On the Road in Patagonia - Part 1

“Hey, you wanna go to Patagonia?”

That’s how the trip fell into my lap: out of the blue, during a phone conversation. The person inviting me was Denise, wife of my long-time pal Kevin Feldman. These two are regular globetrotters. Stick a pin anywhere on the map and chances are they’ve been there. Except to Patagonia—which, according to Denise, had been on Kev’s bucket list for quite some time. He had already nailed down tentative dates and lodging for most of it.

Patagonia. The mysterious land of giants and desperados, wind-swept pampas and jagged peaks at the bottom of the South American continent. What was there not to like? But still… Terry wouldn’t be able to take time off in the middle of the school year, and I had concerns about being the third wheel on a bicycle if I went solo. In fact, I was still on the fence when I called Denise a month later to get her honest feelings about me tagging along—because if I went, she’d have to tolerate TWO smart alecks on her vacation.   

“Yes, come,” she pleaded. “Kevin needs a playmate.”

Fantástico! I threw my gaucho hat into the ring. Kevin had already secured most of the lodging by then, and he wrapped it up once I was on board. We finalized the itinerary: sixteen days on the ground, split between Chile and Argentina. For my part, I rented us an SUV that could get us around, no matter how bumpy the road. We bought our plane tickets to Punta Arenas. We were set. Departure day was January 6th—which seemed a good way to kick off the new year. 

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THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
None of us had slept much the past thirty hours, but upon landing in Punta Arenas, Chile, we were somehow re-energized. The city hugs a sweep of land on the Strait of Magellan, colorful rooftops under cloudy skies, the smell of the sea and imminent rain. After settling into our snug but comfortable two-bedroom apartment, we strolled downtown to find a place for dinner.

Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas

Punta Arenas, with a population of 127,000, sits astride the 53rd Parallel south of the equator, coming in just behind Ushuaia and Rio Grande in Argentina as the southern-most city on the planet (though Punta Arenas is much larger than those two towns combined). It got its start as a shipping resupply outpost in the 1840s, and then as a penal colony—though that didn’t fare well: the prisoners revolted and burned down most of the town. But by the early 20th century, wool was king in Patagonia, with four thousand square miles dedicated to sheep ranching, and the city prospered as its financial hub. And as we walked down the avenues of the civic center, this became evident by the lavish buildings that are now at least a century old.

Downtown Punta Arenas

Sara Braun Palace

One of those buildings is the Sara Braun Palace, a national historical gem that is now an elegant hotel. Designed by a French architect, the opulent mansion was completed in 1905 and reflects the golden age of the Braun-Menendez business empire. We stepped inside, and it is here where Kevin found what he was looking for: the Shackleton Bar (as I would soon learn, Kev had a knack for finding the best tavern or brewery in any town). A round of drinks was ordered. I tried the Austral stout, which is brewed right here in town.

As we chatted over beer, I took in the luxuriant charm of the room. The walls were adorned with old photographs and memorabilia of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions, all of which recall an epic saga. The polar explorer’s bid to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent in 1915 was quickly dashed when his ship, the HMS Endurance, became trapped in sea ice and eventually sank. Stranded for nineteen months, they struggled to survive and rescue themselves. But in the end, it was a Chilean navy sea-going tug, commanded by a very brave Captain Luis Pardo out of Punta Arenas, that steamed eight hundred miles into the dead of winter to rescue the crew.

Shackleton Bar

HMS Endurance

Fernando Magellan in Plaza Armas

It was nine o’clock when we left the bar to find a place for dinner. January is the height of summer down here, so it was still daytime outside; wouldn’t be dark for another two hours. We crossed the street and entered the Plaza Armas, an entire city block of manicured lawn and big trees. In the center of the plaza was a giant bronze statue of Fernando Magellan. He was gazing out towards the sea passage that bears his name—or possibly gesturing towards a good restaurant? We found a bistro four blocks away called La Luna. Inside, attached to the vaulted ceiling, was a table for two, all of it hanging upside down, complete with table settings and a bottle of wine. Trippy. My kind of place. And the food was first-rate, too.

Back at the apartment, Denise broke out a bottle of superb whiskey that she had packed along. It was almost midnight, but hey… We toasted the journey and the sixteen days that lay ahead. Then we spread the maps across the kitchen table and charted our plans at the edge of the world.

La Luna Restaurant

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DAY ONE
On the coast just outside of Punta Arenas stands a large but modest two-story house. It’s painted a deep, burgundy red with white trim and faces onto the Strait of Magellan, affording an ideal place to watch the sunrise across the water when the weather is fair. This is the home of Juan Luis Mattassi. I had come across his name over a year ago while researching the Magellan Expedition. His is a fascinating story, and once I had signed on to the Feldman’s Patagonia Adventure, I convinced them he was a “must meet” for the trip.

Juan Luis grew up in Punta Arenas in the 1970s, where exploration of untamed country found its way into his blood. He went on to pursue an agriculture degree in Santiago—a career agreement he had made with his parents—but was instead smitten by the call of the Andes, tramping its trails and bagging peaks. He soon changed his major to cartography, and after college, started his own company, publishing trekking maps to the Chilean-Argentine Andes. Business was good. But nine years ago, he came up with another idea: building ships. Not just any ship, but full-scale replicas of famous vessels pertinent to the history of Punta Arenas.

With Juan Luis Mattassi and his daughter Itala. Victoria in background.

We dropped by Juan Luis’ home in the morning—which was easy to find due to all the sail masts pointing into the sky. At the front of his property is the Nao Victoria Museo, and when we entered the lobby to pay our entrance fee ($6 US), I bumped into none other than Juan Luis! We shook hands, and when we stepped back outside together, I began to pepper him with questions about the full-size replica of the Victoria that he had built. The original, built around 1518, was the only ship in Ferdinand Magellan’s armada to complete the first circumnavigation of the globe. And though the original was lost at sea soon after its historic voyage, Juan Luis’ replica stands behind his house, seventy feet tall from keel to top of main mast, sixty-seven feet long, and twenty-one feet wide at the waist deck. Extensive research had been done before drawing up the plans. Then it took him and two shipwright assistants eighteen months to build. And though he did receive an endowment from the Chilean presidential office, most of the project’s cost came out of his own pocket or through private donations. It was sort of like the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams: Build it and they will come.

We climbed aboard and wandered about, envisioning what it would be like to sail the high seas in a 16th-century Spanish carrack. Juan Luis’ meticulous attention to detail certainly added to the experience. It was November of 1520 when Magellan led his armada past the shoreline here and into the Pacific Ocean. He had no charts or maps. Many in his crew feared they would fall off the edge of the world. To them, a venture to circumnavigate the globe was an audacious, hypothetical prospect. In the end, most of the crew perished, four of the five vessels didn’t complete the journey, and Magellan was killed in the Philippines. But the Victoria pulled it off, returning to Seville with a hold full of spices from the Malaccas. 

“RATS!” Denise cried out the alarm from the lower deck.

Turned out, it was just a litter of scampering black kittens. I was almost disappointed. It would’ve been sheer genius for Juan Luis to add rats as a finishing touch.

Main deck of the Victoria.

Cap'n Kev in his quarters on the Victoria.

While the Victoria has become the namesake of Juan Luis’ museum of ships, his latest project, the HMS Beagle, is even more ambitious. This is the British survey brig that launched careers and fame for Captain FitzRoy and Charles Darwin, and Juan Luis used the original 1817 working drawings to build it. There are two other replica vessels on the site—the James Caird and the Ancud—and though these are smaller, their significance to maritime history of Punta Arenas is of no less import. The James Caird is the longboat from the doomed HMS Endurance that Shackelton used for his harrowing, 800-mile escape to find help. The Ancud is the Chilean schooner that brought the first settlers here in 1843 to claim Chile’s sovereignty to the Strait of Magellan.

HMS Beagle.

Main deck of HMS Beagle.

HMS Beagle

Most of the early settlers who came to Punta Arenas were European immigrants (Juan Luis’ ancestors came here from Italy), and this became evident at our next stop, which was the municipal cemetery. Walking among the stately tombs and mausoleums, the surnames on the plaques told the story. Many were Croatian; Russian; Slavic; Italian… Even today, half the city’s population has Croatian blood somewhere in their family tree. The mausoleums of the prominent Braun and Menéndez families were especially elegant. It’s easy to see why the cemetery is considered one of the most beautiful in the world.

Punta Arenas cemetery.

By late afternoon we were skimming across the Magellan Strait in a sleek motor launch with twenty-four other passengers who had come to see penguins. The sky was overcast. The sea was calm. Dolphins jumped in our wake. Our destination was Magdalena Island, a forty-minute cruise, and along the way, our tour guide, Jonathan, shared stories and facts on just about everything out here at sea. He spoke fluent English and was a lad worthy of note. He came from the coastal town of Valvidia in central Chile, and made a living as an eco-tour guide and marine biologist, and dabbled in nature photography as well. 

We were in the middle of the Strait when Magdalena Island came into view dead ahead. The entire 240-acre isle is a national preserve for Magellanic penguins, to which Jonathan told us, equates to a colony of 120,000 birds, or 60,000 breeding pairs. Yep, in the penguin kingdom, mates stay together for life, through thick and thin. That’s the way they roll—or should I say waddle? They were swift and graceful in the water, but walked like drunken sailors the instant they jumped ashore.

Kevin with our guide, Jonathan.

Penguins on Magdalena Island.

The Magellanic  penguin is also known as the jackass penguin, and after you hear them sound their mating call, you know why. We went ashore and were soon surrounded by thousands of them, all cackling and hee-hawing. They make their nests in holes in the ground, and return to the same hole every year to hatch and raise their young. Every year. The same hole in the ground. And somehow they find it without Google Maps.

Mates for life.

Penguin chicks.

Seagull and chicks.

After gamboling with penguins for an hour, we boarded the launch again and motored five miles to Marta Island, where a colony of Patagonia sea lions lounged on a stony beach. The creatures were enormous, the males up to nine feet long and weighing 800 pounds. Since the seas were calm (a rarity here), Jonathan had the pilot idle in close to shore so we could clamber out onto the roof of the launch and take photos. It seemed a lasting moment, nothing around for miles but sea and sky, a rocky beach and croaking sea lions.

Sea Lions on Marta Island.

On the return to Punta Arenas, the pilot’s assistant brewed up some hot chocolate spiked with a little brandy (at least mine was spiked). It made for a warming end to Day 1 of our trip, for we had covered a lot of ground. Now if we could only keep up the pace.

Spiked hot cocoa, or non-spiked?

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INTO THE WILD
The next day we practiced our “On the Road” routine. Kevin got behind the wheel, plugged his iPhone into the car stereo and queued up some music (mandatory). I navigated and kept us out of trouble. Denise made herself at home in the back seat, feeding us snacks when we harped of being hungry. We had left Punta Arenas first thing in the morning, northbound up Route 9, in and out of rain showers. There was not another town or service station for 150 miles, only sheep, cattle, and rolling grasslands bursting with wildflowers. This was the country I’d read about, right from the pages of Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia. So in that respect, the road trip had officially commenced.

Into the rain on Route 9.

We reached Puerto Natales around one o’clock, and after gassing up, sought out a place to grab lunch. It’s a small town, but thrives as the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park, fifty miles further up the highway. There were backpackers everywhere downtown, mostly young people, scarfing down meals in restaurants; browsing in outfitting shops; buying food in the markets. This is the staging ground for trekkers heading into the Park, where trekking is immensely popular.

Lunch at a hostel/cafe called Wild in Puerto Natales.

After lunch, we located Erratic Rock, a mountaineering/trekking store that hosts a one-hour seminar every afternoon at three o’clock. Needless to say, a lot of people were thinking the same thing—the shop was packed, standing room only. At three sharp, a staff member named Cristobal opened the seminar by sharing logistics and strategies for trekking in Torres del Paine. Permits were required; reservations were needed for backcountry refugios and camps. He advised to be prepared to hike in the rain and strong winds, as both are typical in the Patagonian Andes in the summer. The most popular trail link-up is called the “W Circuit”: forty-seven miles total and usually done in five days. Then there’s the “Full Circuit”, which is the “W” plus a complete swing around the backside of the Park, adding another three days to the trip. Kevin and I wouldn’t be spending any nights in the backcountry, so we didn’t need a permit. Our objective was to day-hike the choice segments of the “W” and sleep in our hotel beds at night.

Lastly, Cristobal gave a rundown on Park rules and regulations, the most important one being NO FIRES. Backpacking stoves were okay, but absolutely no campfires. Period. This strict edict began a few years ago after a backpacker made a fire to burn his used TP (which is supposed to be packed out). A strong gust of wind flung the burning TP into the grass, and faster than a backpacker can say “Oh shit”, half the hillside was ablaze. It took nine days to put out, charring over 40,000 acres in the process.

“The Park rangers take the regulations very seriously,” Cristobal stressed, warning that any tourist caught violating them risked being escorted to the Puerto Natales airport and kicked out of Chile.

Alrighty then. Duly noted.

Cristobal walks us through the W Circuit. 

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DETOUR

John Lennon once sang “There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.” You may not have planned on it. You may have been diverted there by unforeseen circumstances. But there you are. In fact, knowing too much about what lies around the corner is not always a good thing. 

We had reached the Torres del Paine turnoff north of Puerto Natales only to find the road closed. More precisely, the dirt road to the Park had been ripped up to make way for a spiffy paved one. In the meantime, that meant a thirty-mile detour for us, following Route 9 further north, and then doubling back along ranchero backroads. Kevin was driving. I was navigating. We had this. (Because there sure as hell weren’t any detour signs on the road to guide us.) Hence we drove further up Route 9, carving our way into verdant hill country. Denise was napping in the back seat. I was peering out the passenger window, engrossed in the passing scenery, for the rainy morning had turned into a resplendent but breezy afternoon of sun and puffy clouds, all so wonderful... And then Kev hit the brakes.

We had been entering a blind curve when a man appeared in the middle of the road up ahead, frantically waving his arms, and as we slowed and came around the bend, we could see why: There had been an accident. Two vehicles, an SUV and a pickup truck, lay on opposite sides of the highway, smashed to pieces—and it had just happened. 

Kevin pulled over and I jumped out and ran over to see how bad it was. It was beyond bad. A head-on collision. There were five bodies strewn across the road, ejected on impact because they weren’t wearing seat belts, or possibly some may have been riding in the back of the pickup. Another four victims were walking around in a daze, cut up and bloodied. And on top of that, we were in the hills, eighteen miles from Puerto Natales, with no cell reception to call for help. 

As more cars stopped and people rushed in, I lost all sense of time passing. The first injured person I reached was laying near the wrecked pickup, a middle-aged woman with a ghastly head wound and compound fracture of the left femur. A man was kneeling over her, sobbing and shouting in Spanish. He had a nasty head wound himself, but I couldn’t get him to back away. Finally some folks stepped in that spoke Spanish and persuaded him to back off and allow us to help the woman. Weak pulse. Possible skull fracture. I was in way over my head. I moved on to the other four injured in the road. Miraculously all of them were still alive, but seriously hurt. 

The scene. (photo obtained by Punta Arenas news station.)

The last one I checked in on was a young man who had been catapulted a hundred feet from the impact point. He was lying on his back, shivering uncontrollably and going into shock. There was a young German couple with him who had stopped to help, and lucky for me, they spoke English. The woman was cradling his head, while her boyfriend propped his legs up. From a backpack lying in the road, I retrieved a sleeping bag which we swaddled around him the best we could. As I examined the lad, I asked him if he spoke English and he nodded. I then asked questions just to keep him talking and alert. His name was Federico. He was from Buenos Aires, where he went to college. He had been hitching a ride to Torres del Paine to go backpacking when the accident occurred.  

“I don’t want to die,” he said to me, his voice shaking. I assured him that everything would be fine, hang in there. I then asked the German couple if they could stay with him and keep him talking, don't let him drift off. They looked as frightened as Federico, but accepted the task.  

By now a tour bus had pulled over and the driver had radioed out for help. Also, two dozen people were caring for the injured by now. I returned to the lady with the broken femur, where a Chilean guy had taken charge. He was good (EMT training?). Under his direction, a group of us braced the lady in a way to relieve pressure on her broken femur and to keep her airway open. When the ambulances arrived, the Chilean guy flagged one over to take the lady first, as she was clearly in the worst shape. Then we stepped back and let the paramedics take over. 

I went back over to see the Argentine lad next, where a paramedic was in the process of examining him. Color was returning to his face and he managed a feeble smile. The German couple was standing nearby and I thanked them for staying with him. Then I walked back to our car, jumped in, and off we went. For me, what had seemed like a short but intense flurry of action had actually taken thirty minutes. Now I was rolling down the highway again like nothing was amiss—only the hills looked greener and the sky was bluer. A condor circled high overhead. Had it been there all along?    

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TORRES DEL PAINE
I was awakened by the sounds of cows mooing in my hotel room. Was I dreaming? Half asleep, I looked around. No cows. Then I heard another moo, and this time I was able to identify the source. It was coming from outside my second-floor window, which I had left open. It was 4:30 in the morning and the sun was rising—which is why the cows were mooing—and shuffling to the window, I saw a couple of bovines directly below my room. I also saw one of the most incredible sunrises of my life, soft pink light cast upon serrated peaks. I grabbed my camera and took some photos of it. Then I fell back into bed and slept another two hours.

Torres del Paine cordillera from my hotel window.

Hotel Rio Serrano.

The Hotel Rio Serrano sits on a bend of the Serrano River and boasts an extraordinary view of the peaks and spires of the Torres del Paine cordillera. It was late when we had checked in yesterday, after a long drive delayed even longer by a detour and an auto accident. Horses were grazing on the lawn in front of the lodge’s dining room when I went down to meet Kevin and Denise for breakfast. We had already decided that our first day here would be an easy one. Torres del Paine is the flagship of Chile’s national parks, its remoteness and pristine beauty unmatched. The name comes from two cultures and languages. Torres is Spanish for "towers", and Paine—pronounced PIE-nay—is the indigenous Tehuelche word for "blue". So in plain English, it would be Blue Towers National Park.

Our first hike of the day was out to the Lake Nordenskjöld overlook, the trailhead of which lay at the terminus of a long, dusty road. The two-mile trail took us past Salto Grande, a picturesque falls where Lake Nordenskjöld  spills into Lake Pehoe. Guanacos grazed nearby, paying us no mind. As we would soon learn, these critters are everywhere—and serve as the main dish for hungry pumas. Out at the Nordenskjöld overlook, the views became even more spectacular, the lake seeming to change from milky green to milky blue, depending on how the sun and clouds played on the water. Across the lake, Cerro Paine Grande and the Horns rose up to crowd the sky, their summits topping 9,000 feet in elevation. That’s not an exceptionally high altitude. But the fact that the lake was close to sea level shed light on the scope of things. These mountains were gigantic. 

Salto Grande

Guanacos

Lake Nordenskjöld overlook.

In the afternoon, we drove over to the Hotel Lago Grey at the west end of the Park and ordered drinks in the lounge. Since there are no towns anywhere near the Park, the handful of hotels operating inside its boundaries serve as watering holes for visitors. Denise talked me into trying a Pisco sour, which is the national cocktail of both Chile and Peru (in the future I’ll be sticking to my whiskey, served neat with a water back). Libations aside, the view out the giant windows onto Grey Lake was gorgeous—so gorgeous that we braved a blustery wind sweeping down from a glacier to tromp far out to a rocky point that overlooked the lake. Viewing this panoramic, alpine tableau from a cozy lodge was a far cry from being altogether in the naked elements with the wind in your face. Out on that rocky point, you were alive.

Crossing the Avutardos River near Hotel Lago Grey

Over dinner, back at Hotel Rio Serrano, we rejoiced our day and made plans for the morrow. Denise was planning to relax and read while Kevin and I tackled one of the “big hikes” we had scoped out: the Valle Francés. It was a segment of the W Circuit; sixteen miles round trip. Because that’s why we were here: to pound up and down trails. We were as stoked as kids, and couldn’t wait to get back to our rooms and start packing.

As we were leaving the dining room, the hotel manager stopped us in the lobby to inform us that yesterday’s car accident had made the news—and that one of the injured had died at the hospital. From the computer at the front desk, he brought up the article in the Punta Arenas online newspaper, and there it was: “A 55-year-old woman succumbed to her injuries…”

It was like somebody had pulled the plug and everything went dark. I knew it was the lady with the skull fracture and broken femur. And the bloodied man kneeling over her when I first arrived was probably her husband. The article also disclosed the cause of the accident—a jackrabbit. It had darted across the highway and one of the vehicles had swerved to avoid hitting it, lost control, and veered into oncoming traffic. A jackrabbit.

It could happen to anyone. One minute you’re having a fabulous day, the next minute…

Back in my room, I was intending to call my wife, but a weak signal thwarted that idea. So I sent her a text message instead, telling her that I loved her. Because you know another jackrabbit is out there somewhere.

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