PATAGONIA

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The Land of Fire & Ice

10 min readMar 12, 2018

We had to fly into Punta Arenas, one of those end-of-the-world places you wouldn’t mind too much if you never saw again, to get to Patagonia. My camera stayed safely packed in my bag as we had a long siesta and caught up on two episodes of Rupaul’s Drag Race. Puerto Natales was a much nicer little town, perched at the edge of the Torres del Paine, the national park in the heartland of Patagonia. The streets were deserted, but hardly a seat available at the BBQ restaurant we stumbled into. Our accommodation was 30km down the road closer to the Torres del Paine national park but didn’t turn its electricity generator on until 6pm so we decided to venture out again and explore the area.

The Cueva del Milodon is a 200m deep, 30m high and 80 m wide cave which is famed for being the location that the remains of a prehistoric Milodon (a sloth like creature but the size of a bear) that was found in the 19th century. The Milodon’s body was so well preserved in the cave that even its hide survived thousands of years. What turned out to be the most interesting aspect about the area was the cave itself. A lot of Patagonia has been shaped by the gradual melting of a glacier that once covered the entire area. As the ice melted over 80,000,000 years, it caused natural catastrophic floods that carved the iconic rock formations we know today.

We left the cave and walked through the grass lands and lush trees to watch the sunset from the top of the cave. At the risk of sounding Eat Pray Love, there’s something spiritual about being in an prehistoric land. It really struck me how peaceful it was. I had expected it to be a brutal and unforgiving land like Mordor in Lord of the Rings. But it was more the calm and welcoming hills from the 90s cartoon the Land Before Time. I’m sure it has a lot to do with extraordinary weather we had the entire time. We never had rain but instead sunny days. It was nice to experience a land as it would have been enjoyed by cavemen.

Patagonia is similar to Indonesia’s Bali or France’s Paris. People rarely go to Chile, but they frequently go to Patagonia. It’s the jewel in Chile’s crown, tops every list of ‘must see’ Chile destinations, is on the cover of Lonely Planet and the name of a popular outdoor clothing store. It’s on the bucket list of every retiree participating in the endless tour groups that channel through the park. It felt like our entire trip was building up to this. It was exciting, finally seeing it for my own eyes.

It doesn’t take long for the Cuernos (Spanish for “horns”) that is in the centre of the Torres del Paine national park to emerge on our drive into park the following day. We’d reached Mount Doom. It’s an aggressive looking mountain, like it will stab you in the face any moment. It’s ‘horns’ are twisted and reach high into the sky defying gravity, breaking the usual rules of mountains. A band of light grey rock sits in between deep brown. I loved it. Directly beside it is a less sharp mountain range that is covered in precariously balanced ice. The maintain range is surrounded by many lakes, some aquamarine others teal. We decided we wanted to see a section of the Valle de Frances in between the two mountains, but we saw the boat zoom off as we drove up to the lake.

Plan B was to do many shorter walks. Along the way to the first walk, we ran into a herd of guanacos who were much more comfortable with humans than their northern cousins we saw in the Atacama Desert. There was one calf among the herd who literally ran circles around the others, awkwardly jumping over the shrub with it’s knocked knees and even plonking down in the middle of the path before zooming off again.

As I walked up onto the lookout landing at the end of the walk, I heard a loud rumble, like a lion’s roar. A few more steps and I saw a small white cloud and I knew that there had been an avalanche on the mountain range to the west. The lookout had a great vantage point of the mountains with a glittering teal lake providing an ideal foreground. Whilst it was sunny, dense clouds hovered over us entirely blocking the light and creating search lights across the hills. James and I sometimes waited for them to pass for the perfect shot but to no avail. We also waited and scanned the mountain a little longer hoping to see another avalanche but one would have to suffice. We were getting greedy.

The next stop was Lago Grey where a large glacier sits next to the west of the mountain range. We wanted to catch the ferry that gave you a closer look. You accessed the boat at the end of a walk along a stoney isthmus that ended with a headland. We couldn’t see any boat or any passengers so we instead walked around the headland which had a distant view of the glacier. Patagonia is infamous for being windy and we can confirm the rumours. It was so gusty that we could barely breath. A few fluorescent blue icebergs had dislodged from the glacier and were floating in the lake. Around the bushy headland were small surprising patches of fluffy green grass. On the walk back along the isthmus the wind caught the rocks and projected them into the air like little bullets, stinging our legs. Above us was a bald-headed condor hunting for food. James had read somewhere that they will inspect you if you pretend to be dead. Despite James’s best efforts to look dead they didn’t inspect any closer. As we reached the car park, we saw the boat slowing move into its port. Second missed boat for the day.

Windswept and sunburnt, we were ready for a shower back at the hotel. The road to get out of the park was the worst of all Chile; so pot holed and bumpy that the gear stick vibrated uncontrollably. People stared at us as we drove through the gates of the park. Moments later we heard a strange noise. We were already on edge with our bad luck with rental vehicles so we pulled over to inspect. We had blown a tyre. Neither of us had changed a tyre before and we were driving a particular large 4WD ute. Dark stormy clouds loomed over the mountains and the car’s instructions were in Spanish. Fab. A couple of false starts later and we were remarkably back on the road. Who said gays can’t change a tyre?

Having missed dinner at our hotel, I ran into a lit hotel in a small town of 10 houses, dusty and hair everywhere to ask for dinner. “Just you or will your wife, girlfriend, daughter, son, mother or father be joining us?” Well that was almost exhaustive list. “Na, my friend”. The conservative Catholic mentality is so pervasive here, it got under my skin. Or I’m just a chicken.

While our first day in Torres del Paine was remarkable, I always felt at arm’s distance to the main action. The park was unbelievably just a sheep farm until 1959 and the mountains are surrounded by pastoral land. So I was glad when we could enter the mountains. Thanks to the tyre mishap, we didn’t start our 8 hour walk until noon. I’d read a blog that had described the walk to the namesake Torres del Paine walk as ‘knee breaking’ so I was nervous whether we’d even make it to the iconic towers at the top of the hill. The walk followed a waterway all the way to the very top, through Japanese looking forests, over wobbly bridges and along deep gully ridges.

The most remarkable aspect of the walk for me was the sheer volume of people. It seemed like there was someone from almost every single country in the world; more “Heys” than “Holas” (if they bothered). Trees in ideal locations for balance were polished red from the endless stream of hands. We often got stuck behind a row of backpackers with their sticks (which I’m convinced were only used for blocking the path). I felt like I was in the great migration in the movie Ice Age by the pace and volume of people. We were told to ‘stick to the path’, but it was often unclear which path; there was often 2, 3 or even 4 options.

The image of the three towers of the Torres del Paine is everywhere so I knew what to expect; a large teal lake below the snow covered towers that rose high into the sky. It was a strange area. The large boulders and impossibly strong winds made it less welcoming than other areas of the park.

It was twilight when we descended down the mountain and walked the last stretch of tall pale grass, perfect puma territory. There’s between 50–100 pumas in the park and are sighted regularly. But alas we weren’t so lucky, although I’m sure in the moment it would have been more terrifying than exciting.

Patagonia is also renouned for the native people who once lived in the area known as Patagons. They are primarily known by their unusual ritual dress. The two most common representations on plates, posters and statues is a man with his body painted red and white stripped with a large horizontal bar across his head and another is a man entirely painted black with a white pattern and a face mask. I found one book in a gift store that was about the Patagons and enthnographic photography. I thought it was an apt combination as the use of the Patagon’s ritual dress feels like a shallow understanding of their culture and even exploitative.

Thanks to the hype of Patagonia, I was expecting Pandora from the movie Avatar. Suffice to say it wasn’t that. It also felt strangely small, perhaps the countless hotels, buses, people, fences, landscaping and tents made it feel so. I only did a section of the W track which is what the majority of the visitors do, so I am sure I would have had a very different perspective if I had see more of the park. It was still a beautiful and unique experience.

On our last morning we couldn’t turn the light on. The place was run by a generator and we had been told to unplug our charging devices at 11:30 so we weren’t too surprised. We went down to the darkened dining room where a wood fire was raging and a group at a neighbouring table were enthusiastically chatting. There was an issue with the generator. About half way through the meal, the lights came on and the receptionist rejoiced. The room fell silent as the wifi modem had come back on and everyone pulled their phones out. I usually don’t like technology naysayers but but it was a small glimpse into a more quiet, social existence.