The W--Torres del Paine National Park

We did it. We really did it. We hiked the "W" in Torres del Paine National Park with our children. Almost 16 years ago (and when we only had one kid), I remember lying in a tent on this very same trek and saying to Frank, "I want to bring our kids here someday." And we did it. A real dream come true.

The "W" trail (in yellow) and the "O" trail (in red) in Torres del Paine National Park.

Our 5-day trek started with an early morning walk to the bus station, a bus to Laguna Amarga where we checked in to the park, then another bus to the Welcome Center for Torre Central. We only had to walk about 10 minutes to the camp registration office where we checked in, got our meal tickets, and were able to drop our bags for the day's hike to one of the most famous views in the park, The Towers. We crossed a hanging bridge that we totally remembered from 16 years ago and we were off on our trek by 1000. We hiked about two hours to Refugio Chileno, then about an hour through the woods (my favorite!), then began our final hour's climb to the towers. This is where we got the first big surprise of the trip--SO MANY PEOPLE! With people coming down and people going up, there were several points of stand-still bottlenecks. The wind was whipping for our final 20 minutes of climbing, but we were blessed with clear skies and amazing views! But with so many people clustered around the lake we opted to hang back and enjoy a little solitude on a big rock with a pretty awesome view. I cried! It was so great seeing our kids there and seeing them witness the majesty of Torres del Paine with their own eyes. Our hike back down took just under four hours and we "moved in" to our tents just as hot water was turned on at at the campground. Perfect! And the tents were cozy! We opted for the full gear campsite--tents, pads, and sleeping bags all included. And dinner? Delicious AND there was a bar! I think this was "glamping" rather than camping as we had fabulous weather and slept under a glorious southern sky.

This bridge brought a flood of memories! I remember starting our other trek here!

Entering the park and hiking up the valley along Rio Ascencio.

The famous Mirador de las Torres!

Our first campsite had a wonderful view of the towers!

Our second trekking day was an "easy" day with a five-hour hike to the Cuernos campsite. While short, the trail had plenty of ups and downs to keep it interesting. We arrived at the Cuernos Refugio about an hour before campsite checkin so we ordered some anniversary margaritas and settled in for a family game of Farkle under the Cuernos. It was awesome and I definitely think I remembered this place! Our tents were far from the refugio and the bathrooms, but the campground was small and it all worked out fine. We napped, showered, and relaxed. Dinner was excellent again (both the food and the company of a nice couple from Park City!) and we slept great ahead of our next long day on the trail.

We had great weather and amazing views of Los Cuernos as we hiked past Laguna Inge and along Lago Nordenskjöld for the day.

Thanks to the other Americanos for our pic with Lago Nordenskjöld!

The campsite at Los Cuernos was super fun and cozy (and was a nice place to mark our anniversary!).

We expected the third day to be a challenge and...it was! But it was also amazing and Frank recalled it being his favorite day from our previous visit. We hiked a few hours to the new Camp Italiano, dumped our big bags, and headed for Mirador Frances, location of a very cool Earth Cache with stunning views of Frances Glacer! We heard and saw many ice falls on our way up the valley, and got hit with some strong winds right at the viewpoint for the glacier. We opted to continue on another two kilometers to Mirador Británico which we didn't visit during our previous visit due to poor weather and a lack of time. The hike was through some pretty gorgeous woods and the view was absolutely worth it. But 1/4 of our crew was done with heading further for more views so we had lunch (BTW, box lunches were AMAZING) at Británico and made our way back to Camp Italiano to collect our big bags. From there, we had a 7.5km hike to the Paine Grande Refugio. I totally recognized this one! We checked in, picked out our four beds in a six-bed room, showered, and went to enjoy our free welcome drinks at the bar. We again had fabulous view of Los Cuernos and Paine Grande, and could see the wind whipping up the water. We ignored the 70+km/h forecast for the next day, enjoyed a big buffet dinner, and slept like babies in super cozy, warm beds. I think the kids were sold on refugios!

An early start took us right along the shore of Lago Nordenskjöld on the way to Camp Italiano. 

A windy stop at Mirador Frances!

Mirador Británico was amazing!

Packs back on, over some bridges, and into the wind as we made our way to Paine Grande.

Refugio Paine Grande was sweet (and very familiar!). We had great views of Paine Grande and Los Cuernos from our room and saw a beautiful rainbow over Lago Pehoé!

Day four FINALLY brought us some "real" Patagonia weather! We had to hike 11km into that sometimes 70km/hr cold wind to get to Refugio Grey. It was cold, hot, windy, sunny, rainy, hard on the face...everything we wanted the kids to experience from this trek! We arrived at the refugio ahead of check-in, but that was ok--we ate our lunches and hiked about an hour north (and uphill) to a suspension bridge with an amazing view of Glacier Grey! It was so windy on the water, but the hike through the woods was nice and afforded lots of time to reflect on the journey so far. When we returned to the refugio we were surprised that the rooms were four-man and we had one all to ourselves! After hot showers we settled in to the bar for a round of Farkle, snacks, and a World Cup semi-final! Argentina beat Croatia and the bar was lit!

Walking into 70km/hr was a challenge at times, but Lago Grey was spectacular!

Just enjoying the view of Glacier Grey.

We had time before check-in (and the fútbol game) so we hiked up to one of the suspension bridges for better views of the glacier. I loved it!

Refugio life...satellite tv, cold beers, fellow travelers, and plenty of relaxation.

The last day was...easy! We had a late breakfast, a slow hike back to Paine Grande refugio, a fantastic game of Farkle with our hiking friends Oscar and Sofia, and another crazy World Cup semi-final where France beat Morocco before we had to catch our ferry out of the park. I cried again. I love Torres del Paine. I love the challenge it gives my body, the time it gives my mind, and the beauty that it leaves in my memories. And after a half-hour ferry ride we were on the bus that would take us back to Puerto Natales. That bus ride has some stories of its own that I will leave for the boys to tell when they are ready... ;) 

A beautiful hike along Lago Grey (with the wind at our backs!).

Lunch in the forest and our final look at Los Cuernos before boarding the catamaran to cross Lago Pehoé  for our return to Puerto Natales. 

Did the trip live up to all of my expectations? No. I had built this up so much in my head…full of romance, life-changing for the kids, glorious views, new traveling friends, tons of laughs…that’s a lot to ask out of any trip and it’s part of the danger of dreaming about something so hard for so long. But it was many of those things, and that’s enough.

Thank you, Torres del Paine. You were, and remain, a dream come true.

THE DETAILS: There are so many ways to hike the "W" or the "O" in Torres del Paine that fit a range of budgets. When we were here 16 years ago we had a guide, private transportation, didn't worry about any tickets of any sort...we blissfully hiked from bed to bed and were fed! You can also self-book transportation, refugio/tent sites, carry all or some of your own gear and food, and follow the well-marked trails. Or you can go somewhere in between, which is what we did this time. I was trying to self-book the trip, but the booking site was down for quite a while and we were busy enjoying Peru so I started to shop for a tour company. We ended up booking the Classic 5-day W Trek through Vertice Travel. You can opt for camping with or without your own gear, refugios (think hostel) with full bedding or use your own, and with as many meals as you want. Given availability, we ended up with two nights at campsites with full equipment (tents, nice mats, and sleeping bags all set up and ready to go) and two nights at refugios with full bedding. The package included bus tickets from Puerto Natales to the park entrance, the park tickets, tickets for a shuttle bus within the park, catamaran tickets across the lake at the west end, and bus tickets back to town. We opted for the "full board" option, provided us with breakfast, a bag lunch, and dinner every day. And I can honestly say, it was worth every penny (hit me up for price details if you want, but the tour websites all give pretty detailed quotes). Vertice is VERY organized and at our orientation meeting the evening before we left, they gave us a perfectly ordered packet of tickets and vouchers for the entire trip, just like how I would have done it! They gave us some dry bags, water bottles, buffs, maps, and our lunch for the first day (fun fact--the vegetarian sandwiches were often better than the meat ones), then stored the luggage we weren't taking with us. Easy peasy! I personally am comfortable booking all of that myself at this point, but for those new to the park/area, we can definitely recommend Vertice as a reputable tour outfit. Also, no matter how you do it, BOOK EARLY! The best weather is limited to about two months and that overlaps with Southern Hemisphere summer vacations so popular routes/tours can sell out.

FUN SIDE STORY: When we first visited Patagonia (and did the W) in 2007 we carried LLBean packs and trekking poles. We have that same gear with us on the return trip in 2022! (I mean, why else would I have a purple pack?!?!)

That's me in 2007 (upper left) enjoying my first trip to Patagonia with my LLBean pack! And here it is again, in 2022 (and Frank's equally old pack) along with our 16 year-old LLBean Vario Hikelite trekking poles. Good gear lasts (even if the colors are a bit dated!)!

~Jo, Nomadic Momma

Return to Puerto Natales

After almost 16 years, we are back in Puerto Natales, Chile! When we first came to Patagonia we said we wanted to return with our kids (we only had one at the time who was home with her grandparents) and it is happening! This feels so right. We are starting off with over a week in Puerto Natales to get used to the cold/wind and get a bunch of school done. 

This is truly the slow part of our journey. We take walks to explore town most every day, shop at the local grocery stores, stop for a coffee or drink, and we do school, cook, clean, pay bills, research locations, discuss future plans, watch some TV...just boring normal life stuff. 

Around Puerto Natales and visiting old favorites.

Last Hope Distillery is amazing! Great tour, creative drinks, and tasty bites. We are going to enjoy our few weeks here for sure!

Ok, it's not all boring life stuff...sometimes we get to celebrate! This week we celebrated Trent's 15th birthday. We rented a few ATV's and spent half a day exploring the dirt roads outside of town. It was sunny, rainy, windy, snowy...all the Patagonia weather! But it was awesome, even if we were super cold for a good chunk of it. We made it our to Laguna Sofia where we hunkered behind a rock to eat our lunch, and found some good, muddy roads by the Mylodon Cave. We were hit with sleet as we made our way back into town so we headed for Patagonia Dulce for some hot, chocolatey coffees! Frank and I actually had coffee there back in 2007! 

This year's birthday experience was a chilly blast!

After hot showers and a few episodes of Andor, we headed to town to buy better gloves for our future outings and to enjoy an amazing Italian dinner at Pizza Napoli--Trent's choice! Then it was back home for more Andor, some bad singing, and cake! Still can't believe my baby is 15!

Happy Birthday, Trent!

And now, back to washing all of the splattered mud from our clothing!

~Jo, Nomadic Momma

35 hours in Santiago

On our way from Calama to Puerto Natales we opted for a brief, two-night, stop in Santiago and it was awesome! We stayed in a family room with a private bathroom at Hostel Merced 88 in Barrio Lastarria. How did we choose it? Well, it was priced well, had great reviews on HostelWorld, had some tempting amenities, and I saw a few parks nearby in Google Maps--that was it. As we were due to arrive at 1830 and wanted an easy trip to the city, we booked a transfer through the hostel and it was a breeze! By 1930 we were checked in to our room and headed to dinner!

So what was our first dinner out in Santiago? German food! Bierstube was a three-minute walk from our hostel and we were delighted to have some amazing house beers and tasty German food. We ended the night with some rounds of pool at the hostel. 

Our hostel worked well for us!

After a late wake-up we grabbed some coffee for a walk through Parque Forestal to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. This awesome (free!) museum features classical and modern art by Chilean artists. I personally loved the sculpture work and the modern exhibit where light strings were woven in traditional ways. It's not a huge museum and you can cover it in around an hour. 

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

Right across from the museum is Castillo Forestal, a French restaurant. Of course, our Frenchy girl wanted to go, but the rest of us ended up loving it, too! We dined on the patio, essentially in the park, and the food was fantastic. 

Beautiful food in a beautiful setting! Trent discovered that he really likes Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Next up...WINE! The kids stayed at the hostel to watch the World Cup and play pool while the adults headed to Concha y Toro vineyard for a tour and tasting. We toured the grounds, sampled Sauvignon Blanc, Carmenere, and Cabernet Sauvignon, and got to visit the Casillero del Diablo cellar. It was a nice way to spend a date afternoon!

Adult time and wine!

The Casillero del Diablo cellar was a treat. It's all naturally climate-controlled.

We opted for an easy night back at the hostel, dining and enjoying $6 bottles of wine at the rooftop Restobar before binge-watching shows on our last night of Amazon Prime access. It was a horrible plan as we needed to catch a taxi to the airport at 0500 the next day, but it was fun!

Hostel life was great! And the Restobar food was good and cheap.

We would definitely return to Santiago someday. The brief glimpse we got of the art and food scene was good, and we'd like to see more...and maybe even try Chilean food there. Someday...

~Jo, Nomadic Momma

An EPIC finale to the Atacama Desert experience

We had an epic goodbye to the Atacama Desert! After four cancellations and rescheduling due to weather, we were finally "on" for our astrophotography tour in the desert! We were so happy as that ended up being our final night there before we started our journey to southern Chile. We were picked up at 11pm and driven out to the middle of the desert near San Pedro de Atacama...and that's where the magic began.

Atacama Stargazing has a great little setup in the desert with three dedicated stations which are linked by gentle ground lighting. We started at the telescope station, which was fortunate as the moon was about to set and we managed to get a brief, very clear view of the waxing crescent. We've looked through lots of telescopes and that first peek made it clear that the viewing in the Atacama Desert was remarkable. We then viewed Saturn, Jupiter, and the Orion Nebula through the telescope, all while the guide detailed the lifecycle of a star. We could also see nearby galaxies and saw several shooting stars. Even looking at familiar constellations was new and different! Orion appeared upside down and WAY more stars were visible throughout the constellation.

From there we moved on to an "Andean Cosmovision" station where we tried some traditional Andean food, teas, and wines before learning about how the Andean people used the stars. Fun fact--the familiar constellation, "Pleiades," was viewed as a sack of potatoes by the Andeans and they used it to assess how the potato crop would be and whether they needed to ration food (based on how much of the constellation they could see as moisture levels varied). And Orion was not Orion the Hunter to them, but a God of all things. 

My non-pro photos from the first two stations.

Our final station was Astrophotography. In this little spot we all got photos taken by a pro and while we aren't models (ok, we adults aren't), these photos were amazing! They almost look fake, but I swear they are real! We sat still for several seconds for each one!

Our first family photo in forever!

Our beautiful girl against a stunning backdrop.

Our handsome guy (who is about to have a b-day!).

Trying to be all cute like the kids.

This is the one experience we booked before going to San Pedro de Atacama and I'm so freaking glad that it finally worked out. We would HIGHLY recommend doing this if you're ever in the area as we learned so much and had a wonderful night of stargazing!

The final goodbye was also epic, but rather in an epically bad way! We arrived at the tiny Calama airport with plenty of time to spare, but as we had to check our big backpacks, we couldn't move along until they opened that counter two hours before departure. No big deal, right? Especially in an airport with only three gates. But...some flight had been "reprogrammed" and the passengers were physically blockading the doors to security! What?!?!?! What in the world did they hope to accomplish by blocking other people traveling on other airlines to other places? It mad absolutely no sense. We were baffled that the tons of people trying to go through couldn't just push by them, but since the airport security team was also rather small, it took a while to get the situation cleared up. By then, we were beyond tight on making our flight and didn't know that way up at the front, our flight was being told to come on up and get through security. We were assisted by another family who knew we were on the same flight and flagged us down, and we in turn grabbed a lady that we recognized from when we had checked baggage. Suddenly this cute little airport was turning into my worst nightmare! And I HATED going around others who had been in line for over an hour with us, but we did it and squeezed through to an incredibly quick security screening. We went straight to the gate and immediately through boarding. With all of the flights getting held up, there was actually no gate for our plane to go to so we were walked out on the tarmac to it, loaded up, and miraculously pushed back only a few minutes late. What a freaking adventure! We were so tired from the late night in the desert the night before and I was getting bummed that we only had two nights in Santiago that looked to be in danger and I was NOT excited about having to rebook a bunch of stuff, but it all worked out. Really hoping we don't have to repeat that anytime soon, but that's travel. We just have to be flexible and have our credit card ready!

My word, that was NOT how I expected our departure from a tiny airport to go!

~Jo, Nomadic Momma

Chile: Part 1--the Atacama Desert

We made it to Chile! After boarding a collectivo in Tacna and crossing the border, we arrived in Arica, Chile with plenty of time to spare to catch our night bus, even with the time change (Chile is GMT -3). Our 7hr bus ride started fine, but was interrupted with lots of mid-night stops and we were all pretty tired by the time we arrived in Calama. We loitered at the bus station for a few hours before grabbing an Uber to the airport (in hindsight, I would have left for the airport earlier--it's nice!), picking up our rental car, and driving the final 1:15 to San Pedro de Atacama and our AirBnB. We checked in and immediately relaxed/crashed! Grocery shopping here is a little like the Bahamas--not a ton of fresh stuff--but we stocked up for a few meals pretty easily. Our AirBnB is perfectly cute with a functional kitchen and even a wash basin outside for clothes.

Given the warmth of the afternoons, we've decided to explore in the mornings and do school in the afternoons. Wednesday we set out to visit the Valle de la Luna, but got sidetracked with a visit to Valle de la Muerte and Pucará de Quitor. This pre-Incan fort is located just outside of town and boasts spectacular views of the valley. We also got to visit the entrance of a cave used by the Atacameños people. 

Pucará de Quitor

Thursday we did make it to the Valle de la Luna! We weren't entirely sure what to expect, but about 2km into the park we began to fully appreciate how it got its name. There are so many interesting geological features to observe, including giant sand dunes, huge salt deposits, and impressive sedimentary features. And even though we came home to do school and chores, I did manage to pull of a version of an American Thanksgiving dinner, complete with a bird product and tons of veggies!

It's impossible to capture the vastness of this valley in photos.

#nailedit  Our AirBnB was perfectly comfortable for our needs and had just enough dishes for me to be able to cook a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Friday we got up a little early (but not 0300 like the tours!) and headed two hours north on a very rough road to get to the El Tatio Geysers. Tour groups go early to be there as the sun rises, but we arrived at 0900 and still thought the 80+ geysers were pretty spectacular (and we were almost all alone!).

Such an amazing, steamy place!

Considering the need to do school, the bumpy roads, and just a general desire to chill, we stayed "home" for the weekend. Saturday we walked into town to walk around, watch a World Cup game, get some amazing ice cream, and visit the Meteorite Museum (I know it sounds nerdy, but it was cool!). Sunday was a bit of Saturday on repeat! 

Tonight, weather permitting, we will be heading out on an astrophotography tour! Stargazing was one of the reasons we came to the Atacama Desert and it's been cloudy! But tonight is looking good so far so we are optimistic that tonight is the night! I hope so because tomorrow we head to Santiago after a pretty fabulous week in the desert.

~Jo, Nomadic Momma