We aren’t huge fans of cities but we really liked Santiago. We felt safe and comfortable walking around at all hours of the day/night and found some of the areas of the city to be very modern and quite charming. The city is quite beautiful as it’s mostly surrounded by the massive peaks of the Andes but it’s also well laid out and fully accessible by public transit. The only drawback was that the city’s location in a valley caused quite the smog problem. We didn’t have any problems with it, but when we walked to a few lookouts we could see the orange and yellow glow of the pollution hanging low over the city. We were told that the city regulates automobile traffic to decrease the emissions on a day to day basis but it will probably take more than that to correct the smog issue. With a population of over 6 million people, a solution isn’t going to come easy. We arrived by bus from Pucon and hopped on the Metro to head into downtown Santiago to search for a hostel. Our bus arrived during rush hour so we had to wait for about 7 subway trains to pass before we were able to squeeze on with our giant travel packs. The people were very courteous on the subway and made a little room for us to get on and helped us get out when we needed to get off. We chanced upon a cool little hostel while searching for one that someone recommended. It was called Don Santiago and we spotted it because it had hostelworld stickers plastered on its door. We would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for a chill and cozy place to stay. The owner is really young and the staff was super friendly and really helpful. We hadn’t really planned on doing too much in Santiago except meeting up with a friend (who lives in Santiago) we had met while trekking in Torres del Paine and meeting up with a an Aussie couple that we met in Ushuaia (we just knew that they were dying to see us, right Kai and Sarah!). We also had a bit of shopping we needed to do so we ventured out to a giant mall on our first day to get Courtney some new hiking boots as her old ones had started to disintegrate and were slowly destroying her feet one toe at a time. We found that prices for things in Santiago were actually quite similar to what we would pay for the same stuff in Canada! Neato! On our second day we got word that there was going to be a pretty large storm hitting the city on the weekend. We also found out that when it rains in Santiago it snows like crazy in the mountains to the east and so the border crossing to Argentina would likely be closed during the storm. In the following days as the rains rolled in we continued to explore a few different parts of the city; check out the pics below. Our friend Marcelo, who is from the South of Chile but now living in Santiago took us out for some drinks in the trendy neighborhood Bellavista. We had a great time and learned quite a lot about Santiago and Chile in general. Thanks for a great time Marcelo! We spent a day walking around Cerro San Cristobal, the second largest hill in Santiago and home to the city's zoo and some really amazing views...when its not cloudy and raining. It was pretty cool. We took a really old trolly/elevator/train (I'm not really sure how to describe it) up the hill to the zoo and then to the top. The zoo was actually quite entertaining. It had a pretty huge selection of animals and some interesting info about each one. Courtney enjoyed reading about the life spans and gestation periods of the various zoo dwellers. After the zoo we were starving so we made our way back down to Bellavista to find some grub at a local bar. This is where I stumbled upon Chorillanas. Marcelo had explained what a Chorillana was to me but I couldn't believe it until I saw it. French fries, sauted onions, fried hotdogs, fried beef and to top it off two fried eggs. I'm pretty sure these things are illegal in most countries. We had arranged to volunteer near Mendoza, Argentina for about a month but we were delayed leaving Santiago with the poor weather in the mountains. When we finally did leave it was the first day that the border between Chile and Argentina had been reopened and it was utter chaos. A drive that normally takes about 7 hours including the time to cross the border took us about 14 hours! Luckily food stands near the border were selling lomitos, hotdogs and milanesas to keep our hunger at bay. We arrived at about 12:30am into Mendoza and left early the next day to San Carlos where we are volunteering at an animal rescue shelter!
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On our way to the catch the bus from Bariloche at 6:30am we saw a guy on his motorcycle - who was obviously wasted from the night before - try to overtake a taxi, swerve and crashed right into the back of the taxi... hard. The bike toppled on him and the seat was ripped off the bike in the process. Luckily we were right downtown where other people could assist him and soon after a police truck down the road spotted the guy lying on the road and went to help. We had an interesting day yet again on a bus! We went from Bariloche, Argentina to Osorno, Chile (very strict border control with dogs checking for fruits and vegetables) then had a 2 hour wait for our bus to Valdivia, Chile. After arriving in Valdivia we walked around to find a hostel; all the ones we checked were either way too expensive or really dingy. We were sort of tired and frustrated so we went to McDonald's for the WiFi and fries and found a bus to Pucon. After walking around Valdivia for a few hours with all our crap we decided that we'd get on our third bus in one day and head to Pucon. We were greeted at the bus station by a really nice hostel owner and were shown to his Hospedaje (Hostel Wohlenburg http://www.wohlenberghostel.cl/ ) We decided to visit Parque Nacional Huerquehue for a bit of day hiking and we had some pretty decent weather. A girl from Finland who was staying at our hostel came along with us for the day. The National Park was really beautiful like all of the Patagonian areas we've visited but this was a little different than what we had seen already. The park resembled a rainforest than a forest you would find in the mountains of Patagonia. There were huge trees, very lush green undergrowth and stands of bamboo growing all over the place. As we ascended higher into the alpine more snow was sticking to the ground and it was very weird seeing bamboo covered in snow. But the mix of white, freshly fallen snow sitting on lush green vegetation with the sun pouring through the trees made portions of our hike appear as if our surroundings were painted on canvas. It was really cool. After our day in the National Park we hung around Pucon and killed some time enjoying the sunny weather for one more day. To learn more about Pucon check out its Wikipedia page.
Ushuaia was a really amazing place to see and we would have liked to visit Isla Navarino to its south and of course Antarctica but we were getting a little too close to winter and the Antarctic would have to wait…until we had more time and a lot more money! Our next destination would be Parque Nacional Torres del Paine near Puerto Natales, Chile. To get there we had to take a 12 hour bus ride through Punta Arenas, Chile where we met some friendly street dogs along the harbour front while we killed time waiting for our connection that would take us the remaining 4 hours to Puerto Natales. When we arrived in Puerto Natales we found our way to a hostel and settled in for the night. When we awoke the next day we immediately started to prepare for a trek into Parque Nacional Torres del Paine since the majority of the services in and around the park shutdown after April 30th. We originally wanted to do the 8-10 day trekking circuit but winter weather had forced one of the higher passes to remain closed and later we would be very happy that we didn’t have the option of doing the longer trek. At 5PM We received an hour long briefing from an employee at our hostel about all the ins and outs of the park and we finally decided to do the infamous 5 day W trek but by camping at only the free campsites in the park. We went out that evening and rented all of our camping gear and bought and prepared food for 5 full days of trekking. The morning was clear and cool when we hopped into the van that would drive us into the park. Before we even arrived at the entrance gates of the park we spotted a lot of guanacas and even two ostriches! The famous towers of Torres del Paine were also visible in the early morning light so we stopped and got some pictures before continuing on. We chose to start the trek from the west side of the park to avoid the larger crowd of gringos starting from the east. We knew that this wasn’t a trek to be taken lightly and so we prepared for it. A good portion of the people starting the trek from the opposite end of us were wearing running shoes and jeans and if anyone who is reading this has peed their pants, you know that it’s very uncomfortable to walk around in wet jeans and shoes. We took the ferry across a lake and started our trek towards Campamento Guardos. The sun was out and the weather was mild, which made for a beautiful day to be outside. We first spotted Glacier Gray from a distance and it was another one of those views that looked entirely fake. This glacier is absolutely massive; it stretches 28km long and has an area of 270 square kilometers. As we approached the monstrous living mass of ice we started to hear its cries as it boomed and thundered as enormous chunks of ice broke off of its great face. When we reached campamento Guardas we walked out to a mirador (lookout) over the glacier where we spent some time watching the glacier calve. In the late evening we joined a handful of other campers out at the mirador again to watch the stars shine and the moon reflect over the glacier. We don’t know why, but the stars were sparkling so much it was as if they were small fires in the sky. We both hadn’t seen anything like it before. The next morning we awoke to another clear day and a beautiful sunrise. Although we had a pleasant rest, we were woken several times throughout the night to the thunderous sounds of the glacier cracking, breaking off and falling into the water. A couple of times the ground around us shook. We had a quick bite to eat out at the mirador and enjoyed Grey Glacier one more time and we set off back the way we came towards Campamento Italiano at the foot of Valle de Frances (the French Valley). Along the way we saw some amazing scenery but some of the most eye opening was the devastation caused by a forest fire set by a traveler only about 2 months before our arrival. The traveler had set his toilet paper on fire on a windy day and the fire blew through the area faster than anyone could stop it. Now every time that traveler goes to the can he is reminded of the fire that destroyed a good portion of park. Anyway, the day was long and tiring but we arrived at camp before dark. We were welcomed by a ranger at campamento Italiano and given some info, "the drinking water from the stream runs from the glacier so it’s safe to drink, the pipes are frozen so don’t use the washroom, and the mice are very bad at this campsite so hang your food." We set up camp, made dinner, organized for the next morning and fell asleep once again to the cracking thunder from another glacier in the French Valley above us. We awoke in the dark and began getting ready for our day hike up into the French Valley. We had been told by anther traveller to start the hike in the dark and watch the sunrise. It was pretty chilly when we started but after our blood got pumping and the sun began to shine to temperature rose. The sunrise was spectacular; every couple of minutes we would turn around and it would see it lighting up another set of mountains or shinning on the lake making the water sparkle. It was so nice to day hike with no pack (Courtney) or a lighter pack (Andrew). We made breakfast along the river and continued to a mirador for a fabulous view of the glacier which fills every crack of a mountain sides and hangs on just waiting to fall, the blue lake filled with glacier water and steep rock towers with a fantastic contrast from grey to black stone. We returned to camp where we relaxed in the tent and Andrew whipped up a great rice, sausage, veggie dinner. We went to bed pretty early because we knew we had another long day (Over 20km) hiking with our packs to the next site. In the night we were awoken by the heavy rain coming down on the tent. When we got up and began packing, in the dark, we realized it was going to be a very cold day as the rain was on the border or snow. Our packs weighed even more, good thing our hip bones were numb to the pain from the first two days! The first 5 km of the trail were through forest and small brush; it then opened up to a beautiful lake. We arrived a t a Refugio where we asked if they had any more food for sale just in case we were cold and needed more. The friendly staff said they did but there was one small issue. They were closing for the season and had packed the receipt paper so they couldn’t sell it to us. However… we could have everything that was left over as long as we tipped them. We happily handed over a large tip! In total we got a package of spaghetti, tomato sauce, 4 brownies, a can of tuna, and 4 pieces of bread! Now filled with delicious food we set off for the next 11 km’s uphill. The trail continues flat up flat up and over some river crossings. At one point the trail opened to a huge field with rolling hill covered with beef cows and horses. As you would guess this really lifted Courtney’s spirits about walking in the rain/snow! We found it really interesting that some of the parks land is privately owned; therefore, the owners can do what they want with their land. On some of the private land the owners had built hotels or were farming. The hike was pretty but we were socked in by clouds so our views were not too impressive. The trail we took was a shortcut which had very steep inclines throughout. The higher we hiked the colder it got and the rain turned to snow. After a full days hike we finally arrived at campemento torres. With the Patagonian winds blowing snow and us being the only people there we decided we would set up camp in the cook hut and let our tent dry outside in the wind while we made dinner. We know... GREAT idea! After our tent dried we moved it inside the cook hut, set our bags up, cleaned up the food and hung it above our tent on a beam. As soon as we settled into our bags we began hearing the scurrying of mice. They were trying to digg into what sounds like the tent and they were even launching themselves from the beam onto our tent making it sound as if they were falling on us. We had some pretty good laughs and tried to sleep taking turns hitting the sides of the tent trying to scare them away so we didn't have to replace our rented gear.. They were relentless and continued all night long!! On top of the mice tree branches were hitting the roof of the hut and a couple times we thought it was going to fall in. So after a really long restful sleep Andrew went outside to see if the sky was clear enough to hike up to see the Torres. He shouted back that we should pack up and get going as it had continued snowing all night and there was already 4 inches on the ground. We were happy to see that the mice didn't damage any of our gear. It was fun starting the hike in the pitch balck using our headlamps to guide through the forest. Once the sun came up we were amazed at how big the snowflakes or snow balls were falling from the sky. The snow continued all the way down to the beginning of the trail head where there was at a privately owned gorgeous horse ranch (great bathrooms too!). We then had another 7 km walk along the road to the Ranger station where we would wait until 4:00pm for our shuttle van. We met some really nice other hikers and all spent time drying our clothes besides the fire in the rangers station. All in all it was a great time! We enjoyed the hike throughout the beautiful scenery, had fun listening to the cracking glacier, and even enjoyed the adventures in the snow. Although we didn’t get to see the infamous towers we would recommend the hike to anyone who likes backcountry trekking. We were happy we hiked during the low season as the changing leaves and small crowds made the hike very peaceful. We would also highly recommend a warm sleeping bag if you plan to camp in the fall or winter. Check out our travel advice section for a few pointers on traveling to Torres del Paine.
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