Our Travel Stories

Our ride to Punta Arenas was early in the morning. It was a beautiful clear day and the towers were breathtakingly beautiful with dawn rays turning them golden. What a beautiful send off from Patagonia!

On our flight to Santiago we happened to sit on the right side of the plane and with the clear day we were rewarded with amazing views of Patagonian landscape. It was amazing to see the landmarks we had visited from bird’s eye view.

Bye, bye Patagonia till we meet again.

Mayuresh

With our goal to complete W trek, we shifted to east side of the trek. Grey glacier is another point on the W trek, and on the other side of the Towers. This is a massive 28km long glacier that is part of the southern Patagonia icefield. This is the furthest away from EcoCamp. This trek though it is an easy 2 km walk, reaching there took almost 2 hours of bus ride.

This gave us a chance to see many guanacos again.

Since the road goes to a different part of the park, we got to see different views of the mountains.

The bus ride took us along Lake Nordenskold and Lake Pehoe, and one of the famous old hotel on one of the lakes. The hotel is so beautifully located, we took many pictures here. The water was so clear that I was able to see the trout from about 150ft away.

You can easily see the color difference in the two lakes. One has glacial silt while the other does not.

We saw very rarely seen American kestrel on the way again.

We reached Grey lake and after 2 km walk boarded the catamaran. The boat ride was comfortable and we saw all the three sections of the Grey Glacier. The blue colors were vivid.

Onboard the catamaran, we shared maté with expedition team and introduced them to our Indian snacks.

We had to then retrace all our steps back and had couple of stops on the way back. The first stop was just a restroom stop but we happened to see one of the rarest birds in Patagonia.

The final stop was to see this gorgeous waterfall.

We got back to our Camp just in time for dinner.

We chose an easy hike for our second at Patagonia to give us some break. The alternative was to go to the French valley which is another leg of the W trek. This hike went through a different part of Torres del Paine National Park that is not as visited as the W trek and has more opportunity to see wildlife as well as the Petroglyphs left behind by the Aonikenk people.

Today our guide was Nico and he was also a very good guide. We started with a stop at the beautiful lake we had stopped at as we were coming to Torres del Paine. The water was so still that we could see a clear reflection of the mountains. Unfortunately, the towers were covered with low clouds. We were glad we were not doing the Towers base hike today.

This hike was all about wildlife and we saw many small and big birds. Some of them were quite rare. This hike was in the puma territory and saw many puma trackers at the beginning of the trail. That made us aware of the seriousness of our hike. Didn’t now whether to see one or not on our hike 😊

The hike itself was very easy with hardly any ups and downs. So, it was nice to walk looking at the scenery and spotting any wildlife around.

The petroglyphs were very few as the initial findings were not protected as well as they should have.

The area around the petroglyphs was very pretty with a lake down below the cliffs where the petroglyphs were. The rocks also were all cobbly and pretty.

After visiting the petroglyph, we walked through some meadows and came across this beautiful Vari bird. It is pretty rare to see one. The bird gave us many opportunities to photograph. We had to choose a couple from the dozens of pictures we took.

We also came across so many guanacos in many beautiful settings. Again, choosing a couple of pictures was so hard.

And then we came across a flamingo too.

On our hike we came across burnt trees from a fire that was started by a tourist in 2011/2012 that destroyed 125 square kms. The land is recovering and we could see the new growth that is coming up now.

The hike took us to an overlook that looked over the valley and from there it was all the way down.

On this hike we also got to see interactions of the wildlife and this one captured below was an interesting tableau.

The last highlight of our hike was this multi-step Paine waterfall with glacial waters. This view should show the three towers, but this day they were obscured by low clouds. But the waterfalls themselves were pretty, and we spent some time here soaking in the beauty.

That was it for this day. A relaxing day in a beautiful place in a quiet corner of the National park.

At the end of the day, Mayuresh was able to touch the Paine river and was very happy.

We seriously considered getting a private guide for our hike as we felt we were pushed to walk faster than we were comfortable with and it overall made the hikes harder. But the EcoCamp team promised that their guides are well trained and will make sure we get to walk at our pace.

Our guide was Rodrigo and we had another couple with us, Michael and Christina. The day started with very clear view of the towers with high clouds giving some shade but keeping the views clear. Couldn’t have asked for a better day for this hike. Weather gods were still smiling at us. It was a spectacular dawn.

The Towers base hike starts with a steep climb, followed by undulating terrain and then the final steepest climb.

It is a beautiful hike and though it was steep we took our time and enjoyed it.

After the steep climb up, we were suddenly at the towers. This was the place we wanted to come to and it was as magical as we hoped.

A few mandatory photos 😀

After lunch here, it was time to head back.

After completing our adventures in Argentina Patagonia, finally we started our trip to Chile. Our driver/guide was Daniel from El Calafate. He said that he only drives from Argentina to Chile and this is an everyday trip for him

We started at 8.30am. He gave details of trip including for immigration procedures for exiting Argentina and for entering Chile. With trip of about 4.5 hours, we took few rest stops, and few more stops for wildlife (ostrich primarily) and beautiful landscape.

We also got a good idea of big ranches/estancias and the cattle and sheep raising on the estancias, on this trip.

We stopped at this popular spot that gives all travelers coming from north their first view of Towers, but they were mostly obscured for us.

But the lake and the views were beautiful.

We also saw a lone flamingo in the waters

And a guanacho

We finally reached EcoCamp at 2pm. Although the lunch hours were over, they welcomed us with a big smile and helped us in providing late lunch.

We got the first glimpse of the iconic towers from our EcoCamp and our comfortable suite. at the same time, we entered in the forced digital detox zone of EcoCamp.

One more day of itinerary that was planned for us, but this was a winner.

We got picked up by our guide Daniel from the hotel and he drove us to a remote corner of Argentine Lake.

We got on a catamaran and had a scenic ride for about 45 minutes to the other end of the lake.

Once there we hiked 1 mile to Lake Frías. Hike was not bad at all and had elevation gain of close to 100m.

At the lake we took a zodiac to get to the other end. About 15 minute drive.

Then another 2.5 mile hike to get to our destination.

On the way we also came across Calafate bush with some berries. This was not the season for them, so we were lucky to find them.

Also we came across a fossil.

We walked through land carved by glaciers.

Finally we reached a natural amphitheater created by glaciers Frías, Cubo and Dickson.

We had lunch at this beautiful spot.

We did get a little rain and the atmosphere was misty.

After our lunch, we retraced all our steps back.

We all got a toast of 10 year whiskey with 300 year old glacial ice.

Overall a wonderful day with only our guide and our group of 12 hikers. It was wonderful to get a way from all crowds and an easy hike.

Visiting this glacier was the main reason we included El Calafate and Los Glaciers National Park in our itinerary. So, my anticipation was high. This was the place I hoped to see glacial calving and potentially capture it for posterity. I will admit that though the glacier is impressive, by now, we have seen many. We have also seen some partial calvings in Antarctica and the one on our way to Los Tres. But for none of them I had any photographic capture.

It is a long drive to Perito Moreno, but quite scenic. We also saw ostriches on the way, but they were very far away, even for my telephoto lens.

At Perito Merino glacier, there are many walkways that they call balconies to view the glacier. We explored a few of them for different views. We again saw some partial calvings but unfortunately couldn’t capture anything in photo or video.

After walking the balconies, we took a boat ride that took us close to the east face of the glacier.

The boat ride started with a bang with multiple calvings. mission accomplished and I was thrilled.

There were also some pretty icebergs here and beautiful scenery. After the calvings, we just relaxed and soaked in the beauty.

Mayuresh

We had this hike scheduled immediately the next day after our demanding hike to Laguna de Los Tres. With our tired bodies, we started the hike at 8.30am. Most of the group warmed up for the hike soon but it took an hour for me to catch up the speed with the group.

On the way, we came across a rock that was split in two.

We reached the first view point of the glaciers- mirador del torre point in an hour. The clouds were still gathering and the glacier view was obscured.

Took a snack break and then headed further into hike. Now most of the terrain was small upd and downs (Patagonian flats). We hiked for another hour and took another break.

With just another 4kms of hike left, I mentioned to our guide that we wanted to ensure that we will make back to catch our ride to El Calafate at 5pm. Lucas was surprised that we had that on the schedule and recommended that we don’t continue our hike any further. So Shraddha and I started our return hike. We were little bummed though! We would hike almost 8 miles and 2000 ft elevation gain without getting to the ultimate goal of seeing the Torres lagoon.

Return trip was relatively easy and we saw canyon and beautiful fall colors in the valley.

Reached our hotel at 2.30pm, took shower and relaxed until 5pm for our pickup.

We reached El Calafate at 8pm and after check in, went for early bedtime. Next day plan was visit to Perito Moreno Glacier.

We started our visit to Patagonia with a bang. The Laguna Los tres is a 14 mile hike with elevation gain of close to 3500 feet – this is one of the difficult hikes in Patagonia, if not the most difficult. After minimal to no exercise on the 34 day cruise, this felt daunting. But, we pushed through and did it.

This was a group hike with our guide Lucas and one more couple from England.

We started at Rio Eléctrico. Mountain peaks were covered with clouds and we kept our fingers crossed that we will see Mt Fitz Roy today.

It was pretty hike with good views throughout. The hike started with uphill climb of about 1000ft and then settled into undulating trail with constant ups and downs.

Clouds still covered the tall mountains, but we started seeing clear sky’s in patches and the sun broke through.

Eventually we got to a spot where we could see the hanging glacier. It was so pretty that we stopped there for a while. As we watched the glacier, there was a loud thunder and a portion broke off and created an avalanche. I tried taking a video but as happens always, Murphy’s law struck and my phone froze. Oh well, I am glad I saw it though.

We crossed a small bridge here that allows only two people at a time

The climb started soon after and it was brutal. The footing was bad, climb was steep (1200 ft in 1.3 km), and we were out of shape.

The views are amazing and the glacier lagoon makes for a pretty picture.

I hiked down to the lake and the smoky plume was gone too

After our lunch we headed back.

Coming down was harder for me. The footing was terrible and I saw few people fall. With my terrible balance, I was sure I would do the same. I climbed down so slowly that Lucas, our guide, asked me why I can’t walk down normally like going for a stroll!! Ha Ha!

A hard hike, but we did it. At the trailhead we decided we were done and took a taxi back to the hotel instead of walking the 15 minutes it would have taken us.

That was it for us and we took shower and went for a well deserved meal.

We had survived. Could we walk another 12 miles the next day?

So finally after the epic expedition voyage until the Antarctic Peninsula, we started last leg of voyage into dreaded Drake Passage towards Ushuaia. Two days at sea and arrival in Ushuaia on third day’s morning.

Drake has history of rough weather and winds leading to almost 40-45ft tall waves. But weather gods continued to be good to us and we really entered into Drake Lake with waves barely 8ft tall.

We had wonderful sunrises and sunsets. The final presentation from expedition lead summarized our epic (over-used but true adjective here) voyage. Other passengers also chimed in to their favorite memories for each expedition outing.

The awards were presented for best team for logging the most miles walked, and our team did not win. Also in the photo competition, Shraddha’s photo was selected for final award but failed to win the award.

Last day before disembarking, we shared contact details with many friends. Such a memorable experience and we are going to miss the friends and camaraderie.

We got off the ship at 8am, and dropped our luggage into storage for late afternoon flight. In the meantime, we visited shoreline, some wildlife and local vegan food.

There was lot of birdlife at the marine preserve.

I got my hair cut snd felt lighter by 2kgs 😊

In the evening we took flight to El Calafate and then a ride to El Chalten.

The focus shifted from Antarctica to Argentina Patagonia now.