Torres del Paine was the highlight of our trip to Chile. Breath-taking scenery, seriously.
Having visited Patagonia on the Argentinean side late 2014 (which is also great by the way!), we decided to stick with the Chilean side and there is more than enough to do and see in Torres del Paine (Chilean National Park)! However, if you wish to combine both Chile and Argentina when visiting Patagonia, it is totally feasible if you accept long hours in buses. There are a number of buses running trips between both sides and many agencies also organise day-trips to Argentina (e.g. Perito Moreno day trip) but expect to spend a lot of time on a bus!
If you like hiking and love nature, don't hesitate, this is for you!
1/ First step to Torres del Paine: Puerto Natales or Punta Arenas
From Santiago, you can fly to either Puerto Natales or Punta Arenas.
Alternatively, you can arrive from Argentina (by bus/drive).
Puerto Natales is located closer to Torres del Paine (~1h45 by bus from the entrance of the National Park) than Punta Arenas but is much smaller and does not have that many direct flights from/to Santiago (and only in summer). Tip: if you want to fly directly from Santiago to Puerto Natales, book your flight as early as possible as flights are often sold out!
We went for that option as wanted to limit the bus travel time.
What to do in Puerto Natales?
There is not much to do in Puerto Natales.
Visit the town and get ready: you can basically run a tour of the town in 30-45 min max. (walk along the lake). It is also a great stop to fill up with groceries (snacks, fruits) and hiking equipment (you can rent some hiking sticks) before going to Torres del Paine
Visit Cueva del Milodon: if you end up having a spare half-day in Puerto Natales, you can book a tour to "Cueva del Milodon" in one of the local agencies for about 25,000 Chilean pesos per person We left at 2:30PM and came back around 6-6:30PM. Located about ~25km North of Puerto Natales, Cueva del Milodon consists in several caves (small, medium and large) and a rock formation called Silla del Diablo (Devil's Chair). The monument takes its name from the large cave where bones and other parts of a ground sloth called Mylodon darwini were discovered in 1895. you can climb up to the first level of Silla del Diablo and get a great view of the valley from there. I would only recommend if you have some spare time.
Where to stay in Puerto Natales?
The town is relatively small so we booked a strategically positioned hotel located between the town center (10 mins walk) and the bus terminal (Terminal Rodoviario) (10 min walk) from where all the buses leaving Puerto Natales depart. Our hotel was great, cheap and very comfortable with breakfast included and a very welcoming and helpful host. I can only recommend it: Tree Patagonia (Chorrillos 653, 6160852 Puerto Natales). You can also leave your luggage in a locker (bring your padlock) if you want to join Torres del Paine with a bag pack only (highly recommended). Tip: we stayed at this hotel the first night in Patagonia, then spent 2 nights in Torres del Paine and came back on the last day to the hotel. We did the big mistake to take our big luggage with us! We should have left it all in the hotel lockers and only travel with bag packs!
Where to eat/drink in Puerto Natales?
We really enjoyed the two following restaurants:
Mesita Grande (Plaza de Armas) - fresh pasta and excellent pizza made in front of you. No bookings. Relatively cheap. Show up early (for lunch or dinner) if you want to find a table.
El Asador Patagonico (Plaza de Armas) - open-fire steakhouse restaurant (esp. beef and local lamb) but they also do grilled salmon. Recommended to book if you can. We went twice and during our first visit, we got one of our best steaks ever. We were a little disappointed during our second visit as the steak was not as tender and juicy. It is relatively expensive. Also recommended by a local
Additional restaurants/pubs recommended by locals:
Base Camp Pizzeria (Manuel Baquedano 731) - low key pub that offers tacos and pizzas. Great night life according to locals.
Main pub: Last Hope (Esmeralda 882) (open until 2AM) - go there if you want to party with locals and Patagonia guides partying during their days off
How to travel from/to Puerto Natales airport?
The ride is very short (10-15mins) and the airport is tiny! The taxi only costs 8,000 Chilean pesos (fixed price) or you can join a collective taxi that drops you off at your hotel for 3,000 Chilean pesos per person. You can buy a ticket at the counter when you collect your luggage. At the airport, you can find one tiny shop selling drinks, snacks and sandwiches after security but that's it!
Punta Arenas is a city near the tip of Chile's southernmost Patagonia region and is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. So it is much bigger than Puerto Natales and are more flights serving Punto Arenas from Santiago. However, this city remains a key stop in your journey to Patagonia or the South rather than a place to visit as such. Note that you will need to drive/take a bus for 4h-5h if you want to reach Torres del Paine National Park. It is very well located if you wish to continue your trip to Antarctica or Tierra del Fuego/Ushuaia.
Having not stayed in Punta Arenas, I am not able to provide any recommendations but I read about the penguins natural monument (on Isla Magdalena and Isla Marta), which is apparently well worth visiting.
2/ Second step: go to Torres del Paine National Park
How to access to the National Park?
You have basically the choice between two approaches:
(note that my recommendations below apply for Laguna Amarga entrance, located in the East part of Torres del Paine. Other stops are possible though)
Day-trips (esp. from Puerto Natales) but it would involve a lot of time in the bus (3-4h in total) so this would not be my recommendation (especially after a long and tiring hike!). This can be done on your own or via an agency. If you go on your own, you can take a bus to Torres del Paine Laguna Amarga entrance (see below) and then run a hike on your own. But you will need to make sure you don't miss the bus back! (the last bus leaves at 19h from the Torres del Paine Visitor center and then from 19h45-20h from Laguna Amarga entrance for Puerto Natales. The Puerto Natales-Torres del Paine bus needs to be booked in advance - see below)
Arrange a trip inc. accomodation within Torres del Paine.
Transport
You can rent a car (but you would need to be very well informed and have a robust car) or take a bus to join the park.
From Puerto Natales, you would need to book in advance a bus that leaves from the bus terminal (Terminal Rodoviario). It takes about 1h45. We used Busbud and it was very reliable and cheap ~$10 per person per way (although departed 15min late when we returned). The first buses leave at 7AM. Once you reached Laguna Amarga entrance, you will need to take a shuttle to reach the "Visitor center" from where a number of hikes are starting. It is a white shuttle called "Hotel Las Torres" and you need to pay 3,000 Chilean pesos in cash before jumping into the shuttle. The ride takes about 10 mins then. [same thing when you want to return to Puerto Natales. Note that the shuttle between the Visitor center and the Laguna Armaga entrance only runs at 12PM and 7PM and leaves on time so don't miss it!]
Torres del Paine National park entrance fees
You can either buy tickets in advance or buy them when you reach the entrance gate (where the Busbud drops you off). They only accept payment by card. The price is 28,500 Chilean pesos per person if you stay less than 4 days. If you stay 4 days or more, it is more expensive (I cannot remember exactly but I believe it was over 50,000 per person).
Where to stay in the National Park?
(note that my recommendations below apply for Laguna Amarga entrance, located in the East part of Torres del Paine. Other stops are possible though)
Note that the months of Dec to Feb tends to be very busy. (high-season)
You can arrange your trip to Torres del Paine via an agency, in which case they are likely to have booked all the right accommodations for you and respective transfers.
If you arrange the trip yourself, there are two possible approaches depending on your budget and the level of comfort that you wish:
Camping. The most affordable option but also the option that a greater level of organisation from a logistics standpoint. You would need to book in advance all your accommodations even if you are planning to camp.
Hotel/Domes. More expensive but offer you a superior level of comfort and very likely to offer a full board service or at least breakfast + dinner.
Travelling only for a few days in Patagonia and pursuing our trip to the North and other part of Chile, we did not feel we would bring the whole camping equipment with us, so we went for the dome option.
We stayed at Ecocamp, located 10 min walk from the Visitor center (up the hill!). We quickly realised that most (if not all) of the guests had booked Ecocamp via the Ecocamp website or a travel agency directly and not on booking.com as we did! While we had the accommodation as well as full board included, we did not have any forms of activities included so felt a little excluded, esp. on the first day/night. Typically, guests staying at Ecocamp will have booked a full program - different formulas are available depending on the duration of the stay, the type of activities you want to do (trek e.g. W trek or Paine Circuit, wild safari, etc.) as well as the level of comfort you want (there are different types of domes). We managed to "Pay as you go" and register to an activity the following day as part of the "Wild Safari program" (daily activities) and got integrated into a "group". On that day, instead of having dinner "on our own" in a separate table, we were with the rest of the group, which was pretty nice.
Generally speaking, although very expensive, we found the experience very unique. The Ecocamp itself is lovely, super well located and with very nice equipment (both domes and common areas). The staff was very nice, the food was really good (every day, you can prepare your lunch boxes e.g. tuperware and/or sandwiches) and the activities were very high quality (which you would expect given the price!). We would highly recommend for someone who can afford it and want to spend a few days in Chilean Patagonia. But book the all inclusive version via the Ecocamp site!
What to do?
(note that my recommendations below apply for Laguna Amarga entrance, located in the East part of Torres del Paine. Other areas are possible though)
As we only had 3 days to spend in Torres del Paine, we could not join the W trek but if you have between 5 and 7 days (or even more), you should try to do one of these famous treks: W trek (5 or 7 days) or Paine Circuit (9 days).
Instead, we did daily treks/hikes, some of them being part of the W trek.
Three Towers Base Trek (22km, 9 hour). It is probably the most famous and iconic trek in Torres del Paine and would be the equivalent of the Fitzroi trek if you know Argentina. Basically, a rather difficult trek of about 8-9 hours (4 hours going up and then 4 hours to return, with many ups and downs) leading to a beautiful lake located at the based of three gigantic granite monoliths called "Towers". It is definitely worth it but it is quite intense especially the last hour just before reaching the base at an altitude point of 914m / 3.000ft so you need to be aware of that. The whole hike is very scenic and starts from the Visitor Center passing Hotel del Torres and after ~30min, you experience a steep incline over dirt and rocks. Then you will have a "Chilean flattish" part (small up and downs), going through a native forest. Very very nice. You will then find a place to stop if you need to use the toilet (not free but for 1,000 Chilean pesos or maybe even less), refill your bottle of water or buy a snack/sandwich. They also have a few picnic tables in case you want to enjoy your food sited on a proper table. You will then continue your hike and reach the third and final part of the hike (keep some energy!). The trail gets tough, with the steep slope of loose rocks complicating the final scramble to the top. But don't worry you will be highly rewarded when reaching the top! Unfortunately, it is forbidden to enter the lake. Enjoy the wonderful view, take amazing views and when you are ready, you can return! At what time? we started the hike around 10am, which sounds quite late but it was actually perfect as a lot of people start very early (from 8am etc.) and it can be pretty busy in certain areas. Starting at 10am, we had less people with us and it was also quite warm! However be aware that there is a limit to enter the last part, so you should not really start the hike after 10:30AM or so to be sure. Guide or no guide? I had initially in mind to run this hike with a guide. However, given we missed the start of the activities on our first day, we went on our own. It was totally fine as well indicated and a lot of people taking the same trail. It was actually probably better to do it on our own as we could go on our own pace and stop whenever we wanted! Equipment required: It is very highly recommended to bring hiking sticks to support your knees (at least one). We had good trainers but no hiking shoes (although probably best!). We had very good weather but it can be very windy and rain is always possible so make sure you have the right clothing (dress in layers) with you inc. wind/rain jacket. Don't forget your water (you can refill it at half-way on both sides so no need to carry litters with you), your sunglasses and sun cream!
The French Valley ("Pehoe Lake Boat Ride & French Valley Hike") - guided tour by Ecocamp (complexity and walk distance varies depending on the exact itinerary you take and how far you go but can be very demanding and up to 7h/21km hike) (you can do it on your own but you need to reach the starting point of "Pudeto dock, located on the shores of Pehoe Lake in order to cross the Lake by catamaran - only running in high season + be able to follow a trail on Map.me or other hiking map) A private shuttle dropped us off at Pudeto dock, located on the shores of Pehoe Lake. We took the 8am catamaran boat (great scenery) to reach the other side of the Pehoe Lake, from where we started the hike. Note that the boat trip costs ~25,000 Chilean pesos (each way). We started the trail going on the East side of Lago Skottsberg up to the "Italiano camp". We had a great lunch in front of the Glaciar del Frances and came back to the starting point around 16h30 via the other side of the lake. We managed to take the 5PM boat ride. Make sure you arrive 30min in advance if you want to secure a spot in the boat (100 people max). Otherwise you would need to wait another hour as the catamaran runs every hour only. With this trail, we ended up doing about 15-16km and the trail was "Chilean flattish". The steep trail of the French Valley only starts from the Italian camp. This trek was extremely enjoyable with a beautiful scenery and amazing colours. We even saw an Andean condor! Having done the Three Towers trek the day before, we were quite happy not to have another hard trek on our second day! Equipment required: Same than above. You can refill your water bottle in the river directly when crossing a bridge!
"Local" hike around "Ecocamp": Laguna Inge & Laguna Nordenskjold As we were starting to feel our legs quite a lot and were planning to come back to Puerto Natales in the evening and needed to make sure to be back by 6:45PM the latest to the Visitor Center (with our big suitcases!) to catch our shuttle, we decided to have an easy day with a 2-3h hike max.! We took a trail starting from the Hotel Las Torres towards Laguna Inge, a tiny little lake and then continued towards Lake Nordenskjold. We got a little lost in-between the two lakes as there is a big mountain and no indications regarding the right place to follow the trail! We had a nice picnic there, although the weather was not as nice as it was in the two previous days (more clouds and more wind!). We ended up coming back by the road, which I do not recommend as there was nothing to see. It would have been better to go back by the same way we arrived from as it was quite pretty!
Other hikes that we have not done which are feasible around (Ecocamp offer them at least)
Laguna Azul (“Blue Lagoon”)
Western Lakes inc. the Grey Lake + Glacier Grey
Cerro Ferrier hike
Lazo Weber hike
Sarmiento lake
Cerro Paine Trek
When in the area, you can also enjoy different types of activities:
Kayaking on Grey River
Mountain bike
Horse-riding (Hotel Las Torres has a big ranch with over 200 horses!)
Fauna trail
Puma tracking
Tip: there is no signal once in Torres del Paine and very few places have wifi. Ecocamp does not for instance. But you can go in front of Hotel Las Torres to access their wifi! Make sure you have downloaded Map.me and the right trails, especially if you are planning to arrange your own hikes!
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