Horns & Towers in Torres del Paine

Punta Arenas was our first destination in Chile and where I had my first big sandwich. Apart from that and meeting some new friends, we didn’t get up to a whole lot there during our 2 night stay. We then moved on to Puerto Natales which was our true introduction to Chilean Patagonia with the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine (almost) at our doorstep.

We stayed at Lilies Patagónico in Natales purely for their complementary breakfast waffles (which slapped). We now only book hostels with breakfast included. 

The most popular ways to explore Torres del Paine are the multi-day O and W treks. These book out well in advance though and are super expensive. We missed out on booking these so instead opted for day trips with our eye on last minute campsite vacancies.

After a relaxing first day in town wondering the streets, playing guitar, and researching how we were going to see the national park, we headed out on a day trip the next day to the towers with our new friend Jesse from South Africa.

There was some uncertainty (or more accurately wishful thinking) about whether our bus would leave from the bus station right next to our hostel or the one 20mins walk away. The lady who booked our tickets told us it would be the further one but we didn’t give up hope there. The morning of on our way to meet Jesse, we saw a bus showing “Torres del Paine” on its display and decided to ask if our ticket was for this bus. We got the impression this wasn’t our bus but the driver insisted we get on anyway.

A bit confused and unsure if we had relayed the right information during our few words of Spanish, we sat down on the empty bus and messaged Jesse to come join us (as he was waiting for us outside his hostel 50m away). As I hit send the engine started and moments later we were on our way to an unknown destination and without our friend Jesse. Turns out we had just boarded the biggest uber of our lives for a spacious and free ride 5mins down the road to the actual bus terminal. Jesse met us there 20mins later.

The whole operation getting into the park is expensive and cumbersome having to get out of the bus to show your park pass before transferring to a different bus that take you another 6km to the actual park entrance (and costs an additional 4,500ARS). The walk up was crowded and dusty but the view of the towers was indeed stunning. We got a bunch of pics of Kenzie and me as well as of our friend Jesse, but in all the excitement and busyness I forgot to get a pic of the towers themselves! Plenty on the web much better than I could have taken though so will let you google them if you desire.

The next day was Christmas! We had nothing planned for day but had budgeted for a special dinner more classy than our usual. Of course half the town shuts on Christmas including restaurants and all the other tourists had the same idea as us of a dinner out. After scouring the town for a place that was open and under 40NZD for a meal, we found ourselves once again at a dairy eating empanadas for dinner. Guess we’ll save the special dinner for next year.

To finish off our stay in Natales, we booked a last minute campsite at Grey Glacier and headed out early on Boxing Day. Getting there required a bus to Pudeto, a ferry to Paine Grande, and a 12km walk to the campsite. The walk was windy and busy on the way there but provided epic views of the glacier that only got better as we got closer.

The campsite was very reasonable at 11USD pp/night with hot showers and a restaurant! We decided to treat ourselves after the previous nights meal and opted to share a 25USD combo including 2 beers and a pizza before jumping into our hot showers.

The next morning we headed out for a side trip to the suspension bridges before making our way back to Paine Grande. The ferry from there to Pudeto provided the best view of Cuernos del Paine we’d had. Regrettably my camera was buried at the bottom of the bag stack but did capture a pic on the trusty phone.

We got back to our hostel late and crashed soon after. The next morning we were ejected from our hostel while they fumigated the rooms before ducking in to grab our packs and heading for the bus to cross the border into El Calafate.

Torres del Paine was expensive and busy but did provide some outstanding scenics. We are hoping from here things will only get cheaper.

Lucas

Jan 1, 2025