Travelling south to Patagonia the end of the earth.
We flew 2 hours south from Puerto Varas to Puerto Natales, Patagonia, have a look on the map. Puerto Natales is 51 degrees south, which is quite far south, further than Tasmania or New Zealand. This part of South America is the most southern continental land on Earth, except for Antarctica.
We were in Puerto Natales for a week and a half so there’s quite a lot I need to catch you up on. I will post couple of blogs on our Patagonian adventures.
We picked up a hire car from the airport (which we haven’t done before). It thankfully went smoothly, and we drove the car to our accommodation. The first night in Puerto Natales the sky put on a show for us it had such beauty and vivid colours. That evening we had a sunset walk and a night swim in the pool that was part of our accommodation.
The day after we arrived, we had scheduled a glacier boat trip where we got to see the glacier really up close. The boat trip was on Lake Grey where we got to see Gray Glacier, a glacier that is originating from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
Glaciers are like rivers that flow really slowly. That is how they can basically shape whole mountain ranges with their typical U shape carving through rocks. At Lake Gray the Glacier splits into three different sections. Boat trip was about two hours and we got to see all three of the different sections of the glacier. The view of the glacier was amazing and it’s a view I will never forget.
An interesting thing that I learned while on the boat tour was about the Patagonian Ice Dragon, scientifically known as the Andiperla willinki. It is an insect that lives on the glacier, it is about 15 millimetres long and can survive up to 40 metres deep within the ice. They are also the resident cleaners, as they eat organic matter, dust and bacteria which makes the glacier cleaner. The small ‘dragons’ are now endangered due to melting glaciers as a result of climate change.
A flat tire in the middle of the patagonian wilderness:
On our way back from the glacier, we were driving on a gravel road and got a flat tire, so we had to stop and put the spare tire on. David was “happy” because of all the places to get a flat tire this was an incredible view of Torres de Paine which was cool. As my brother and I haven’t learned how to fix a flat tyre, we got a live lesson on how to do it in the middle of Patagonia on a dirt road!
The next day we took it easy. Catching up on some things and just relaxing. David took the car to a repair shop to fix the tire, and I got to have some time to explore the new town.
We did end up going to Punta Arenas which is still further south. It is the largest city near the South Pole/Antarctica. More on Punta Arenas in another blog coming soon.
