04/04/2023 to 08/04/2023 - Torres del Paine National Park & Puerto Natales / Chile

Our bus ride back to Chile took a good 5 hours. We left so early that we could still experience one last amazing sunrise in El Calafate and arrived in the small town of Puerto Natales in the early afternoon. It is considered the starting point for excursions to Torres del Paine National Park. Natalis, after Christ's birth, two German immigrants named a small river they discovered on December 24th in the north of the current city. The settlement was named after this river. Then in 1911, the city of Puerto Natales was founded. Today it has about 20,000 inhabitants. On that afternoon, we were at the supermarket, cooking and preparing for the next two days of excursions in Torres del Paine National Park.

The national park is one of the most famous in Chile with its towering mountains, icy glaciers, blue lakes, and golden pampas. In the language of the Tehuelche Indians, it is translated as 'Towers of the blue sky'. Quite fitting, as the famous landmark are the 3 granite towers. The park covers an area of 2,420 square kilometers and borders the Argentine Los Glaciares National Park. It was founded in 1959 and declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1978. We are excited.

We were picked up at 7:30 am the next day. We drove on the highway to the national park. We passed wide grasslands. Cows, horses, and sheep grazed here with endless space. Once we arrived at the park, we saw many guanacos, a type of llama. We visited the rapids of the Rio Paine and Lake Nordenskjöld. We took a 35-minute hike to the nearly 30-meter-high waterfall Salto Grande, which connects the two lakes Nordenskjöld and Pehoe, with great landscape panoramas, sunshine, and a huge storm. The wind blows up to 120km/h here. After a lunch break, we walked to Lake Grey. It took a while because we had to overcome a super wide pebble beach and fight against more storms. From the viewpoint on a small elevated island, we could see far into the lake and see the Grey Glacier at the other end of the lake. After 1 hour and 45 minutes, we slowly started the return trip towards Puerto Natales. We made a last stop at the Cueva del Milodon. The last ice age in Patagonia ended around 14,000 years ago. Since then, the glaciers have receded and animals have settled in the area again. In 1895, the German settler Hermann Eberhard found an unknown patch of fur in a cave. Years later, the fur of the Mylodon, an Ice Age giant sloth, was identified. A huge Mylodon also stands as a landmark in Puerto Natales and at 5:30 pm we returned there.

The next morning, we set off for the national park an hour earlier. We started with a great morning view over Lake Azul. From there, we could almost have a clear view of the 3 granite needles. Yesterday, unfortunately, a clear view was not possible. Then we set out on foot to discover cave paintings that were made 6,500 years ago. In addition, we enjoyed unique views of the beautiful landscape, saw guanacos and condors. We drove several kilometers through the park and stopped again at the Salto Grande waterfall. Here, too, we wanted to take a hike today, to the viewpoint of the mountain massif. We started. It became stormier and the sky became more and more overcast, nothing could be seen from the mountains. Ben and I turned back and walked back to the car. Our 5 fellow travelers continued. An hour later, they returned completely wet, frozen, and without a view. We were glad that we turned around. We made our way back and arrived in Puerto Natales at 6:30 pm.

The next day was completely rainy. We didn't go outside. We cooked, rested, and did some vacation preparation and post-processing.

On April 8th, the sun was shining again over Puerto Natales. Unfortunately, we had to pack all our things again. We walked around the city for a while, found some souvenirs, and in the afternoon, we went to the airport.

We experienced sunrises and sunsets, rainbows, storms, and rain, admired diverse nature with glaciers, mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, and pampas, observed a colorful wildlife, listened to a long history and exciting stories. Patagonia in Chile and Argentina was truly an amazing experience, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time.