I’ve been to Chile before, but it was winter when I visited, and I only got as far south as Santiago due to the cold. I have always been enamored by Patagonia, and I finally returned during the summer when the weather is more welcoming.
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My flight flew into Santiago from Auckland. I actually had a connection to Buenos Aires, but I had decided to just get out there and only had my bag checked to Chile. While walking around, everything seemed closed. It was a Sunday, but wow, it was dead. I didn’t recall that from my last trip, and it reminded me of Germany on Sundays.
Later in the evening, Puujee arrived, and I picked her up at the airport. We went up the San Cristobal hill and got a good view of the city, and later we just walked around downtown.
We didn’t have much time in Santiago as our sights were set farther south. Our flight left at 6 in the morning, so we had to use Uber to get to the airport since the buses hadn’t started yet. It was about 15 USD, which isn’t too bad but still quite a bit more expensive than taking the bus would have been. But we got to the airport, boarded our flight, and landed in Punta Arenas. From there, we took a taxi into town because it was the same price as 2 tickets on the shuttle.
It was cold. I was still wearing my shorts from Santiago, and the icy wind instantly chilled my exposed legs. I pulled out my jacket at least, and it helped. Even in summer, it’s still frigid in southern Patagonia. There’s a hole in the ozone layer, but there’s actually not a markedly high rate of skin issues since most people still wear jackets and long clothes even in the summer.
We went to a hostel for one night and left a few of our things there that we didn’t want to take to Cabo Froward—the most southern part of the American continents. While I was in Africa, I went to the most southern tip of the continent, and I thought to do the same in South America. I did some research, and it appeared to be a much more involved hike. It should be 2-3 days in and the same coming out. My cup of tea.
There is a bus that goes 3 or 4 days a week to Rio San Pedro, the start of the hike. At the bus station, though, there was a notice that it went every day, which was good because the day we wanted to go didn’t happen to fall on a normally scheduled day. Alas, it never came. We could either wait one day for the regularly scheduled bus or hitchhike. We opted for the latter, and it actually worked out pretty well. We never had to wait long, but standing on the side of the road with icy winds blowing on us wasn’t pleasant.
We actually ended up getting a ride all the way to Punta Arbol, and then we took off!
There were a few other people on the first leg of the journey up to the lighthouse, but most turned around there. From the lighthouse, we encountered maybe 6 other people. The hike was scenic, but the elements were unforgiving. The bone-chilling wind that went straight through you was particularly fierce. My rain jacket helped shelter my core, but my pants weren’t quite windproof, and I felt it.
A lot of the path went along the beach. A lot of it was sandy, and your feet would sink in and extract even more energy from you. Some parts were rockier. Some rocks were very grippy. Others had a yellow slime that made them mildly slippery. Other rocks had a thin brown layer that made it the most frictionless surface I have ever experienced. Those rocks could easily catch you off guard and send your legs flying in all sorts of directions.
After trekking a bit, we made it to the Refugio, right before the first river. We were debating continuing, but we decided to not push it and rest there for the night.
The second day, we crossed all 3 rivers and slept a bit past the 3rd one. You cross the rivers where they enter the ocean, which means they get deeper and shallower with the tides. We crossed the first river when the tide was higher, but that wasn’t much of a problem.
The way departs from the beach after a while and crosses some higher ground. But don’t let that fool you for it was not dry! In fact, it was a marsh that we had to walk across, and my boots got completely soaked.
The 2nd river is the trickiest one, and we crossed that as the tide was getting lower, but the mud on the far side of the river still made it tricky getting out of the river without getting filthy. I stripped down to only my shirt, which I hiked up as I carried my backpack across the river.
We ended up making it to the 3rd river right about high tide. We could have waited for the low tide late at night or about noon the next day, but we didn’t want to. After some exploring, I found a spot that would work. I got completely naked that time and had to carry our backpacks above my head as the water came up to my chin. I came back to pick up Puujee’s backpack and help her cross the river. The water was incredibly cold, and I did my best to dry off and get dressed.
The path continued, and some parts were gnarly. Rocks required climbing over, and one spot on particular ended in a chasm with violent waves crashing below us. We ended up having to scramble across a fallen tree, handing our bags to each other. After that, we made camp, and I warmed back up in my sleeping bag.
On the 3rd day, we hiked the rest of the way up to the cross and back down to the campsite below the cross.
First view of the cross, way in the distance
Some climbing required
We had done it! We reached the edge of the world! That is the most southern point of the mainland continent, and it was quite the hike.
We then had to return, which was just the same path but in reverse. We still had to pay heed to the tides, and we made it to just before the 2nd river the next day. 
After that, we crossed the second river at low tide, and we got to the Refugio.
We wanted to keep going, but the rain started picking up right before we got to the Refugio, so we took shelter inside. And the rain just kept getting stronger and stronger with no end. We ended up sleeping in there.
The next morning, we hiked the rest of the way out, which took us much less time than it did to hike in.
Done and defeated
A guy at the trailhead told us that there was a bus later that day even though it was Tuesday, which was not a normally scheduled day for the bus. We kept getting conflicting information about that bus. Regardless, it was only about 1 pm, so we tried hitchhiking. An entire tour bus of European travelers came back from the lighthouse, and I asked the bus driver if we could get a ride back to Punta Arenas. He said I had to ask the tour guide, which I did, and he said it was okay, and then he told a whimsical tale about “Uncle Enrique” on the intercom. Long story short: good things happened to his “uncle” that picked up a hitchhiker, which is why he picks up some occasionally.
We got out of the bus once we were back in Punta Arenas, and we relaxed for a couple of nights before going up to Puerto Natales and the famous Torres del Paine. 
In Puerto Natales, we walked around a bit while we figured out hiking in the national park.
I failed to do my research, and one can’t just spontaneously do the W (4-5 days) or O track (7-9 days) in Torres del Paine. You have to book months in advance. There are huge amounts of visitors, and there are only so many camping sites. While I can’t fault the government for doing what it’s doing in managing the crowds, actually I encourage it, it does ruin spontaneity.
It’s actually all rather confusing since there are 3 different companies you can / have to book through that all operate different camping sites along the track.
This blog post helped me understand it a lot, and my understanding of the situation was rather grim. All the free campsites were booked out for 2 months. Most of the cheaper camping options were booked as well. There were still a few spots in some refugios at some sites, but they started at $111 USD per person per night. That was too much…
We ultimately decided on just doing a day hike to the Mirador de la Torres, which is the iconic sight that you usually see from the park. https://www.laidbacktrip.com/posts/mirador-las-torres-hike-patagonia helped a lot in figuring that out, and we followed the advice there pretty much to the letter.
We ended up getting back to Laguna Amarga rather early, and we were hoping there would be an earlier bus back. Bus Sur went back a lot, but our bus company, Juan Ojeda, only did the last trip back at 7:45 pm or something like that. We could have hung out at the welcome center and drank a beer had we known…
Still, it was great. We were originally hoping to camp for about a week or so in the park, but we only ended up doing one day. There was another highly recommend day hike to a glacier, but our next stop was a glacier, so we decided to skip on that. Maybe in the future, but I’m not sure. A place we were going to go to soon was El Chalten in Argentina, and that also looked like breathtaking views but without park entrance fees or anything like that. That would prove to be a bit more of a spontaneous-friendly experience, which is just what we needed.
So, we got on the bus and went across the border to El Calafate. That was it for Chile. Short but sweet.
I liked Chile last time, and I am glad that I got down to the southern part this time, and I liked it as well. It was unfortunate that Torres del Paine was so booked out, either making it inaccessible or expensive. In any case, I do feel that I have explored Chile fairly well, so I’m not sure if I will be coming back soon due to the distance, but I am sure I will enjoy it again should I come back. I actually did want to see ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) in the desert, but that didn’t work out. It is free to visit, but you have to reserve a spot. By the time we knew when we could potentially get up there, the spots were all booked out, as were the waiting list spots. It’s cool that it’s free, but then nothing prevents people from booking and simply not showing up. I read on some forums that it sometimes happens that nobody on the normal list shows up and not everyone on the waiting list does too, which means that one could just go there and hope to get in. But it was quite a gamble, and we would have had to go far out of our way with no guarantee of getting in. So that will remain one of the attractions I would like to see the most whenever I get back down to Chile.