The southern end of South America boasts two extraordinary national parks, Torres del Paine in Chile and, about 40 miles north, Los Glaciares in Argentina. AMK and I hiked and camped in these parks in the early 90’s and were excited to revisit them with Jackson and Hudson. (Emerson’s holiday break ran earlier than Jackson’s, so he missed this leg. Although, TBH, I am sure he was happier to have the chance to celebrate the Men’s World Cup win with Argentinians than to do another long mountain hike…)
Getting so far south was much easier this time. Eschewing the 30+ hour bus ride we took from central Chile to Puerto Natales in 1992, we flew a reasonable 3 hours from Santiago to the Puerto Natales airport, which was expanded in 2016 to handle regular commercial flights.
Arriving a few weeks after summer solstice, we enjoyed very long days. The weather was also cooperative, with some sun and, uncommonly, just a few windy days, which we were told weren’t really that windy compared to the normal gustiness.
While returning to the hotel one evening, AMK, Jackson and Hudson spotted a puma, something we had been hoping and watching for throughout our stay. In the words of Hudson -
When I was in the car while we came back from horseback riding, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the news of the puma sitting in a field near us when our guide yelled out, “Gato, gato, gato!” We all jumped out of the car and watched in awe with our binoculars as we saw the puma seemingly sunbathing in a sunny spot of grass. Then, we noticed the guanaco on a nearby hill, who had locked eyes with the puma and was desperately crying for help. We might’ve stayed, if the puma didn’t retreat to some thick brush to hide from all the human attention. We were so excited and we talked about it the whole way back. We later speculated that it was waiting for sundown to make a move, because it would be harder to spot and evade while hunting down the guanaco using its excellent vision.
Jackson’s video:
Visiting the Perito Moreno glacier was also memorable. Dropping dramatically out of the Andes across from a hilly peninsula with numerous scenic viewpoints, the glacier appears to have been designed by the Argentine tourism bureau. Periodically, building-sized ice blocks calve off the front, crashing into the milky water with a loud roar. We also hiked on the glacier, well away from the action at the front.