Santiago

Our trip to Chile got off to a rocky start as Tori developed food poisoning before the flight! Things were looking ropey but she managed to get through the flight and got a nice little bump up to premium economy for her troubles! We arrived in Santiago after a 6 hour flight and went straight to our accommodation at ‘Sommelier Loft Hotel’, where we were in the laps of luxury!

Our first Chilean meal was not exactly traditional….but it’s what was needed after the day Tori had put in!

Santiago didn’t really impress us. We actually just spent one night there, as we didn’t feel there was much we wanted to do. We spent the day wandering around and enjoyed some good food. It’s incredibly expensive in Chile, closer to Dublin prices!

We took a bus from Santiago to Valparaiso, and were chuffed with the level of comfort!

Valparaiso

After two hours we arrived in Valparaiso, and faced a baptism of fire of sorts! We took a public bus to our accommodation which was manic, to say the least. The combination of the dark evening, too many bags and a packed bus made for a stressful journey. In addition, people were jumping on and off selling things for the entire journey. The bus door was also always left open. We swore when we left Valparaiso, we would get a taxi to the bus!

After a steep climb, we arrived at our hostel ‘ Casa Volante’, a cute hostel in a lovely part of the town.

This part of town was covered in beautiful graffiti and full of art galleries.

To curb costs, we made some DIY lunches, with some Chilean wine of course!

Despite there being beautiful parts of this town, there were also parts that weren’t very safe to walk around in. So we stayed around our area and had a lovely few days here!

We returned to Santiago for one more night to take a flight to Puerto Natales, Patagonia. Another night in our favourite hotel!

Puerto Natales

Puerto Natales is a city in Southern Patagonia and a gateway to Tores Del Paine National Park, our next destination. We got a sharp shock when we arrived, as the temperatures are so much colder in the south of Chile!

Puerto Natales airport is very small, and everyone is basically travelling for the same reason- to trek in Tores del Paine!

A short mini bus from the airport brought us to the door of our hostel, ‘Hostel Reymar’.

The hostel was ran by an old man, and while it wouldn’t win awards for its facilities, it had a real charm and we enjoyed staying there!

We found a very nice restaurant in the town called ‘Amerindia’, where we ate both nights. It was so good!

We spent two days wandering around Puerto Natales getting our things ready for the W Trek.

An early start the next morning with no idea what we were in for, and off we went on a bus to Tores Del Paine.

We arrived to Camp Central at 9:00am where we were greeted with our home for the night.

We dropped our bags and took off on our 20km hike to Mirador las Torres. We tried to get a coffee before we left, but the water pipes had frozen in the campsite. However, one kilometre in, we passed a hotel so we went in to grab a coffee there! We were delighted with ourselves at that point!

However, that quickly changed when we realised the bill came to €30 so needless to say, that was the first and last coffee we bought on the trek!

The terrain on the first day was quite mixed with some gorgeous views on the way.

Our daily lunch looked like this!

The peak of the day was when we got to Mirador la Torres.

When were were ready, we headed back to our campsite and wrapped up in all the clothes we had! Breakfasts and dinners were included most days. The food was pretty grim for the most part but beggars can’t be choosers!

The next day, we headed off on a 16km hike with our bags to Camp Frances, our second home!

The terrain was different each day so here’s a few snaps from day 2. The campsite wasn’t as nice on this day, but we survived!

Day three was another 20km hike to our favourite of all the campsites, Paine Grande. This campsite had a bar overlooking the mountains where we spent most of the evening, and we also had the cosiest tents here (or maybe the wine warmed us up!!)

On day four, we walked 11km to the next campsite on a pretty difficult trail. We got our first glimpse of the glacier on this trail.

I decided to walk a few extra hours continued past the campsite to get a closer look at the glacier which involved crossing two very long, very high bridges. I don’t usually get spooked with heights, but these were not for the faint hearted!

This was our last night on the trek, so we stayed in dorms instead of camping! We actually had loved camping though and were a little disappointed that we had changed it up for the last night! It was nice being warm though!

On our last morning, we took one last walk to see the glacier before heading back to Paine Grande, where we waited for a boat to take us back to a bus, which took us back to Puerto Natales.

We both absolutely loved the trek. It was definitely the highlight of our time in Chile. That being said, we welcomed the hot shower and clean clothes which greeted us on our return to Puerto Natales! We spent the next morning getting our clothes washed, before taking a bus to El Chaten, which actually brings us to the next country!

Next stop, Argentina.