Our trip to Patagonia!
I am currently onboard the MS Fridtjof Nansen with Hurtigruten Expeditions and sailing around Antarctica. Crazy, right?!
For this month, we will talk about our amazing trip to Patagonia, hiking the W Trek with G Adventures that took place end of January.
Day 0
✈️ From the US, we flew into Santiago, Chile – my first visit to this vibrant city! After a brief day of exploration, we hopped on another flight to Puerto Natales, where we were set to rendezvous with the rest of our group. Another possibility is flying into Punta Arenas airport, which offers more flight options. From there, you can take a taxi or bus to Puerto Natales, a journey of approximately 3-3.5 hours each way.
Day 1
🚖 When we arrived into Puerto Natales, we collected our belongings and grabbed a taxi from the official taxi desk inside the airport to get dropped off at the Hotel Capitan Eberhard. A cute hotel with all the basics you would need for your stay. We had a meeting with our "CEO" chief experience officer, Maria, our guides - Antonio and Zorrito - along with the rest of our hiking group to set expectations for the rest of the trip. Then after the meeting, John and I had some local guanaco pizza and got ready for the trek for the next morning!
Day 2
🥾The start of our W Trek in Patagonia! The hike for the day was to the base of Las Torres to see the dramatic three towers and turquoise lagoon below. We started the hike from the Welcome Center to the Base of the Towers - which was 14 miles roundtrip (9 hours of walking!). It was a long and strenuous trek, but well worth the view. We then camped at Laguna Azul Camp which was a not too long of a drive from the Welcome Center and had a fantastic warm dinner and hot shower!
Day 3
🏔️ The easiest hike of the W Trek (in my opinion) to Cuernos Camp (7.5 miles) and also very scenic for majority of the route - seeing turquoise waters around each turn. Not too many steep hills along the way, so I was happy. We arrived at camp mid-afternoon and had an amazing dinner and shower! (also a shot of tequila, or two or three lol)
Day 4
🏔️🥾 This day we hiked to the French Valley lookout and then also the optional British lookout -- The longest and mentally difficult hike, lol. From the Cuernos Camp, we had breakfast then started our hike towards the Italiano Park Ranger Station where we left majority of our gear to continue our hike towards the French Valley lookout which would be about an hour to get to - it was beautiful!
🧠 We then had to make a decision as to whether we wanted to continue to the optional British Viewpoint -- and we all said yes. This was another hour to get there and it was a bit cold and cloudy, but glad we did it, because when else would we do this again?!
It started to rain on the way back to Italiano and by the time we got there (roughly two hours from British Viewpoint), it felt even colder and rainier. It was another 3 hours to Paine Grande camp which is where the mentally draining part comes from. We all put our rain gear to good use and made our way back in less than 3 hours. It was a fantastic feeling arriving at Paine Grande camp, my favorite of all the campsites, because check out this view!
Day 5
🏔️🥾 Last day of the W Trek where we hiked to the Grey Glacier. Enjoyed the relatively "Patagonia flat" route to the Grey Glacier viewpoint and excited to know that we officially completed the W Trek!
⛺️ We got back to the campsite, had lunch, and took a ferry across the water to get picked up by van to head back to Puerto Natales and check back into the Hotel Capitan Eberhard.
🥩🍷We enjoyed our last group dinner + drinks and karaoke before heading for bed for an early flight back to Santiago.
Overall, I highly recommend this trip for anyone that wants to do the W Trek! This is a very active trip with several parts of the hike quite steep and tiring, but mostly relatively "Patagonia flat". Meaning…some rolling hills, lol.
G Adventures does a great job in coordinating this experience - I felt quite spoiled given we were camping throughout the trip as the tents were all setup already, we had porters carrying 5 kg of our belongings, we had access to hot showers and bathrooms, and last but not least, we had tasty meals - breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
If you are interested in doing a more adventurous trip, whether that is hiking Patagonia or heading to the 7th continent, please don't hesitate to reach out!!