Patagonia -Torres del Paine, Chile - The W Domination

Our last big adventure in South America was a pretty good one. Patagonia. Patagonia isn´t just one town, its a huge area in southern Argentina and Chile. We wanted to have a month to see everything but because Gemma´s passport took so long to arrive we only had about two and a half weeks to get from Trelew down to southern Chile and back up to Santiago where we fly out on March 8th to New Zealand.

Our first stop was the incredible Torres Del Paine National Park in Puerto Natales, Chile. There are several different routes you can do to see the park but because we were short on time we choose the five day W route. The call it the W because you more or less walk in a W when you look at the route on a map. We would have loved to do the 9 day circuit but considering neither one of us have ever put up our own tent we thought its probably best to stick with the five day route.

This was the chance I´d been waiting for all trip. The time to work on my man skills. Hunting, building shelters, killing dangerous animals. We got to town late at night at checked into a hostel in Puerto Natales. The next day we didn´t get going till around 1 and realized that all the grocery and camping stores were shut until 3pm. We went to a talk at another hostel on the park and hike that was super helpful. It discussed the different routes, what to pack, what to wear and what to expect.

They basically told us that we´re going to be wet, cold and miserable and there is no amount of waterproof gear we can wear to keep us dry. The weather is completely unpredictable and changes every 10 minutes. Ponchos will fly and flap wildly in the wind. The rain cover for you backpack will fly off in the wind. The wind will knock you on your ass at least a few times. It definitely scared us a bit but provided some really really helpful tips. Like packing two sets of clothes, one wet and one dry and to double bag our dry clothes and sleeping bags inside our bag. The wet clothes you´d hike in and wear every single day. Even if they were still wet from the day before.

The talk ended at 5pm and we needed to get all our gear and food and pack and eat dinner. But then they recommened a travel agent near by and we realized since we´re short on time we probably need to fly up to Santiago instead of spending two and a half days on a bus getting there. Chile is ridiculously long (like the length of the US and Canada combined!) We got out of the travel agents' office at 6ish and went to rent our gear.

We rented a tent, sleeping bags, mats, stove, plates and cutlery and rain pants for Gemma. We went and dropped it off at our hotel and had to go back to the travel agent to see what she came up with for us. By this time it was around 9 and she informed us that the shopping market was closed or closing soon. Gemma took off running to the market while I finalized our bus tickets and flight.

Did I mention Gemma still didn´t have a waterproof coat at this point either? I met her on the street just before 10pm and she tells me the store was closed when she got there. All she had managed to find at local shops was toilet paper, chocolate and bottled water. Sweet, we are so screwed.

Luckily the travel agent told us about a little local shop a few blocks away were we were able to buy cup o´soups, stuff for sandwiches, pasta and bread and jam. We were saved. We ate dinner at a great little microbrewery with an amazing summer ale. We started packing around 12:30 and didn´t finish until about 3am. As soon as I was done, I zipped up my bag and got the tent seriously stuck in the zipper. I struggled for another half hour before I got it unstuck and passed out.

Day One

7am the next morning the bus picked us up for the two hour drive to the park. The bus dropped us off and we had one hour before we took a catamaran to the starting point of our hike. This was just enough time to hike up and see a waterfall called Salto Grande. After being at Iguazu Falls it wasn´t that exciting but it was still beautiful.

The weather was just fine when we got on the boat. Twenty minutes later when we got off it was pissing down rain, grey and the wind was whipping in our face. I couldn´t help but have a huge smile on my face as I was thinking, ¨HAHA Son of a Bitch, this is gonna be WILD!¨

We immediately went into a shelter where as planned we had our first lunch. Luckily by the time we were done the rain had stopped and it was beautiful outside!

We headed off towards our first campsite, near the largest ice field outside the Antartic, called Glacier Grey. We didn´t weigh our backpacks before we left but on the first day with all our food, camping equipment and clothes it probably weighed close to 30lbs or 14kg. They felt pretty light on our shoulders when we first put them on. After hiking up and down the mountain for six hours they were killing us.

As you´ll notice we were constantly surrounded by stunning mountains and lakes.

After hiking for a few hours we arrived at a lake where Gemma and I saw our first iceberg! Which she named Flora. They fall off this ice field you will see below and float down the lake. Seeing our first iceberg was pretty exciting even if it didnt look like it could bring down the Titanic.

A few hours later we finally saw our first glimpse of the ice field. Its the three white sections that come to meet the lake but below the mountains.

It was right after this that I got us lost for the first time. Well not really lost, we just took an alternative route. There was a worn path so we weren´t the first 1000 people to go this way but it definitately took us down into a ravine and probably added 30 minutes to an already exhausting 6 hour hike.

Finally we arrived at the ice field. We werent able to get much closer than this but it was still pretty amazing to see.

These were the rocks we climbed to get a closer view of the ice field. There was this little tree and puddle/lake on top. The scenery never ceased to amaze us throughout the trip.

We finally made it to the campsite after six hours of hiking on only three and a half hours sleep carrying our bags at their heaviest. Day one was exhausting.

This iceberg looks like a yacht.

So Im not the most outdoorsy person. I might have set up a tent before but I think I mainly would just let my friends do it if possible. I eventually figured it out and the view from our tent was pretty stunning.

Day Two - Six hours of hiking

There were a few times throughout the first couple of days where I just had to stop, put my bag down and be in pure awe of the beauty. Id never seen a landscape so wild and rugged and untouched like this.


We were incredibly lucky with the weather. It was sunny almost the entire time and it barely rained at all. The wind did kick up every now and then but not too bad until the last day.

I am not sure if you can tell by looking at the picture below, but the color of the water was just unreal. It was a milky teal color that I'd also never seen before. Its caused by a milky powder that comes off the glaciers.

Hard not to have cheesy smiles on your face in this place.


The mountain below has these crazy sheer cliff faces that are grey and then little mini mountains on top in black.

Our second campsite was right along a babbling brook. I put the poles in the tent and then stuck the stakes through the holes where the poles where supposed to go. Gemma had to fix it. My tent skills were digressing.

We walked downstream to where the bathrooms were and decided to peak our heads out of the forest and walked down onto the rocks near the stream. This is when we saw one of the most incredible views in the park. To the left of the river was the snowy mountain you see directly behind us below. And to the right of the river (almost in the same frame-you can see the start of the other mountain in the right side of the pic) was the sheer faced mountain.


A better picture of the mountain that was to the right of the stream.


It really just isnt fair that these two mountains are so close and that you could see both of them from the same spot. It was like being in Alaska and Arizona at the same time. Add in the stream, simply stunning.

Day Three - Four hours hiking

I did pick up some camping skills/knowledge along the way. I thought about how to put up the tent for some of the hike and nailed it on the first try this time. Also, the only water we had to wash our pot and dishes was the freezing cold stream water which doesn't cut through dirt and grease. But if you fill the pan with dirt, and break off a tree branch with some leaves on it you can use the leaves as a scrub brush and the dirt breaks through the grease and then the cold water washes the dirt away easily.

After packing up we hiked up to get a closer look at the snowy mountain. It was near noon and the sun was causing mini avalanches. We ate lunch and watched and listened to avalanches falling about every fifteen minutes. The pic below shows an avalanche but its hard to spot. You might notice some movement in the middle of the pic.

Below is Gemma attempting to move a tree branch out of the way for me for a panoramic pic. Pesky tree branch was in the way. Every decent photographer needs a good assistant. Or as Gemma likes to say every strong man has a stronger woman behind him.

Day three was a light hiking day because day four was supposed to be an eight hour hike!

One of the best parts of hiking the W was that the scenery and landscape was constantly changing. It never got old and there were surprises around most every corner. Like when we came upon this rocky beach.

Gemmas poles were the cause of much frustration on her part and much hilarity to me. She was constantly getting them stuck in the mud, tree branches or in between rocks. She cursed them almost constantly yet I did see them practically save her life a few times.

Our campsite on night four was near a lake. We had dinner at the refugio that night but it wasnt much better than we had been cooking all along. We cooked all our other meals on a little gas burner. After dinner I took advantage of the dusk sky and snapped these pics below.

The sky in Patagonia at dusk was stunning. Often I was just in the wrong place, on a bus or without my camera when we saw the most stunning purples and reds unfortunately. But this night wasnt bad.

Who brings a red lacy bra on a hiking trip?

Day Four - February 25th - My (and my dads) Birthday! - 16km hike took six hours

First picture of me 28 years young. I´m aging like a fine wine I´d say. Id rather have not woken up on the hard ground on my birthday, but all things considered, it was a pretty great place to be.

My dad was definitely hiking along with us today. There was a shortcut we were told about that if we missed would have added another hour or so onto an already ambitous 16km hike. We were supposed to look out of a left turn when we saw the lake. Wed been hiking all week with a couple of asian american med school students and an aussie couple. We constantly passed each other as we all stopped in different spots along the way for breaks.

We all spoke of the upcoming shortcut and how to spot it. Gemma and I fell into third place (not that we were racing but I was keeping track) and were left to find the shortcut without their help.

Well there are lakes all over the place here and wed been walking alongside a giant one for a few hours. I lost track if wed made it all the way past it when we came upon a worn path off to the left. There was a lake there in front of us, but was it the big one or the small one we were looking for? Well I knew we needed to go left eventually so this left couldnt lead us too far out of the way could it? With my dad guiding us along, we found a shortcut to the shortcut!

Sure enough after wading through some bogs we came upon the small lake and saw the other four on the other side of the lake ten minutes or so behind us!

With the shortcut to the shortcut and our packs feeling a bit lighter with three days less food in them, we arrived to the first checkpoint way ahead of time. The supposed eight hour hike ended up only taking us six hours.

The stream water was so clear and blue and luckily drinkable. Its so nice getting amazingly fresh water straight out of the stream with water from glaciers.

Filling up our water bottles in the stream.

My birthday dinner, mashed potatoes and four cheese sauce.

Day Five

We had to wake up at 5am on day five to start the roughly our hour accent to the top of a very steep mountain to where wed get the best glimpse of the famous Torres del Paine, the namesake towers of the park.

The climb was Machu Picchu-esqe especially as we needed our headlamps for the first twenty minutes to see the path. When we arrived at the top the towers were grey and dreadful. Dark clouds surrounded them and they looked a bit evil.

Then the sun broke over the mountain behind us and cast a pinkish hue over them and the sky broke blue at the same time completely changing the scene.

We carried our sleeping bags and stove up to the top so we could be warm and have a cup of soup for breakfast up at the top. It was freezing up there and we werent about to climb all the way up there and then run back down because we were cold or hungry.

One last pic before we head down to camp and back up for our last hike to the exit of the park.

People on horses kept passing us with big smiles on their faces. Rich people who were too lazy to do the trek themselves. I almost said too old, but we saw a couple in their 70s hiking the trail without packs so it really just must be that they are too lazy.

Just after passing this smug group of gallopers we encountered some of the strongest wind wed had the entire hike. It was so powerful you had to stop and brace yourself and grab onto something or risk being swept over the cliff. It was when we were walking back on the path below when it hit us. You can see how steep it drops down to the stream. This is where we were when it blasted into us knocking Gemma down. Luckily shes a tough chick and got back up and kept on trekking.



Well that wraps it up. It was about four hours back to the exit where we changed clothes in a super expensive hotel where all the horse riders stay. We splurged on $16 cheeseburgers at the bar before the bus picked us up and took us back into town. It was five days of stunning scenery. We were incredibly lucky that we didnt get rained on the entire time. Its practically unheard of to have five days of weather in a row like we did.

Our next stop is to head up to El Calafate to see another ice field that is supposed to be a little more spectacular than the one we saw here. Post soon to come!

Trelew and Gaiman - Penguins and Tea Time

After spending six weeks in Buenos Aires we set off on our trip to Patagonia. Our first stop was a city twenty hours south of BA called Trelew. We went there for two reasons. One is the largest colony of Magellanic Penguins outside Antartica. The second was that just outside Trelew there is a little Welsh town named Gaiman that serves English tea and Gemma was craving a little taste of home.

We booked a tour with a lady at the bus station and were supposed to get picked up at 8am the next day to go see the penguins first, and then on to have afternoon tea. The next morning the bus arrived late and the driver came to our door and asked what time we needed to be back to the bus station for our onward journey. We told him we needed to be back from Gaiman by 5. He then proceeded to tell us this was impossible. Great.

We argued with him for a few minutes before realizing the lady had made promises that weren´t meant to be kept. We told the bus to go on without us and marched furiously back to this lady at the bus station. I thought Gemma was gonna grab her jacket and pull her across the counter but we kept our cool and in the end after a good twenty minutes of arguing with her we managed to get her to hire a taxi for us for the day at no extra cost. Private tour for two accomplished.

Neither of us had ever seen penguins outside a zoo before and once we saw the first one it was worth the trouble.

What up Pingu!

Everywhere you looked there were penguins. They use the bushes as houses and for protection from the wind. They dig little tunnels underneath the bushes and lay their eggs in them.

We were there in late February after the eggs had hatched and when the penguins are feeding and fledging. You can tell which penguins are the babies because they have furry feathers all over them. But alot of them were starting to lose these baby feathers and therefore feathers were all over the place.

Penguins swimming at sea.

And coming out of their nests.

Their can be up to a half million penguins here at the highest point in the year and only Antartica has more. The bad part about having a half million penguins around you is that you have a half million penguins pooping around you. The place smelled pretty bad if the sea breaze stopped for even a few seconds.

The other bad thing about seeing so many penguins was that it was inevitable that we´d see nature at work. Sure enough there was a seagull eating a dead penguin whose head was almost severed off. Poor little guy.

We were able to get pretty close to them without them running off. By the way, watching penguins walk never stops being funny.

This was one of the little guys looking lost.

I forget what this animal is called but its in the rabbit family.

After we had our fix of penguins it was time to move onto the Welsh town of Gaiman. Who knows why there is a little Welsh town in southern Argentina. Probably the same reason why there was a little German village in Venezuela. They migrate over, set up shop and never move.

The place we went to was set on immaculately groomed grounds.

Inside Gemma showed me how its done. We were served unlimited tea and cakes by sweet old ladies.

Keeping the pinky out seemed the right thing to do.

The spread.

Gemma took a moment to remember Princess Di before we got back in the taxi and headed back to the bus station. Our next move is to bus over to the west coast and into Chile where we´ll be hiking and camping for five days in Torres Del Paine National Park near Puerto Natales. I´ll also finally get a chance to work on my Bear Grylls survival skills.

Iguazu Falls - An Unbelievable display of nature

We are back on the road ¨traveling¨again. We have been in Buenos Aires for nearly three weeks now and while its been great enjoying the big city convienences we were ready to hit the road and see something amazing. Iguazu falls is a finalist in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition and I hope it makes the final cut. It is by far one of the highlights of our trip and one of the most stunning displays of nature I´ve ever seen.

As soon as we got to the park we started seeing these little racoon-like creatures called Coatis. We entered our first trail and immediately were welcomed by a mother and her two cute little ones.

The little bitches lure you into a false sense of security with how cute they are because while I was taking this picture they were narrowing in our our bagged lunch. About one second later the mom had ripped open our plastic bag and started making off with our lunch! Luckily all they got was an apple before we could shew them away. We later saw this sign in the park. It should say run for your life if you see these aggressive little beasts coming towards you.

We started the day by walking the lower trail which offered ridiculous views of the falls such as the ones below. It was incredible being so close to the falls. It was impossible not to get wet but given that its was a hot sunny day we didn´t mind. Little did we know how soaked we´d get later.

From the lower trail you can take a twenty minute boat ride which takes you up to both sides of the falls. Here we are still dry as we head towards the falls.

Immediately after this the driver takes the bow of the boat dangerously close to the waterfall. I´m not gonna lie. I was scared we were gonna get sucked under. I have experience driving boats and pulling up to docks or other boats without hitting them but this driver was either really confident or got really lucky because he zoomed right up to the edge before slamming on reverse. The falls were pounding down on us so hard you couldn´t even look up. Check out the video of how hard this water is falling. The tip of the boat went right up to the section where the water is falling the hardest!

Once I realized we weren´t going to die it was incredible to be so close to the falls. The boat took us back and forth to both sides of the falls a couple times and luckily the tiny little plastic bag I had around Gemma´s camera was enough to protect it from the buckets that got dumped on us.

We then headed to the upper trail that runs along the top of the falls. The walking paths are so close to the edge of the falls that you are almost standing over the edge of them. Behind you the river is as calm and peaceful as can be before it plunges violently over the edge.

We even saw a double rainbow which I didn´t even know existed. Here is a video where you can see the second rainbow faintly above the obvious one. Gemma kinda points it out at the end.

These pictures and video are of the section of the falls called the Devils Throat. It blows your mind away how powerful it is and the sheer force which the water moves is incredible. It reminded us of a scene from the movie 2012 when all the water is crashing down and destroying the world. At first you come up on the Devils Throat and see a huge body of water just disappearing into the earth.

Then another 100 feet or so and you see water tumbling over the edge. It is nearly impossible for the pictures to tell the story but the video tries its best. The sound was almost deafening. You really must go see this place with your own eyes!


The white haze at the bottom is the mist rising up. Unfortunately the mist is so thick that you can´t really see the bottom half to two thirds of the falls in these pics. But in person every so often the wind blows the mist away and reveals the falls in full.

The land you see above the falls in this pic is Brazil. You can go to there for the day to get a different view but Brazil charges Americans a $134 visa fee so we didn´t go.

On our second day at the park we hiked a trail off the beaten path to a waterfall with a natural swimming pool. I don´t think most people do this trail as we hardly saw anyone else while hiking and there were only a handful of people at the waterfall once we arrived. The picture after the sign is a gigantic spider. You really had to watch your head because these massive spiders had spun their webs over nearly the entire length of the 3km path. Gemma was not a fan of this and had the most terrified look on her face for a solid thirty minutes.

At the very beginning of the path there was a warning sign advising you to watch out for snakes. I hate snakes and the sound of rattlers surrounded us the entire time. At first I doubted they were actually rattlesnakes but the sound coming from all around us sounded exactly like a rattle. I later learned that the sound was made by crickets. So I guess I can see why not many people venture down this trail.

Once you got to the waterfall it was amazing. I´ve had the chance to swim in a waterfall on one other occasion that I can remember in Costa Rica and its something you should always take the opportunity to do if you have the chance. This fall was about three times higher than the one in Costa Rica and about three times more painful to be under. The water was freezing but the scenery and sound of the water crashing down around you is exhilerating.

I could have sat here all day.

Its hard to be in a waterfall with your girlfriend and not be loving life.

After our swim we walked over to the Sheraton Hotel in the park. While we couldn´t afford to stay there, we could afford to go to the bar and get a few drinks before our Full Moon tour of the Devils Throat that evening. Below is the view from the bar. In the distance (but more visible in person than in this photo) was part of the falls. It was a great way to unwind and kill a couple of hours.

At about 9pm we went back to the park entrance to start our Full Moon tour. Once a month for the five nights around the full moon they let in a small number of visitors to walk the path leading to the Devils Throat. I didn´t have my wide angle lens to let in all the moon light and despite my best efforts it was pretty impossible to get a good shot with Gemma´s point and shoot. But the scene was just as impressive as it was during the day only a tad bit more magical. The sky and clouds were lit up and the water glistened under the moon light.

It was definitely a highlight of our trip and one of the most amazing places I´ve ever been. Any trip to Argentina or Brazil must include a trip to Iguazu Falls.

For the bus ride back to Buenos Aires we decided to upgrade our seats to the bigger more comfortable seats in the bottom level of the bus. We had done this maybe once before but this was the first time we were served champagne! It was a great way to end an unbelievable trip up to Iguazu.