Travel to Patagonia

At the end of the year we traveled to the end of the world! Well, at least as far south as you can go without going to Antarctica: Patagonia. Patagonia is a large region that encompasses the southern portion of two countries: Chile and Argentina. Patagonia contains national parks (ie. Torres del Paine), lakes, volcanoes, and the largest ice field outside of Antarctica.

Getting There

I’ve been playing the ‘points game’ (aka travel hacking) for several years now and had plenty of American Airlines (AA) miles to redeem for a flight from Santiago, Chile (SCL) to Punta Arenas, Chile (PUQ). We redeemed AA miles to take the 3.5 hour flight to Punta Arenas on LATAM Airlines. The great thing is intra-South America flights are only 6,000 AA miles in economy one way. So 24,000 AA miles bought us two roundtrip tickets. One thing to note: the flights within Chile can have unusual departure times for those of us used to flights in the U.S. where airports seem to shutdown at a certain point at night. SCL has departures around the clock, so our flight to Punta Arenas departed at 4:30am which made for an early arrival at our destination.
Once we landed in Punta Arenas, we picked up our rental car and headed to breakfast before we set out on the 3.5 hour drive to Puerto Natales. We rented a small compact sedan and this is definitely something I don’t recommend if planning to drive to Torres del Paine, the national park. Rent an SUV instead! The roads are not paved and it’s a rough ride in a small car.

Accommodations

This was a six day / five night trip and we planned to stay in Puerto Natales for the first four nights with one final night in Punta Arenas.

Simple Patagonia, in Puerto Natales, was recommended by friends and we originally wanted to book our entire four night stay there but, due to lack of availability, we were only able to book our first two nights at this property. This is a wonderful hotel. We were sad when we had to check out! The property, common spaces, and rooms are all beautiful. The views from the rooms are exquisite and the WiFi works wonderfully. They just get everything right here. There are only 11 rooms. We stayed in rooms 6 and 7 at the end of the main hall. These are rooms with two single beds. The bedding is comfortable and the rooms are clean. The view is incredible with an ideal picture window overlooking the fjord. There is plenty of space and comfortable seating to enjoy the view from your room but the common spaces are fabulous too. The dining area has great views and comfortable seating. There is an additional room I called ‘the warm room’, as it seemed to have a greenhouse house effect with the windows and sun.

Breakfast is included and consists of a continental spread of the very best croissants you’ve had outside of France along with meats, cheeses, fruit, excellent coffee, and made to order hot eggs.
One of the owner’s sons, Esteban, is also the chef and he cooks a meal every evening. For those staying on property, you just let them know ahead of time and dinner will be waiting for you in the evening. It’s typically served at 8pm but we arrived back late from a day tour and they had our 3 course meal ready for us at 10:30pm. Remarkable! (27,000 CLP) If not staying on property, you can call ahead to see if they have space that night.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit here and really didn’t want to leave. As my friend said, it’s like starting your flight in first class and being asked to move back to coach in the middle of the trip. My recommendation is: just stay here and don’t bother with other places.
For our last two nights in Puerto Natales we stayed at the Weskar Lodge. It was fine. Due to lack of availability, we were only able to book a room in the old wing, without a view. It was small and dated. I had a chance to view the rooms in the newer wing and they are lovely, so my recommendation is to book the newer rooms if you decide to stay at Weskar. The food (breakfast and dinner) at the Weskar was not as enjoyable as Simple but the property does have a sauna and hot tub available. You need to make appointments for both and the hot tub costs 10,000 CLP.
For our last night in Punta Arenas, we stayed at Hotel Cabo de Hornos. The room was clean and breakfast was a nice mix of items including made to order hot eggs. I recommend it.
As my comments on lack of availability prove, Patagonia is a popular destination in December, January, and February. Book early as places do sell out.

Activities

We scheduled a tour to the see the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina through Patagonia Adventure. The tour description indicates a four hour trip to the glacier, but just know this is really a six hour journey. We were picked up at the hotel at 6:30am and arrived at the glacier at around 1pm. The six hour journey included an hour wait at the border for the Chilean immigration office to open. Since this tour takes you from Chile to Argentina you have to go through two immigration offices on both the Chilean and Argentine side twice. It’s a loooong day. If I were doing it again, I’d allow time for an overnight stay in El Calafate, Argentina. We stopped in town briefly but would’ve liked more time there.
Once we finally arrived, the glacier was absolutely amazing. The weather at the time of our visit in December was sunny and in the high 50s. While I have seen glaciers in Alaska, and this reminded me of that, this was a different experience. We walked the paths down to view the glacier on foot. We also took a boat tour to see a different view from the water. The boat crew kindly grabbed some ice out of the water for us and we were able to have a drink with 10,000 year old ice. The glacier is a bit noisy! You can hear the ice cracking and we were able to see chunks falling off. The blue color striations are beautiful.

Since our group of four did not want to hike, we chose to tour Torres del Paine, the national park, by ourselves with our rental car. We drove into the park and paid the $25/pp fee. We took a short ferry ride and stopped along the way to see beautiful sights. The people who want to hike won’t do it this way, but for the people like us who don’t want to hike, I still don’t recommend doing it this way. If I were to do it again, I would choose a 1 day tour that takes you into the park and returns you to your hotel at night. The guided tours know exactly where to go and have the right vehicle making for a smooth journey. While in the park, we stopped at Hotel Rio Serrano for coffee and it’s a beautiful place that we really enjoyed.

We visited the Milodon Cave outside of Puerto Natales. The milodon is a prehistoric sloth whose remains were discovered in a huge cave. It’s worth a visit and doesn’t take too much time. Again, the road to get there is unpaved, gravel.

The main highway that takes you from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales and beyond is highway 9 which is known as the End of the World route. We drove the route to its end about an hour outside of Punta Arenas. There is an End of the Road sign and then you can walk or ride horses to the end of the continent/land. We found it pretty neat.

On our drives between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales we had the chance to see all kinds of wildlife. Sheep are everywhere and plentiful in this region. In fact there are alot of wool goods and sheepskin products for sale here too. We also saw guanaco, huemul, and rheas. We were delighted to see flamingo in the wild. What a pretty shade of pink!

Food

King crab (centolla in Spanish) and lamb are the big things to try in this region and we enjoyed king crab everyday. Our favorite place, with the best crab dishes, is Santolla in Puerto Natales.

We also enjoyed the roasted lamb at Don Jorge in Puerto Natales. The best breakfast I’ve had in Chile was at Wake Me Up in Puerto Natales. They have omelettes and french toast served with delicious gold syrup along with delectable coffee and hot drinks.

Returning Home

After six days in Patagonia, our departing LATAM flight left at 12am which had us arriving in Santiago at another odd time, 4:00am. We booked the Holiday Inn at the airport for a late arrival and this worked out well. We were able to crash and get some sleep after our flight. Before returning home we spent the day in Santiago having lunch at 99 Restaurant and shopping at Los Dominicos, a popular craft market.
Getting to Patagonia is a bit difficult but the scenery and views can be called nothing short of majestic. Hope you go!