Getting to *almost* the bottom of the world: Torres Del Paine National Park, Patagonia Chile.

Patagonia: the southern mountain and glacier regions of Chile and Argentina. It’s about as far south as you can go before you get to Antarctica. Now...just how do you get there?

It’s a daunting task… getting somewhere that takes 3 planes, 2 buses and over 24 hours straight to get there. But what is the fun in traveling if there isn’t a little uncertainty or adventure?

Specifically, we went to Torres Del Paine National Park, where we hiked the “W” treck, a roughly 45 mile hike that goes in a “W” formation up and down the Patagonia Mountains and glaciers.

First to get a handle on this lets look at a map of the Patagonia region:

This is where Patagonia is… all the way down at the bottom of South America. For refrence Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world that is in Argentina at the tip of the above blue region is 2,097 miles from Antarctica.

So, let’s zoom in on this region:

Ok, so the first thing you can guess by looking at this map is that not everything is a straight shot. There are TONS of peninsulas and inlets that make travel by car to certain areas impossible. Thus, one’s only option is a boat or a plane, the latter is more desirable. As you can see by the map it is possible to drive on the thick black lines, but that requires a little bit of planning and some back tracking.

We started in the U.S.

Here is what we did:

-Flight to Miami, often toted the “gateway to South America” as there is a lot of flights bond for South and Central America that leave from here as well as other airports in Florida, that might not leave from other parts of the states.

- From Miami flight to Santiago, Chile. Takes about 6 hours. Santiago is the Capital of Chile and is a pretty densely populated and modern area.

- Domestic flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas, Chile’s southernmost airport. Takes about 4 hours.

- From Punta arenas take a taxi into town to the bus stations to goes to Puerto Natales, the town that is closest to Torres Del Paine.

- Go North in the bus for about 3 hours. Not these buses you can find the schedule for online and they leave quite frequently.

-Get dropped off at a rather nice bus station In Puerto Natales.

Bus station is Puerto Natales, about a 10 minute walk from most of the Hostels/Hotels.

-Stay in Puerto Natales, lot of hostels, hotels, and little B&B type places to stay at. This town is basically here for hikers there is TONS of shops with hiking equipment and a grocery store so that you can stock up on some food and last minute supplies that you forgot/ could not pack.

-Bus from Puerto Natales to Torres Del Paine. Take about another 2 ½ hours.

These buses fill up FAST reserve your space with a particular bus company and check that reservation via email. If not you may not be able to get there on your desired day.

Note: most bus companies provide you with a schedule on your ticket. There will be a ticket, return ticket, and copy of your receipt. Save the copy of your receipt and the return ticket. Buses are first come first serve as long as you have the return ticket you can get on any bus returning back.

-Obviously this is the part where we walk 45 miles with all our gear on foot, more on that later-

We did the “W” trek starting at Los Torres and ended at Lago grey, but went back to Paine Grande to catch the ferry. In another post ill go over the hike itself. There were a few other ways to go about it but this one made the most sense to me.

-You have to take a ferry to get out of the park. Make sure your bus company picks people up off the ferry-most do. You don’t make a reservation to get on the ferry, you just get on, pack in like sardines, and pay while on board.

-Get off the Ferry and onto the bus company you have the return ticket with. There are a few stops the bus makes through the park but you will most likely want to get back to Puerto Natales.

-Stay in Puerto Natales. Spend a rest day in town on get right up and get on the bus back to Punta Arenas.

Hostel we stayed at “Wild” in Puerto Natales. I highly recommend this place. Great place to meet other hikers, great hang out communal area and food. Some private rooms available if desired.

Now this is where if I could do it again I would have went to Calafate and went home through Argentina, but I didn’t so flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago.

We ended up having to spend the night in Santiago and went into the city for the day.

Flight back to Miami.

Flight back home.

This is just what I did, we saw many alternative routes that people took but I will say information is hard to come by and some web pages are outdated. It’s possible to plan, as thousands of people do it every year, but just takes some careful logistical planning.

Now this is where if I could do it again I would have went to Calafate and went home through Argentina, but I did’ so flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago.