So many near-mythic locations! Tierra del Fuego, the Strait of Magellan. Volcanoes. Penguins. Lakes. Hot springs. Glaciers. Fjords. And more!
This blog covers our final 5 weeks in the "Southern Cone", as we traveled south through Chile's Lake District, then further south to Patagonia.
On October 20 we arrived in Chile's gorgeous Lake District, having driven down from the arid Elqui Valley (previous blog). On the way down we drove through the Chilean Central Valley, so similar to California's Central Valley with its agribusiness, flourishing produce, and dairy cows. We wandered from ocean to lakes and mountains (volcanoes!), including a visit to a Petaluma friend and his bakery restaurant in Curacautín, to hot springs and back to ocean.
Curacautín is one of those places that tourists visit on their way through to somewhere, up to the nearby ski resort, most likely.
We visited to say hi to Matty B. (now Mateo) from Petaluma and to check out his fabulous bakery El Canasto. Abram says that his bear claws are the best he's ever had. I had a brioche filled with lemon cream and topped with a spiral of cinnamon - wow!
It's so fun and interesting to hang out with people from home who are living in far-away lands. Mateo told us that the town is quite conservative, with many people not supportive of current young leftist President Boric. And there are lingering feelings that similar to Mussolini getting the trains to run on time in Italy, Pinochet built roads and schools, along with many other improvements that are still appreciated and mentioned today. Especially for people who live far away from Santiago and may not have directly experienced the horrors of the military dictatorship, it can be easy to focus on things other than the disappeared and tortured.
The Chilean President can only stay in office for 4 consecutive years so it can't be Boric again; the next election will be in November 2025.
Our nice hotel:
In El Canasto bakery:
The region is called Araucanía, from "Araucaria araucana" or Monkey Puzzle tree. They grow thickly over the mountains.
Abram went to two hot springs resorts in three days and could have visited many more!
We had two fantastic Chilean soups: Cazuela...
From Wikipedia: "The Cazuela Chilena is one of the most traditional dishes in the Chilean gastronomy. It is very traditional and very adaptable. You make it with lamb, chicken, pork or beef. Certain ingredients are not optional: potatoes, pumpkin, and corn on the cob."
... and Caldillo de Congrio, a fish soup made with conger eel broth - the best one was at an African-Chilean restaurant in Puerto Natales, with some real spice to it.
They also have good conservas, some in BIG cans and jars:
People were selling these large green stalks on the street, and we saw several people buying and walking away with just one. According to Mateo they're called nalca and are similar to rhubarb. The huge top leaves had been cut off:
It's all volcanic in the lakes region:
From Curacautín we drove south a few hours and spent a couple of nights in Pucón, an international hub for adventure and outdoors buffs. People come from all over the world to ski, hike, camp, swim, fish, raft rivers, boat on the lakes and enjoy the gorgeous scenery. A film crew was staying in our hotel; they were in Chile to film a Nissan commercial on the nearby Villarrica volcano:
The volcano was gently steaming (on Orange Alert since September) while we were there.
Pucón is on the edge of Lago Villarrica.
About a 90-minute drive away is the well-known hot springs resort Termas Geometricas. Abram spent a day up there. They built a long red wooden walkway through a beautiful mountain gorge and installed a series of hot pools... and a cold plunge formed by a natural waterfall.
And because the weather is very changeable in spring on the edge of Patagonia, here's a pic from the Instagram feed of the Termas five days later:
Termas Geometricas is on Abram's list of top things he's done and seen during the first half of our trip.
From Pucón we drove further south to Puerto Varas, a nice small town on Lago Llanquihue with a strong German influence. We had a couple of good meals at the downtown German Club:
Cute penguins to help little kids learn how to ice skate, at an upstairs ice rink in Puerto Varas downtown shopping mall:
Cool house near our hotel:
View from our hotel room over Lago Llanquihue. There's a volcano across the lake hidden in the clouds:
We had five days in Puerto Varas waiting for the Navimag ferry departure. It rained the entire time! At least we had a nice hotel with a huge wood-burning fireplace in a big comfy lobby. And a gym - felt kinda good to be on a stationary bike again. And a decent restaurant. Between rain showers we walked around the little town, did laundry, basically just chilled before our ferry adventure.
It stopped raining the morning we left and we had a beautiful view of the volcano across the lake:
In this area of Chile the Mapuche people are quite active, with a difficult history and current protests. Mapuche are native indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/chile-seeks-solutions-mapuche-tensions
Mateo told us that they occasionally block roads and have sometimes burned buildings in protest. They want ancient land and property returned but the current owners don't want to give up what they own - it's not government land. As always, a difficult situation. A protest march from a couple of years ago (not my photo):
Puerto Varas and nearby Puerto Montt are on the southern edge of the Lake District and the northern edge of Patagonia. The next phase of our journey south was to take a ferry from Puerto Montt through the Patagonian fjords to Puerto Natales.
From Wikipedia: "Patagonia ia a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel and the Drake Passage to the south."
On Halloween morning we Ubered over to nearby Puerto Montt and boarded the NaviMag ferry to take us on a 3-night, 4-day cruise through the Patagonian fjords.
The ferry trip was great! A barebones room with small but surprisingly comfortable beds, lots of food, interesting people, and of course, gorgeous scenery. About 50 passengers, most from Europe, one other American who now lives in Baja, and a handful of Chileans. Some locals who live in tiny towns along the way use the ferry to get into Puerto Montt or Puerto Natales. A few of the fjords were very narrow - it takes a captain with special training and experience to navigate them safely. The views of water, mountains, sky were spectacular! A few photos and videos taken by Abram and me:
The Navimag landed safely in Puerto Natales where we spent a couple of days looking around and booking some penguin-viewing tours. Upon arrival we had to hang around the edge of the harbor for most of the day waiting for a cruise ship to depart before we could dock:
A few shots of Puerto Natales and a video from our hotel room window:
Three elements about Patagonia, in addition to the obviously magnificent scenery, are the sky, the air and the light! It's so fresh and bright and clear. And this time of year the sun doesn't set until almost 10pm; after a sunrise at 5:45am.
In Puerto Natales we hopped on a comfortable Bus Sur bus to take us even further south to Punta Arenas, on the edge of the Strait of Magellan. The Route of the End of the World!
Punta Arenas is the city where Ernest Shackleton stayed while he raised money to outfit himself to rescue his crew that stayed behind on Elephant Island. I tried to go to their historical museum but it was closed for renovations.
View of the widest section of the Strait of Magellan.
The historical museum.
In the years during and following the California Gold Rush, many fortune seekers sailed through the Strait and were enticed to stay in Chile after stopping in Punta Arenas. There was some gold, but a more reliable fortune was "white gold" - sheep. The British had been raising sheep on the Falkland Islands and successfully brought them to Chile as well. Huge estancias and massive fence-raising changed the face of Patagonia and contributed to the near extinction of the native peoples. However, even the mighty shall fall as these abandoned buildings and wreck of a ship that carried sheep from the Falklands show, at Estancia San Gregorio.
While in Punta Arenas we took two fabulous penguin-viewing tours: they both included ferries that crossed the Strait of Magellan - one to Magdalena Island to see Magellanic Penguins and the other to Tierra del Fuego to see King Penguins in one of their only locations outside of Antarctica.
Magdalena Island forms part of a protected area known as Los Pingüinos Natural Monument, which is home to the largest colony of Magellanic penguins in South America. Besides more than 60,000 pairs of penguins, other protected animals also inhabit the island, including Cormorants and Sea Lions. Our 90-minute ferry ride across the Strait was smooth sailing in the early afternoon but by the time we returned in the late afternoon we had 6-foot waves and high winds; most people were sick. I was glad I had some Dramamine! The Strait of Magellan is serious water.
A few shots of the Magdalena Island trip:
The Magellanic penguins lay their eggs in underground burrows, often two eggs; chicks stay underground until they're big/strong enough to come up onto land, 9-17 weeks depending on the food supply. They are well protected from tourists on the island; there's a roped-off pathway which is the only area visitors can walk on. We had a lecture by a ranger before heading out on the path, including a warning that sometimes the penguins walk across the paths - if they do, we are supposed to stop, take a slow quiet step back, and let them cross. That did happen while we were on the path - a penguin marched up, waddled onto and across the path, completely ignoring us, and disappeared down a burrow on the other side. So cool!
Two days later we took another penguin excursion, this one to Tierra del Fuego to see King Penguins. We started with a ferry ride across the Strait - our 16-person van was loaded on the ferry and carried across, as were we.
The King Penguin reserve is located on the far side of the island from the ferry landing; they only allow four small groups a day to visit, and they time them so it never gets too crowded. We had a few hours before our scheduled visit so we drove around Tierra del Fuego, had lunch in the town of Porvenir, saw some guanaco by the roadside (and many more in the distance). Also a quick glimpse of the local disco as we whizzed by.
Indoor picture from the Cotillion Club website - too bad we couldn't check it out - a Tierra del Fuego nightclub!
The guanaco roam all over Patagonia. Their main predator is the puma, although it's never certain which animal will win the battle if a puma attacks one. Our tour guide showed us a video of a guanaca with a puma its teeth, shaking it, slamming it to the ground and flinging it around like it was a dishcloth - yikes!
The King Penguin colony on Tierra del Fuego is relatively new and is the smallest known colony. It's on a bay called Bahía Inútil or Useless Bay - too shallow for whales or sea lions, not good for fishing or finding an anchorage ... but apparently perfect for penguins. Some interesting info:
The reserve consists of several small wooden structures: a welcome hut (with very welcome bathrooms), and three viewing stations. The viewing stations are about 150 feet away from the penguins, with telescopes available for a closer view. The ranger showed everyone how to hold our cameras up to the viewer to get some closeup photos. We were asked to be quiet and not to make sudden movements; penguins are quite sensitive to noise and to light - no flash photography allowed. We had about an hour to watch them. Really marvelous!
The babies are hilariously fat and furry (not my photo).
It was a LONG drive back to Punta Arenas; the winds and seas were too high to ferry back from Porvenir so we drove way north, took a short ferry from another spot, and drove way back down along the Strait. A 15-hour day all in all, but well worth it.
Punta Arenas is about 120 miles north of Puerto Williams as the crow flies. Puerto Williams (Chile) has recently usurped Ushuaia (Argentina) as the southernmost city in the world. By road and ferry it's more like 450 miles... we were tempted but didn't do it. Punta Arenas was already way DOWN THERE!
For our final Patagonian adventure we again boarded Bus Sur and crossed the border back into Argentina for the five-hour trip north to El Calafate: destination - Perito Moreno glacier.
El Calafate is a small town packed with tourists; everyone is there to see the glacier and do various outdoorsy activities depending on the weather. It's always WINDY in Patagonia and I don't think it ever gets hot. Maybe warmish. We had a nice little hosteria with a parilla and a grocery store nearby.
Neighborhood dog hoping for a treat to be tossed out the kitchen window of the parilla.
Horses at the corner grocery store.
Bus station dogs. It was very cold overnight so they slept indoors. Lots of street dogs in Chile!
We spent the next day seeing the glacier. It's about a 90-minute ride out of town, gorgeous scenery along the way, several lakes and the always-magnificent Patagonian sky. At the glacier they've built a very impressive series of walkways, similar to the fantastic walkways at Iguazu Falls. I appreciate the pride they take in their scenic wonders and the way they make them accessible to everyone - there was even an outdoor elevator for people in wheelchairs or who have trouble doing a lot of stairs. A nice visitors center with a pretty good restaurant. Also an opportunity to have a drink with glacier ice cubes - we didn't partake, though:
Perito Moreno Glacier is the largest of several glaciers in Patagonia's Glaciers National Park, and it's one of only three glaciers globally that renews itself annually, mostly from snowfall.
Some photos and videos taken by Abram and me:
The following day we flew back to Buenos Aires from El Calafate exactly seven months after arriving in BA last April 13th. There were many more amazing sights to see in Patagonia but they will have to wait until next time!
Gauchos at the airport.
In the past seven months we've covered most of the Southern Cone (map below), except central/northern Argentina and Paraguay.
We have about seven more months to travel. My top memories of the first half of the trip: Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Uruguay horses, Buzios beach hotel, Rodo de Samba on the street in Rio, Iguazu Falls, Valparaiso hills and lively musical buses, the smoking volcano outside Pucón, the Navimag ferry, the Perito Moreno glacier, King penguins, and last but not least, Buenos Aires!
We've now had the chance to experience Buenos Aires in fall, winter and spring. We've stayed in four barrios: Recoleta, Palermo, Chacarita and this time, Belgrano. The other night walking home from dinner we saw people tangoing in the park, just a few locals enjoying themselves. The jacaranda trees are starting to bloom; soon the larger boulevards will be a sea of purple:
As a French Canadian woman we met in a bar in Puerto Natales said, "Ahh, Buenos Aires - an irresistable combination of Europe and Latin America".
A few random pics:
"40 years of peace and democracy" says the poster above, referring to the 40 years since 1983 when the military dictatorship came to an end. We were in Buenons Aires for the run-off Presidential election which was won, sadly, by the Trump/Bolsanero-loving chainsaw-toting Milei. A wise and pithy comment in this Buenos Aires Times article by a 16-year-old first-time voter:
We could hear noise in the streets from our balcony Sunday evening after Massa conceded:
Abram went out to see how the mood was, and went to the park near our Belgrano apartment where there's a tango milonga in the gazebo 6 nights a week during the warm weather:
This was the last dance of the evening and he said they all seemed sad and subdued as they left the dance, not the usual chatty upbeat vibe. There was a group of drag queens on a nearby bench, watching and sometimes dramatically dancing, one of whom spoke excellent English and said it's a total disaster that Milei won, that they're all terribly depressed and afraid. We can certainly relate. We've come to love Argentina - and Argentinians - after spending a total of 4 months here, and hope/wish for a good future for them.
A fun band on the street near San Telmo this afternoon:
Adios, Buenos Aires - and now we head northwest to Peru!
All amazing adventures. It's wonderful you are blogging. I'm excited for Peru!!
This is great - thanks so much for sharing the details and photos from your adventures. Among the beautiful landscape, The pastries also look amazing!
WOW 🤩
What a great trip/adventure, and it continues! Fabulous!
Fantastic Val.