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.
Glaciers, lakes and mountains periodically peeked through gaps in the clouds during our flight over the Patagonian Ice Sheet, the 3rd largest mass of ice after Antarctica and Greenland.
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.
Our hotel provided ever-changing yet always stunning views of the Torres del Paine mountains across Lago Sarmiento. Guanacos, ñandus and pumas (the last unseen there by us but certainly present) roam the shores of the lake.
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.
On an early morning search for wildlife, we enjoyed the rising sun reflected on the mountains & moon and saw numerous birds - cara caras, condors, caiquen geese, cinnamon bellied ground tyrants, flamingos, ñandus - and tons of sheep, guanacos, and a baby gray fox!
Guanacos are protected wildlife, part of the food cycle that folks are learning how better to preserve. One element of the equation is to safeguard pumas as well because, as our guide said, “When the puma eats, everyone eats.” To that end, the organization Panthera works with landowners to protect sheep from puma predation (and thus reduce incentive by humans to kill pumas) by implementing camera tracking, setting a line of Great Pyrenees sheepdogs as a defensive warning of approaching pumas, and luces de zorro, a system of lights and sound designed by an Australian sheep farmer to imitate human activity.
Jackson and I took a daylong hike through the south of the park; here he is looking at Cerro Paine Grande on the left and the Cuernos del Paine on the right.
We spent a morning trekking on Perito Moreno. After strapping on crampons, we learned how to embed the spikes in the ice to secure our feet, climbed up, drank some of the pure glacial water and at the end, toasted with whisky on the rocks (ice chipped from the glacier). Somehow, a drink cooled by centuries-old ice tastes different!
After trekking on Perito Moreno, brotherly affection.
We remembered watching the glacier for a day 30 years ago, fascinated by the calving. The park infrastructure is now more developed (paved road, metal walkways) but the allure remains unchanged.
The Estancia Cerro Guido (250,000 acres!! 100,000 sheep! gauchos and shepherd dogs!) near Torres del Paine almost lost one of its month-old shepherd puppies to our visit. Hudson dubbed this guy Guido.
Horseback riding is an integral part of the Patagonia experience. Luckily, we got super gentle horses and leisurely rode down to a lake filled with flamingos.
Hudson in his happy place, the egg chairs at Tierra Patagonia, overlooking Lago Sarmiento (reflected, along with the Torres del Paine massif, in the windows).
