by Camille Groh, Northeastern University

Our final week in Chile found us at the southernmost tip of South America. After spending nearly two weeks in Puerto Eden, we all hopped on a boat that would bring us to Puerto Natales. Twenty-six hours later, we shuffled out of the same boat, blinking in the sun and gaping at all of the vehicles zooming past the port…it had been a while since we’d seen anything resembling a car or a road.

These past few days have given us a look at Chile through a tourist’s eyes. In the preceding months, we’d been lucky enough to conduct research in beautiful protected pockets of Patagonia, where hardly anyone ventures. Now, we were ready to check out some of the stuff covered by travel writers.

Our first stop was Torres del Paine, where we hiked a 19 km out-and-back section of the W trail, which led us to the famous “towers.” Round River had never been to Torres before, so we were excited to be guinea pigs.

Team Ñandú made it to one of the most popular, iconic viewpoints in all of Patagonia: The Torres del Paine, only to find out how lucky we were to go to the unknown, remote corners we’d fallen in love with.

We were all a bit shocked to see how fast we could move when there was a solid trail for us to walk on. We covered the entire 9.5 km hike in to the towers within a couple of hours. Distances like that usually required a day or more of hard hiking through scrub and old-growth when we were in the backcountry. We even ended up running for most of the way out, because the trail was too nice for plain old walking. I’m pretty sure some of the tourists thought we were crazy when they saw us all stampeding down the mountain in a cloud of dust, wearing crazy grins.

 

Chilean Firebush provide a dramatic foreground to the Cuernos del Paine and Chile’s most famous mountain range. Photo by Adam Spencer

The next day was devoted to a boat tour, which took us through a fjord to some of the most famous glaciers and waterfalls surrounding Puerto Natales – Glaciers Balmaceda and Serrano. These rivers of blue ice spilled dramatically into the cold waters, and we felt privileged to be seeing them now – it’s expected that they won’t be here in just a few more decades, due to climate change.

The Balmaceda Glacier arrived to the water only 30 years ago, but now has receded over 100 feet. Photo by Adam Spencer

RRCS Coordinator Fernando Iglesias and Instructor Shalynn Pack celebrate a “day off,” as we sub-contracted our guiding with a touristy day tour to the Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers, near Puerto Natales. These glaciers are the southernmost point of the Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, where we’d been working all semester – just in remote and unvisited areas. Photo by Adam Spencer

After the tour, we returned to town for an asado with all of the other boat passengers. As we sat around a beautiful wooden table, fingering real wineglasses, I could tell that we were all thinking about the other asado we’d attended with our friends from Cochrane in November. That asado had occurred outdoors, around a campfire with loud live music, laughter, and shouting. The wine we drank came directly from wineskins. Though the food and wine at our Natales asado was definitely fancier, I couldn’t help but miss the smell of wood smoke and fresh grass.

After our time in Puerto Natales, we headed south to Punta Arenas for our last backpacking trip together, at a small protected area called Cabo Froward. We spent two days out in the field, walking on a beautiful path that followed the coast of the Strait of Magellan, close to the southernmost point of the South American continent. Over the course of this trip, we spotted dolphins, sea lions, and a king penguin.

A wayward King Penguin spent a couple nights with us near our final campsite, preening his juvenile feathers, as we hiked the southernmost point of the South American continent, Cape Froward. Photo by Adam Spencer

The sun came out to watch our final foray into the Chilean wilderness, and we lolled around in the grass, laughing at all of the best moments we’d shared in the past three months. Tomorrow, we’ll all scatter in different directions, but with the knowledge that we have a new family and a new home.