Tutti Frutti

We proudly present to you our new best friend: ‘Tutti Frutti’! This will be our home for the coming 6 weeks to cross Patagonia from south to north, both on Chilean and Argentinean side. So excited to continue our route in a campervan, ultimate freedom!

We left Punta Arenas and headed for Puerto Natales via Ruta 9 and were both amazed by the incredible beauty of the environment; blue azure lakes, mountains with snowy tops in the background, sheep, cows, nandu’s (sort of smaller ostriches), horses, hawks…all of them have the space they need. Our first night with Tutti Frutti we spend at an Estancia in Rio Verde with a real gaucho named Lucio. Lucio was so friendly, just like all the locals we’ve met here, and told us he works for a big farmer who owns about 5000 (!) cows in the area. After parking between his gates we walked up to the lake at just 100m from our spot, which was like a sunset postcard, so gorgeous…

Next day we headed further north on the Ruta del Fin del Mundo and we reached Puerto Natales where we camped next to the tourist building at the picturesque waterfront. Here we took the time to stock up for the 5 day W-trekking that we planned to do in National Park Torres del Paine. The road to the park itself is already amazing, the lakes are so blue as if it were in the Caribbean, mind the Guanacas (type of lama) crossing the road 😉

Patagonia is known for its incredible strong winds, they can get up to 120km/h. After a night in our campervan, where we were almost literally blown away, we headed up to the Torres del Paine with our backpacks fully loaded (tent, sleepingbags+pads, food, cooking stuff, clothes, etc.) to do the 5-day W trekking. The first day when hiking up to Camp Glacier Grey we felt how strong the wind can be, we were told it was around 90 km/h that day, ridiculous! Luckily we only experienced these strong winds on day 1, the rest of our hike gave us easier weather, however the nights were cold, happy we brought good sleeping bags. What a great experience, it was challenging but the amazing views were all worth it. What a great feeling to have everything you need to survive for 5 days in your own backpack, completely self-sufficient. And what a nice fellow hikers we met! The sunrise at las Torres on the last day unfortunately didn’t give us the pinkish glows that we were hoping for, but we enjoyed this short expedition, we felt proud of ourselves and so pleased to finally be able to shower after 5 days again… Also our campervan bed felt like heaven again after sleeping on a super thin sleeping pad.

After a day of relaxing in Puerto Natales we drove up another 350km further north to El Calafate, where we entered el Parque Nacional de los Glaciares which is famous for the Perito Moreno glacier. It’s a huge ice wall of 60 meters high, 5km wide and 35km long. What makes it special is that this glacier is losing ice up to 2m per day in the summer, constantly you see chunks of ice dropping off. In winter this will grow again, this glacier is one of the few that is still stable, pretty impressive phenomenon from Mother Nature. Apart from the mass tourism around Perito Moreno there is not much going on in Calafate so we continued to El Chalten, which is a small hippie style town in the middle of the mountains, we immediately felt at home here with our Tutti Frutti van. There we hiked up to Mount Fitz Roy, perfect weather, clear blue sky, so far probably our hiking highlight of Patagonia.

We notice that it’s about to get into low season now, pretty nice to have the whole camp site for ourselves. On the contrary we can really feel it getting colder every day…one morning we even had to defrost our windows…the difference between morning and afternoon is huge, can be almost 20 degrees. In most locations it’s not allowed to make a campfire, as the risk of spreading due to the strong wind is too high. But, we managed to find a spot once in Lago Roca where we could make one, it’s a must do in our life as happy campers right? We could stay in South Patagonia for much longer as there are plenty nice hiking routes, but there’s more to see up in Central Patagonia, so yesterday we’ve travelled up 750km north where we will switch to highway 7 (the Carretera Austral).

After some searching for internet that is fast enough to upload this blog and photo’s we’ve finally found some place. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

Just another eve inside the campervan

Cooking area of the campervan

Slow seared lamb on open pit fire

First night at a gaucho farm

The famous Patagonian wind

Beautiful lake where we camped

Chili has a lot of parcs to camp in

Following the ruta fin del mundo

Big birds are watching us

Camping at the lake in Puerto Natales

Guanacas in Torres del Paine

Horses crossing the road

Day 1 W trekking – lago Grey

View at los Cuernos – Torres del Paine

Camping and cooking at one of the campsites

Lake view from Mirador Brittanico

Happy!

Dramatic sky

Best fresh water in the world!

Morning glow

Viv the professional hiker 😉

Waiting for the sunrise at the Torres del Paine

Torres del Paine during sunrise

Horses

Entry to national parque los Glaciares

Campfire and cooking at Lago Roca

Campsite at Lago Roca – el Calafate

Perito Moreno glacier

Beautiful sunset at Lago Roca

Our campsite in el Chalten

Mount Fitz Roy