Martin and Susan's Travels

Chile and Argentina 2005

We flew from Florida to Santiago on 7 February. After a few days in Santiago we flew south down the spine of the Andes to Punta Arenas in the far south of Chile, and on over the island of Tierra del Fuego to Ushuaia, the largest town in Tierra del Fuego, just over the border in Argentina. The weather was clear throughout the flight, and we had spectacular views of the mountains, and the islands off the west and south coasts of Tierra del Fuego as far as Cape Horn, which lies about 60 miles south of Ushuaia.

From Ushuaia we took trips to

Harberton, an estancia founded by Thomas Bridges, an English missionary, in the 1880s
Martillo Island in the Beagle Channel, home to hundreds of penguins
The Martial Glacier, above Ushuaia
Lago Roca, which straddles the Chile/Argentine border just west of Ushuaia
by boat to see the sea lions in the Beagle Channel
Laguna Esmeralda in the mountains north of Ushuaia

We flew from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, and rented a pickup truck to go north to the Torres del Paine National Park. There we hiked up the Valle Ascencio to a viewpoint below the Torres themselves; up the Lago Grey trail to the Grey Glacier; and up the Valle Frances.

From Punta Arenas we flew north to Puerto Montt, from where we crossed the Andes to Bariloche in Argentina by the "Lake Crossing" (actually 3 lakes with bus rides between the lakes).

We returned to Puerto Montt by taxi and bus, then picked up a car and took it to the island of Chiloe. The island is rather different from the rest of Chile, famous for its enormous wooden churches.

Back on the mainland, we drove north to the forests of monkey puzzle trees. We drove past more volcanoes, some with recent lava flows (not kind to tyres).

We spent our last couple of days in Chile by the Pacific Ocean in the middle of the country, then headed back to Santiago.