Chilean Patagonia Basics: Border crossings, Puerto Natales, and Torres Del Paine National Park

And then we traveled to Chile…

A dark, out-of-the-bus photo of the Argentinean side customs.

Border Crossing from Argentina to Chile

We crossed the Argentina-Chile border at Paso Río Don Guillermo on a Monday afternoon bus with the bus line Zaahj Turismo. This was a cushy, clean bus with a functioning bathroom. We should have been listening to Spanish lessons, but took this time to listen to season one of the Up & Vanished podcast. Anyway, Zaahj is also the only bus line we could find to cross on a Monday, which means the border crossing is far more efficient. Apparently this crossing can take hours if you are the unlucky bus or car behind a row of other buses.

The Argentina outpost is basically a shack on the outskirts of an estancia. Pretty sure we were asking, “Why are we stopping at this ranch?” The exit stamp took less than 15 minutes for a bus of roughly 50. Then we moved on to the Chilean side, which is notoriously strict about bringing in certain items like fruits and vegetables. Basically, you can bring in anything packaged (i.e. our Tanka meat bars passed) but nothing fresh (make sure to throw out all of your apple cores and banana peels too). All of the luggage gets pulled from under the bus and trained dogs sniff around, which was not as stressful as it sounds. Fortunately none of our fellow bus passengers were trying to hide an orange in their luggage or this process would have taken far longer. There is no piece of fruit or unpackaged chocolate that is worth risking trying to sneak in, it will just cause hassle to yourself and everyone else in the customs line.

*Pro-tip: If you are given a seemingly random receipt at customs (anywhere in the world), make sure to keep this receipt in a safe place as you will need it again! Most customs, in my experience, staple this receipt into your passport, but the Chilean customs just handed it to you with no explanation. Fortunately we didn’t throw this out, because it was required at a few hotels (why, I’m not sure) and on exiting the country.

*Pro-tip: If you arrive late to Puerto Natales, everyone else will be trying to get a taxi at the same time. There is a “line” of sorts where the taxis come at the bus station, but if you aren’t assertive, people will skip in front of you. This irritation of the “line”, in combination with a lack of sleep (this is the same day we woke up super early to go to Perito Moreno Glacier) and general impatience, caused me to angrily drop our duffle on the pavement. I forgot about the wine bottle inside and then I had to haul around this wine-leaking bag and later clean up glass shards and other wine-soaked contents inside. I guess the pro-tip here is to expect a wait if you need a taxi, get in the taxi line right away, and don’t drop a bag that contains a wine bottle? Maybe this is just general life advice, which I obviously missed along the way.

Puerto Natales

If you are traveling to Torres Del Paine National Park, you will arrive in the port town of Puerto Natales (and the bus stop isn’t the best introduction). Puerto Natales is a curious combination of fine dining restaurants, run-down residential homes, pricey tourist shops, iconic old docks with some sort of sea bird (bird recognition isn’t our thing) that make for exceptional sunset photography, and graffitied skate parks on the edge of the fjords off the Straight of Magellan. The lodging ranges from downtown hostels to luxury eco suites overlooking the water and while the dining options are delicious, you’ll pay U.S. equivalent prices for your dinner. Despite Puerto Natales being an obvious tourist stop, the town maintains a bit of roughness around the edges and some of the usual gritty charm found in many port towns.

We stayed at Hotel HD Natales on the outskirts of town, which is worth mentioning since we don’t necessarily recommend it. It is a 3 stars kind of place with outdated green carpets, thin walls, and a breakfast of sugary apple cakes and sad looking ham slices. The clientele included a 60s something blonde woman with white pressed trousers demanding “Where are the people who help you?!” in both English & Spanish (I think) and her husband who looked straight out of a cruise ship pamphlet. Pretty sure this place could belong in a crappy travel sitcom or at least an SNL skit. Fortunately, the staff were incredibly kind, bilingual, and helpful despite their insistence on playing lounge music.

Food

The food in Puerto Natales is memorable, with the exclusion of the sad breakfast at our hotel. I would say the highlights are lamb, seafood, ceviche, and Pisco Sours.

La Lenga was hands-down our favorite dinner of our entire South American trip. We went on V-Day (Feb. 14th) so we were treated to a complimentary glass of champagne, sopaipillas (a Chilean staple of fried dough pieces), and little packets of sea salt to take home. Ryan ate a corncake stuffed with veggies, chicken, and lamb. I decided, for the first time in my life, to eat lamb on this trip and this particular braised rack of lamb was dripping in a not-too-sweet chocolate sauce and presented on a mini-grill and required no knife. Ryan was very sad that I ate the entire thing. My gut was quite unimpressed with this rich and meaty decision, but I have no regrets.
Afrigonia was a bit of a surprise with Afro-Chilean cuisine and restaurant theme. Apparently the owners are a couple, one from Zambia and one from Chile. The ceviche was phenomenal and you can’t go wrong with any seafood here judging by our salmon rolls and catch of the day (some kind of flakey white fish) with shrimp and scallops and buttery mustard sauce.
Restaurante el Bote Cerveza Natales is a non-assuming restaurant with pretty mediocre service for the price. That being said, we were perfectly satisfied with lamb chops and some sort of seafood dish.
If you are planning on visiting Torres Del Paine on day trips from Puerto Natales (like we did), then it is best to pick up some groceries at the Supermarcado Unimarc in town for your lunches. Make sure to weigh/sticker your own produce and go EARLY! The check-out lines can go to the back of the store later in the day. We ended up with a wholesome box of chocolate cereal, canned apricots, nuts, bananas, bread, and Nutella. We tried to be healthy, but options were limited and this was hiking food after all. Yes there are food options in the park, but expect to pay top $$ for even the basics.

Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine (aka Torres Del Paine National Park)

Okay. This will be a slightly more refined version of our Trip Advisor review.

The pros: The park is obviously gorgeous with unique mountain peaks, endless and every-color-blue lakes, glaciers coming off the Patagonian ice field, and amusing llama-deer like guanacos. I completely understand why Torres Del Paine is popular with folks around the world and we too were in awe of the 360 degree beauty regardless of rain/shine/wind, zombie hoards of people, tour buses from hell, commercialization, and pricey entrance tickets. I suppose these cons are the same as many National Parks in the U.S., but times 10 on the commercialization factor.

The cons: You might guess from above, the cons include that the park is poorly managed. The privatized hotels, camping, restaurants, etc are just there to collect money. Apparently the rangers went on strike last year due to the park not really caring about environmental protection as much as turning a profit. You can't stay in the park unless you have a high budget and book a year in advance. I know you can get some last minute bookings but you have to be flexible with your budget and results of said booking. Camping is about 80 bucks per night and the reservation system is such a hot mess we decided to skip out on backpacking the famous W trek. The pros of this decision included: No overnight gear required, no $80/night for camping 1 foot away from other tents, no cooking in cook houses whose opening times are dictated by the refugios, no backpacking with 1,000+ of your best new backpacking friends.

We kept saying, "I am SO glad we didn't backpack!" It would have cost more than our 3 day car rental and hotel in Puerto Natales and we would have been resigned to a forced march with little privacy or quiet. We even considered purchasing a round trip catamaran ride to day hike the French Valley which is part of the W trek. It would have cost almost 120 dollars for 2 people. They even charge for small day backpacks. So, yeah, we ended up skipping out on that hike as well which was probably for the best.

*Pro-tip: You probably don’t need a tour. We looked into this option for the backpacking, not because we wanted a guide, but because the booking process for backpacking and/or refugios is such a confusing hassle. Well, long story short, the only tour options come in packages which would have cost more than our entire trip budget.

*Pro tip: Buy tickets to the park online! Apparently the entrance line is sometimes an 1.5 hours long. We just drove in and got to the main entrance before it was staffed. Maybe you are supposed to show your ticket to someone but this was unclear so we never ended up showing our ticket to anyone. I’m sure Ryan had a complex about this as a Park Ranger in the U.S. But, whatever, we paid and the ticket is good for 3 days so we skipped any queues and bureaucracy. Thank you forever to the Australian couple in El Chalten for sharing this tip with us, which made life so much easier.

Driving: Roads in the park are a mixture of gravel and pavement and potholes. We are used to driving on these types of roads so that wasn't an issue for us, but huge buses drive crazy and overtake you so beware. You do not need a 4x4 vehicle, so save yourself the $ if you rent. And if you do rent, reserve a car far in advance as there won’t be any left in high season. We highly recommend Newen Car Rental in Puerto Natales. This was the best rental car experience we’ve ever had anywhere in the world. They were very responsive on whatsapp, gave us a very detailed orientation to the area and the car, and were pretty forgiving when they refunded our deposit even though we picked up a rock chip on the windshield.

And if you do visit Torres Del Paine…

Best Hikes

Mirador Ferrier: This hike is accessed from the Rio Serrano entrance of the park, which is a less busy entrance and area in general. Mirador Ferrier has a 2,000 foot elevation gain in 1.8 miles but entirely worth the view (Mirador means lookout or view) and very few people. You have to sign in and out at the ranger station at the foot of the hike, but this only takes a few minutes and I doubt there will be a line because the elevation gain seems to freak people out. It was so incredibly windy on top that I literally crawled to the overlook. But, that view!

Mirador Condor: Starts across from Camp Pehoe and the trailhead isn’t exactly easy to find, but just wander around the campground and you’ll eventually be on the right track. This hike is super short & simple but easily one of the most gorgeous views of the park that we saw. You can access this hike from either park entrance (Serrano or Amarga entrances), but we combined this with our Mirador Ferrier hike day since both are quite short. Driving back out the Serrano exit looked faster on the map and is less crowded anyway.

Mirador Base Las Torres: This is the iconic Torres Del Paine day hike. We left Puerto Natales at 530am to drive to the base of the towers hike and we were able to see a little of the much-desired orange sunrise tower glow. This drive was also lovely so early because there was no traffic (we passed one single, empty tour bus). This hike is accessed from the Laguna Amarga entrance.

*Pro-tip: Turn right immediately after going through the “gate” (not a physical one) at the ranger station. There is another dirt road that continues straight, but that won’t get you to the base of the Torres hike.

Again, the hikes are listed as times instead of kilometers and elevation. This hike estimates 4 hours one way. We hiked it in 2 hours and 15 minutes but we were HAULING! The actual distance is apparently 11.2 miles round-trip and about 3,000 foot elevation gain although the online info. varies slightly. We started on the trail at 8 am and we practically ran up the first mile to get ahead of the gigantic and slowly moving tour groups. We were trying to slather on sunscreen while sweating and half-jogging uphill but there is nothing worse than getting stuck behind 100 slow hikers. We befriended the one hiker (a woman from Holland that quit her job and was traveling for 6 months) that passed us and that we eventually hiked with to the top and gave her a ride back to Puerto Natales.

We all agreed that the hiking etiquette in Torres Del Paine is strange or doesn't exist and if you are too polite you will never get anywhere. All that being said, at the end of the day, this hike was worth every minute. We were especially impressed with a French couple who made the trek with their 5 young children. We also had the most glorious, warm, not-blowing-you-over-wind kind of day. Like Perito Moreno Glacier, the base of the Torres hike lives up to the hype.

Laguna Sofia: Laguna Sofia is just outside the park (no park fee/no lines/no hassle/no buses) and popular with locals for camping and cookouts according to our observations and info from the Newen Car Rental staff who suggested visiting this lake. Laguna Sofia is only a 30-45 minute drive from Puerto Natales, so much closer than Torres Del Paine. There is an unmarked trail that goes up to an overlook called Cerro Benitez above Laguna Sofia. We actually could not make it to the top of the overlook because even crawling was impossible with the wind gusts, so we ended up on another high point possibly on public land or on the edge of an estancia. The condors are tougher than we are, as they glide into any force of wind. This was a relaxing, ever-changing weather day outside of the park even if the views were not as dramatic in comparison.

Overall, we were glad we did a couple hikes in Torres Del Paine and happy with our decision to stay in Puerto Natales and rent a car. The 2 days in the park were plenty for us, even though we missed many popular sights. All in all, Torres Del Paine is a unique park just like Yellowstone Nat’l Park. Like YNP, you’ll be sharing the experience with huge crowds from around the world and we understand why people visit. Now that we’ve seen the Torres, if we return we will explore northern Chilean Patagonia such as Cerro Castillo National Park. There is so much more of Chilean Patagonia outside of Torres Del Paine!

But just a few more photos to somewhat convey the beauty of this place. We managed to make the park look deserted.

Until next time…Punta Arenas and the not-penguin tour, Santiago, and Valparaiso.