, which was 1.5-2 hours away. The national park itself, like the rest of Patagonia, is very extensive, and there are countless places, hiking trails, and viewpoints to visit. Over the next few days, we went on several shorter hikes in the breathtaking Patagonian landscape and spent a lot of time in the national park. There was so much to see, and around every corner, the next snow-capped peak, blue lagoon, or vast steppe landscape awaited. We visited Patagonia in April, which meant it was autumn there. We still don't know if we were just incredibly lucky or if it was because we visited Patagonia in the off-season, but it felt like we had the entire national park to ourselves. In many places, we were completely alone; sometimes we didn't see anyone else for hours, and even on the more popular hiking trails in the national park, there were only a handful of other people. We were also incredibly lucky with the weather, with sunshine and clear views every day. Despite the long distance, the domestic flights, and a few bus rides, it was absolutely worth it for us to travel all the way to southern Patagonia, and we often think back on our unique time there.
