The land of fire
At the end of the world, as they call it, you can find the national park Tierra del Fuego, land of fire. I’m not sure where the name comes from, but there are signs everywhere saying you can’t make a fire. Fire has devastated much of Patagonia’s national parks and…
Veni, vidi, Vinciguerra
One evening I’m sipping tea and see a familiar face arrive at the hostel. Judith had made it to Ushuaia and I told her about my plan to hike to the Vinciguerra glacier. The next day we hopped into an Uber to the trail head together. Our enthusiastic taxi driver…
Defeating self doubt in laguna del Caminante
After lots of doubts I now stood at the start of the walk to laguna del Caminante. The trail head was only 5 km away from my hostel and I would walk all the way around the side of Ushuaia through the mountains, with an overnight stay at the lagoon.…
The first days in Argentina
I arrived in Ushuaia, my first destination in Argentina, after an 11 hour bus ride on Christmas day. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling great, so I spent my first 2 days keeping it easy. But on day 3 the weather was nice and I got tired of just staring towards the…
W-trek: glacier Grey
It had rained a loooot overnight and it kept going in the morning. I thought it was dry, went to brush my teeth, only to find out it was raining again when I left the toilet building. Waiting didn’t make sense. I had to pack up camp in the rain.…
W trek: day of the miradors
At 6am I was awake and feeling good. I’d gone to sleep early and felt great, so I decided to pack up and take my backpack down to the lower part of the campground. I brushed my teeth, added water to my mix of milk powder and oats and, after…
W-trek: a surprising day in the valley
It’s popular for people to hike up to the Torres viewpoint to see the sunrise. In December this means you have to start walking around 3am. This didn’t seem appealing to me. I hadn’t had the best view though and as I was talking to people, I started to think…
W-trek, in search of the Torres
It was raining cats and dogs and I lay in bed in Puerto Natales, worrying about my food choices, the potential of mice eating through my tent and the strong gusts of wind. So when I arrived at the bus station for my 7am bus I was far from well-rested.…
El Cañi: a mighty day on a mighty hike
Pucón has many hiking spots, big and small. My first hike there went up in the El Cañi sanctuary. It’s a private park with a lot of endangered araucaria or monkey puzzle trees. I got there with the first micro that left at 8.15am, to have plenty of time today.…
An encounter with Patagonian wildlife
Here I am in Punta Arenas. Almost in the most Southern part of Chile. I arrived by plane and had to go through all the taxi offers. There is no bus or group shuttle, so I found a shared taxi. After dropping off my bag I went for a walk…