Torres de Paine and Goodbye Chile

As I've mentioned before, there were actually only four things I really, really wanted to do during my trip to South America. After trekking to Machu Picchu, biking Death Road, and touring the Salar de Uyuni, the one item that was left on my list was trekking in Torres de Paine. I'm happy to say I checked this last item off my list as my final stop in Chile, and it's definitely going down as one of the highlights of my trip.

Thanks to a generous Dad, I was able to avoid the anticipated and dreaded three day bus slog from Coyhaique down South and flew for the first time in my trip from there to Punta Arenas. After months of buses it actually felt quite luxurious to be in the air again and the airline I went with actually gave me four! choices for my in-flight snack. I passed a pretty non-eventful night in Punta Arenas before catching a bus the next morning up to Puerto Natales, basically the base camp for people going to Torres, in order to get there in time for the well-known info talk at Erratic Rock all about trekking in Torres de Paine. The W trek and O trek in Torres de Paine are some of the more famous multi-day hikes in the world and people come from all over the world to do them. Tapping into this market, a hostel/pub/gear rental center in Puerto Natales gives a free information talk every day, most likely in hopes that people will rent equipment from them. I've been lugging my camping equipment across a continent so I didn't take them up on any of their deals (though looking back a warmer rated sleeping bag would have been quite nice) but they gave good information about logistics in getting into the park and just generally reinforced the plans I already had in mind.

After an afternoon scrambling to buy the endlessly repetitive food I'd be eating for the next few days (it's going to be a while before I can face oatmeal, tortillas, or pasta again), I woke up bright and early to catch the bus up to the park with my new hiking buddy that I had met at the hostel. Despite the early hour everyone on the bus was quite wired and excited to get hiking. Also of note on the way to the park, we saw tons of guanacos, the fourth camelid species native to South America, completing my sweep for the trip! Finally after bussing in, watching a safety video that told us NOT TO SET FIRES OR YOU WILL BE PUT IN JAIL (fair enough since about 5 years ago a tourist accidentally burned down about a third of the park - quite sad to walk through) and taking a ferry across a lake, we were ready to start hiking!

The hike was 5 days and 4 nights. Much like Northern Patagonia it's hard to describe how beautiful it actually was, so you'll just have to admire the pictures posted below. It was a very fun experience, we were hiking a bit before high season, so while there were a fair amount of people, the trail rarely felt crowded and it was fun to see the same faces every night while relaxing and cooking at the campsites. My hiking buddy and I also met an English couple on the bus into the park, and while out hiking itinerary didn't totally match, we did hike 3 of the 5 days with them which was fun. We spent days admiring glaciers, snow-capped mountains, turquoise lakes, and streams with water so pure you could drink right out of them. It's really like no place else.

Glacier Grey with real live iceberg

Not a bad place to camp I guess 

#nofilter

Blowing snow in the mountains 

While the entire hike was amazing, the real icing on the cake was having a clear view of the namesake Torres the last morning to watch the light from the sunrise make them seem to glow. We had arrived at the campsite about an hour from the lookout the afternoon before and had gone up to see them but it was too foggy and gross to really see anything. Hoping it would be worth it, everyone set their alarms for 4 AM and were rewarded with a clear morning and an incredible show. A great end to a great hike.

The Torres 

Hiking buddies!

After relaxing for a day back in Puerto Natales and overcoming the inevitable post-trek blues, I caught a bus across the border to El Calafate in Argentina and, after almost three months, left Chile. We'll see how Argentina treats me, but at this point I think Chile has been my favorite country this trip. It didn't have the lows that Bolivia gave me, and while Peru also had stunning scenery, it just wasn't playing in the same league that Patagonia is in. Not to mention I consistently met wonderful Chilenos who went out of their way to show me their country and make me feel welcome. I had a super great time and will definitely be back. This actually ends my solo trip as the wonderful Katie B. is meeting me here in Argentina to travel with! Don't worry, I'll write some sappy post reflecting on what I learned traveling alone at a later date, for now new adventures await!

Coyhaique: Beer and More Beer and Some Alright Scenery

As mentioned previously, and also as a generally known fact, I like beer.  And I don't mean I like swilling Bud Light in large quantities - I go for the more hipster approach of enjoying craft beer, the smaller and more obscure the brewery the better. So of course when I saw an opportunity for a Workaway volunteering at an artisanal brewery in Coyhaique, Patagonia I jumped on it. What better place to get some hands on experience learning to brew beer than in one of the most scenic places in the world?

This was definitely small scale production, the owner/host Mario has set aside a few rooms in his house for brewing and does everything by hand: washing recycled bottles, brewing the beer in small batches, filling the washed bottles, labeling them, and delivering them. You can't get much more hand crafted than that. He was very welcoming and happy to explain all the steps and different techniques used to brew different kinds of beers. The process really isn't that hard and there's so many places you could make it unique that I definitely want to give it a try myself when I get home. I'll be accepting applications for assistants/taste testers come January.

I helped make this

While the North of Chile is all about their wine, and rightfully so, there's quite a large brewing scene down South - my guess is it's that German influence coming through again. One weekend when I was here, there was a beer expo that was attended by 10 breweries all from right in the area. I helped Mario set up and was briefly and somewhat hilariously in charge of the whole stand when he went to buy some food. I guess my Spanish and beer knowledge was good enough since everything was still standing and I hadn't alienated any customers by the time he got back. The upshot to the whole thing was I got an official badge for entry into the event and got to sample all the beer from the different vendors. And honestly, I thought the beer I was helping make was some of the best beer at the event which was pretty cool.

When not drinking free beer, I took time to explore the area, which, as one would imagine, is stunningly gorgeous. All of Chilean Patagonia is pretty remote and isolated so there's miles and miles of uninterrupted mountains, and forests, and streams. I know I keep saying it but it's amazingly beautiful. A lot like how I imagine Middle-earth. There's a pretty large Nature Reserve right on the edge of Coyhaique which has some nice hiking and I took some trips farther down the Carretera Austral to enjoy even remoter areas: the Marble Caves at Río Tranquilo and the Cerro Castillo Nature Reserve. I seem to be over using the words beautiful, stunning, and gorgeous but there's really no other way to describe the sites. They say a picture is worth 1000 words so I'll substitute those in for any description I can write but it still doesn't do it justice. You'll just have to take a trip to Patagonia and see everything for yourself.

Cerro Castillo - Pic doesn't at all do it justice 

Some of the Marble Caves on Lago General Carrera

Farmland near Coyhaique 

Lago General Carrera