Trip to Chile Part 1, Patagonia

Pat at Condor Lookout

Patagonia is one of those dream hiking destinations for hikers. We signed up for a one-week trip to Patagonia with Amazonia Expeditions. We decided to extend the trip an extra week to the Lakes District of Chile on our own.

Magellanic Penguins (photo: A. Kramer)

We departed during the government shutdown, so flight delays and cancellations were more likely to occur. Fortunately, our flights departed mostly on time. We flew American Airlines from BWI to DFW and Santiago Chile. From here we flew to Punta Arenas. We arrived 31 hours after the start of the trip. 

Elephant Seal  (photo: A. Kramer)

On our first full day we took a very rough boat ride out to Los Pinguinos NM, an island in the Strait of Magellan. The winds were blowing about 95 kph, and many passengers got sick. For the rest of us it was a great roller coaster ride. There are 60,000 breeding pairs of penguins on this Island, but they had more sense than the visitors and almost all of the penguins were keeping warm in their underground burrows. With the wind so strong, it was difficult to walk around the island. We completed the circuit hike, but we were glad to return to the boat. Since the boat had extra barf bags, the captain continued the journey to another island where we could see sea lions and an elephant seal enjoying a wet, windy and cold beach day. 

Near Puerto Natales

Group hike from a lookout (photo: A Kramer)

                                        

Salto Grande Waterfall

Cordillera del Paine

Apes ruled the world and this was their Mt Rushmore

Vega Castillo Wetlands

We left Punta Arenas and travelled to Puerto Natales. On the way we spotted many flamingos in the distance and a few rheas roadside. The next morning, we entered Torres Del Paine NP and did a series of day hikes over the next several days. We also took a cruise out to Grey Glacier to see the blue ice. On our return from the boat trip, we saw 7 guanacos feeding in a field. We also took a hike around a wetland full of birds - many of these species are only found in South America. 

View from our room

Torres del Paine

Guanacos

                            

                                                                Enjoying Life

Puma finally gets up (photo: A. Kramer)

The guides didn’t want us to go home without seeing a puma (lion). Fortunately, they knew where to look, and they found one lying on the side of a hill. We waited a long time for the puma to get up so we could get a decent picture, but puma like to rest after eating. Just as almost everyone put their tripods, cameras and binoculars away and reboarded the bus, the puma rose, walked around a bit and settled into a new bed of grass. I bet he was smiling thinking he outsmarted us.

Our tour ended the next morning. Everyone headed home except for us - we flew two hours north to the Lake District of Chile. 

                    The elusive Condor captured on film (photo: A. Kramer)

Trip to Chile Part 2, The Lake District

 

Lake District from the plane one week prior

After our Patagonia trip, we flew to Puerto Montt Airport and drove to Puerto Varas, in Chile’s Lake District, where we stayed four nights. We had flown over this area on our trip south the previous week and we were very impressed with the snowcapped volcanic mountains and beautiful blue lakes. However, the weather changed and now the skies remained cloudy, blocking the view of the surrounding peaks.

Petrohue Waterfalls

Chilla Fox

The Petrohue Falls were a big attraction in the area. I wasn’t impressed with the pictures of it, but I figured it was worth a visit. There is something about waterfalls that just can’t be captured in a picture, and that was certainly true of the power of these falls. I left impressed. After doing a few hikes in the Vicente Perez Rosales NP, we drove up the Osorno Volcano. We were in the clouds when we arrived at the top, but the clouds were starting to lift. On the way back down, we saw a couple of Chilla foxes (Zorro Chilla).

The next day we decided to take it easy. We dropped off our laundry and toured around Puerto Varas and the German town, Fruitillar. We quickly got frustrated by major attractions not being open during posted hours. Our solution was to head out to another NP. 

Salto Rio Chaica

Black faced Ibis

Alerce Milenario Tree

The Alerce Andino NP was established to protect the legendary alerce (larch) trees, some of the oldest on the planet. This is a roadless park. Near the entrance, you park and explore the rest of the 39,000 hectares on foot. We hiked in and saw a couple of waterfalls. Pat climbed a series of staircases to see the Alerce Milenario tree, estimated to be 5,000 yrs old!

Humboldt Penguins

We checked out of our B&B and took a ferry to the Island of Chiloe. We drove to Punihuil on the Pacific Coast and took a boat trip to the offshore islands. This is the only place in the world where Magellanic and near-extinct Humboldt penguins nest side by side. We went out in fishing boats. Since there were no docks in the area, all the visitors were loaded into a large, elevated cart that was pushed out to the boats so that you could enter the boats without walking through the surf. In addition to the penguins, we saw sea birds, a sea lion, and illegal fishermen, who were chased away from the nature preserve  by our boat driver.

                                        

                                            Side Chapel in UNESCO Church

Castro's Estuary

In Ancud, we visited a museum on Chiloe’s UNESCO-listed churches. These 16 churches are famous for their intricate interior woodwork. We checked into our hotel in Castro for three nights. Our room was built on stilts on the edge of a bird filled estuary. 

Brown hooded Gull

Black-necked Swans

Dog Orchids

Wooden Church in Castro

From here we traveled to Chiloe NP and did some hiking. The next day we drove around the island, visiting 5 of the UNESCO churches, and the 180 ft Tocoihue Waterfall. We had to return to Puerto Montt to catch our flight to Santiago, Dallas/Ft Worth and BWI.

Pat at Tocoihue Falls

Fisherman's Grave

Overall, it was a good trip. We had better than expected weather during the first week, after the first day. We had a good group of travelers, some of whom we knew from previous trips, and excellent guides.  We were surprised that we could drink tap water during our trip. From our experience, I would say November is a good time to go to southern Chile (peak season is Dec & Jan). But there are no guarantees on the weather - just after we left Chile, a major blizzard with 125 MPH winds hit the Torres Del Paine NP and 5 backpackers on ice covered trails, got lost in the whiteout conditions and died from exposure. They did not have a guide.

Skies clear on last day- Osorno Volcano