Patagonia - Day #2

 Patagonia- Day #2 - Sunday, December 29th

Coming to you live aboard LATAM Flight LA01 - heading to Puerto Natales (Chile) from Santiago, Chile.   It’s 9am local time on Monday, December 30th.  We have a 3-hr flight ahead of us.  In good spirits after a restful night in Santiago.  Ready to get our excursion started today.   Tonight - we’ll end our day at EcoCamp - in Torres Del Paine National Park. 

Sunday, December 29th was a pretty massive travel day.  We ended up delayed for nearly 6 hours at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.  Our 8:10pm (Sat, Dec 28th) departure turned into a 2am (Sun, Dec 29th) departure.   The 9-hr flight went as good as expected.  I got maybe 3-4 hrs of sleep - in 30-minute segments.  We arrived into Santiago around 12:30pm local time on Sun, Dec 29th.  We made it through customs and took a $30 cab ride to our hotel (Courtyard Marriott).  Note - conversion rate for money is roughly 100,000 Chilean equals $100 US dollars - pretty simple to just drop the numbers after the comma.  Prices seem a bit more affordable than the US - but not by a great margin. 

Santiago is the 6th largest city in South America - with 6.7 million people.  Top 6 cities in South America:  (1) São Paulo, Brazil - 21.7 million. (2)  Buenos Aires, Argentina- 15 million. (3). Rio de Janeiro- 13.4 million.  (4). Bogota, Columbia - 10.6 million.  (5). Lima, Peru- 10.4 million.  (6) Santiago, Chile - 6.7 million.  

Greg had stayed in our hotel in Santiago previously with work - so we had some good intel on the location.  We only got to the hotel around 2pm local time.  We crashed for about an hour in the room and then decided to walk around the area.  Temperatures were warm - 80+ degrees F.   We found a mini-mart to grab some snacks for our upcoming hike and got some money from an ATM.  We then had a pretty awesome steak at a nice restaurant in this huge mall complex in the northeast area in Santiago.  English-Speakers are hard to find in Santiago.   Spanish is the language primarily.  We did our best, with an assist from Google Translator, to place with our order. 

Chile is my 64th country I’ve visited so far in my life - the 5th in South America (Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay).   One cool thing we found out - Acongagua (22,000ft), the highest mountain in South America and one of the 7-Summits, is only 50 miles northeast of Santiago.  There are mountains surrounding the city - impressive site.  We couldn’t actually get a visual of Acongagua however.  

After dinner we went up to the top balcony of our hotel.  There was a look-out area where we caught a great sunset around 9pm.   Exhaustion setting in - we called it a night to catch up on some much needed rest leading into our hike.  

Travel is a necessary evil to get you to the best places in the world.  Grin and bear it - because the best things in life don’t always come easily.   Heres to making new memories!!   

Just listening to this older song.   St Elmo’s Fire.   One of my all-time favorite versus in a song:   “Just once in your life - a man has his time.  And my time is now - I’m coming alive.”    If you’re looking to get inspired - pull up this song.  

Patagonia - Day #1

 Patagonia- Day #1  —  Saturday, December 28

Coming to you live from the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia - the busiest airport in the world.  It’s 8pm - our international flight to Santiago, Chile continues to get delayed.  A previously scheduled 8:10pm departure has now been pushed back to 11:05pm.  

My buddy Greg and I are headed out for a 2-week adventure in Patagonia.   Patagonia is a region in the southern-most tip of South America - which lies in the countries of Chile and Argentina.  Patagonia is known for its glaciers, pristine lakes, and granite mountains.  It’s also known as one of the best hiking destinations in the world.  We have a 12-day itinerary setup with 2 separate excursions:   7-days on the famous W-Trek in Torres del Paine National Park and 5-days on the Fitz Roy Trek.   

Patagonia is an extremely remote destination.   Thereby - it’s not an easy place to get to.   Our journey started in St Louis - with a 1pm departure earlier today.  From Atlanta, we fly to Santiago, Chile - set to arrive at 10am local time on Sunday, December 29th.  We’ll stay in Santiago on Sunday and then fly to Puerto Natales, Chile on Monday, December 30th.  We have a guide service picking us up at the airport in Puerto Natales around 5pm on Monday afternoon - starting our 7-day Trek in Torres del Paine.  

For the duration of our trip, we’ll be in a time zone that is 2 hours ahead of the Eastern Time zone in the US.  It’s 8:37pm now in Atlanta - it’s 10:37pm in Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina.   

We’ll hike 45 miles on our 7-day trek in Torres del Paine and around 30 miles on the Fitz Roy Trek.  Seasons are flipped in South America - but we’re prepared for cold, rainy, and windy temperatures.  We’re told that weather is highly variable - so layering is critical.  

It’s been over a year since our hike of the Tour du Mont Blanc in Europe.  I’m pumped to get it going again.  Hoping to have some incredible scenery and meet some interesting people.  I’m going to blog daily and post when I have internet.  Let’s get it started!!