Weeks 19 & 20: Patagonia

In many ways, making it to Chilean Patagonia at the bottom tip of continental South America seemed like an inevitable journey for us. However, our most southerly destination came about as a last-minute decision. I’ll never forget the night before our flight from Chiloé to Punta Arenas. At times, we scramble to put together plans for our next destination, and this was one of the more extreme moments.

It is shoulder season in Patagonia. Thus, things are not completely booked, so our late planning did not really impact us negatively. We always knew it was going to be a pricier portion of our trip, but Jake was committed to discovering every possible way to beat the Patagonian tourist rip off system. So, we spent about 8 hours the day before trying to figure out how to not syphon our money away at the bottom of the world while making the most of the experience.

We repeatedly questioned our decision to go, particularly as we were coming off visits to a myriad of amazing places in Colombia and elsewhere with drastically smaller price tags. We also knew weather was likely going to be horrible, as Patagonian weather (particularly in its crown jewel — Parque Nacional Torres del Paine) changes quite frequently with epic winds that reach land after whipping around the globe, encountering nothing else but water this far south. After a lot of research, planning, booking, and pain, we had serious doubts Patagonia would live up to the hype.

Today, we returned to Punta Arenas from the Patagonian hinterland, where we spent 2 days riding at a horse estancia and 4 days trekking the famed Circuito W trail during our week amidst the giants of Torres del Paine. We have sore feet, blisters, and a good bit less money.

And we can confirm 100%…it was worth it.

After two initial days of remote work from the backpacker outpost town of Puerto Natales, we spent several days at Pingo Salvaje — an expansive 17,000+ acre Patagonian horse and cattle ranch — hiking, riding horses, and warming ourselves by the biggest hearth we had ever seen. We hiked up to a nearby cliff plateau, where condors with enormous 7-foot wingspans flew overhead and landed in the cliffs to return to their nests. It was really, quite surreal.

The next day, we took a bus to the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, passing guanaco and ostrich in the hills next to the road, and then a ferry further into the park to the starting point for our long trek. Here we began to feel the gravity of what we’d gotten ourselves into, our self-imposed rite of passage, to finish our southern travels and to start our journey north.

It began when Jake lost his phone, and the wallet that was attached to his phone. We first noticed this loss when we were attempting to hike our first 6.8 mile leg in the last, fading hours of sun in order to arrive at our campsite before dark. At this moment, streaking towards Glacier Grey (the world’s third largest ice flow), we came to realize that our earthly possessions had become scattered across 13 different locations and two continents, as we’ve left little piles here and there for many months on our journey south.

• Harsh’s car — Williamsburg, VA — two suitcases
• Mike’s basement — Williamsburg, VA — the cupcake tree from our wedding
• Storage facility — Richmond, VA — a shipping container of home things
• Rachel’s parents’ house — Holmes Co., OH — a suitcase of assorted items, plants, and six months of mail
• Klos’ and Caudill’s — Columbus, OH — one epic Colorado themed headband and a sweater
• Dan & Allison’s house — OR — books, sim cards, Mexican gifts and items unwanted after our travel through Central America
• Jake’s parents — Colorado Springs, CO — childhood sundry items, including 30+ unwanted Beanie Babies whose future hangs in the very balance; also, an engagement ring
• Lily’s house — Bogota, Colombia — a suit and a suitcase of accumulated Colombian gifts and souvenirs
• Bed & Breakfast — Valparaiso, Chile — accidental sock loss (technically no longer our possessions)
• Hotel — Santiago, Chile — A full backpack with gifts and shoes unsuitable for Patagonia
• Hotel — Puerto Natales, Chile — A full backpack with un-needed stuff for the hike
• Bus Gomez #1354 — somewhere on the road, Chile — Jake’s phone, driver’s license and credit card
• Mile 2.1 of 53 with the light fading — Torres del Paine, Chile — A backpack of everything else [and us]

But these are just the physical things — as to the intangible little piles of feelings, experiences, and memories we both leave and collect from the places we travel, it is impossible to say.

Scattered to the four (or 13) winds. The joke on the trail was that we must finish our 50+ miles as part of our long journey to reclaim our little piles of things and make our way back home.

We camped four nights in what Jake considers “luxury camping.” Which means someone else had a tent set up for us and we ate delicious hot dinners and breakfasts at the ‘refugios’ along our route. Rachel considers it a baseline standard for how all trekking should be conducted in the future. It was, in any case, a dramatically friendlier experience true ‘backpacking’ as our packs were lighter, sleeping pads thicker, and a nightly hot shower helped us almost forget we were sleeping outdoors in one of the world’s most rugged and unforgiving wilderness environments.

Basically, Torres del Paine is otherworldly. Like, you felt you were on a different planet. Or perhaps Narnia, or Heaven. In a spell of freakish good fortune, we had perfect weather, with sun, a little snow in a mountain pass by a glacier, and no wind. We saw glaciers, terrifying and beautiful mountains, aqua lakes, and listened to the sound of ice and snow avalanches thunder across the valley. We hiked 50+ difficult and not so difficult miles, with Rachel carrying our lone 25lb pack 1/50th of the time.

In the end, no one fell off a mountain or got crushed by an icefall. Rachel did get a black eye running into a tree at night without her glasses, and Patagonian mice ate through the floor of our tent and half our trail snacks before waking us up one night. But such is life.

And finally, after our last mile, we recovered the first of our scattered possessions: Jake’s phone-wallet was miraculously turned in to the lovely rangers at the park service entrance. We finished our trek, our rite of passage south and through some of the planet’s most beautiful wilderness. The Sims’ are back on a plane, this time hurtling north towards Santiago, and, after another month on the road, towards the US of A, collecting little piles along the way.