Perfect 9 Day Patagonia Itinerary (W-Trek)

Embark on the adventure of a lifetime as we guide you through the Perfect 9-Day Patagonia Itinerary, tailored for tackling the iconic W-Trek in Torres del Paine National Park. From awe-inspiring glaciers to towering granite peaks, discover everything you need to know to plan, hike, and fully immerse yourself in this bucket-list experience.

We’ll cover essential tips for accommodation and logistics, plus expert advice to make the most of your journey through one of the world’s most breathtaking landscapes. Whether you're a seasoned trekker or a first-time adventurer, this episode is your ultimate companion for crafting an unforgettable trip to Patagonia.🎒🏔️

Transcript

 Welcome to the travel light adventure duo podcast i'm your host melanie and i'm enzo And today we are here to chat with you guys about the perfect nine day itinerary to chilean patagonia We are here right now in puerto natales chile And we just wrapped up our first group trip Down here So we want to tell you guys all about what we did so that you can repeat this itinerary if you want to visit Patagonia Yeah, I think this itinerary was perfect.

It really was we were able to not only explore uh, Puerto Natales, but take a full advantage of the w trek which Which I think everyone really really enjoyed You Yeah, the W Trek is probably, well, it's definitely the most famous trek in Patagonia, and it's 5 days, approximately 50 miles, and it is through some of the most stunning scenery imaginable.

I have done the W track now four times. Enzo just did it for his first time. So what'd you think Enzo? I mean, we've done a lot of tracks around the world. How does the W stack up? I think it was one of the most magical. Um, I think my, uh, experience is a little skewed because we have done some pretty amazing hikes around the world.

This one was definitely one of, uh, the easier ones out of all the ones that we've done. But it's not easy. But it's not easy. It's definitely not easy, but, uh, it's just, We keep joking about it. It feels like Narnia because some of the views and some of the days and And it changes so quickly. It was it was a really Really magical experience.

I can't wait to to get into the day by day of what we actually did Yeah, I think that magical is a great way to describe it There's something out there like we we had a guide the other day Who said, whether you're religious or not, you feel closer to God here. You are closer to God here. And I totally felt that.

I mean, as soon as we entered the National Park, Tor Torres Opine National Park, and we started seeing the glaciers and uh, just even like the unpredictability of the weather. You just, you really, like, you are out there and it feels wild and it feels spiritual and there's just something so special about these mountains in particular.

So, we love trekking, that is why our 9 day Patagonia itinerary includes the W Trek. If you're not a big hiker, this is a lot, this is a lot of hiking, but that's why you come to Patagonia. You don't come to Patagonia to be comfortable, to be indoors. You come to Patagonia to be outside, to experience the wild, and we're going to tell you our favorite way to do that.

So, let's get started with our Day 1. Yeah, day one, uh, which I think is the hardest part of the itinerary, is getting to Puerto Natales. Um, if you don't know where it's at, it's at the, how they say, the end of the earth. It is very far south. Uh, Patagonia is, for us, we're coming from the states. It took us, with airfare, 34 hours.

It took us 34 hours to get from our door our Home in st. Louis to our hotel and puerto natales 34 hours And there's two different ways someone can get here one. You can Fly into punta arenas And once you fly into punta arenas, you can take a three hour bus ride Down to puerto natales, which is what most people do You The other option is you can fly directly to Puerto Natales, which, um, is a little more expensive, but a lot more convenient because you avoid that connection from Puerto Arenas to the, to the bus.

But they don't have daily flights into Puerto Natales. No. So there's a lot more regularity with the flights into Punta Arenas. And just so you know what we're saying. That's Punta, P U N T A, Arenas, A R E N A S, and the airport code is P U Q. Yeah, it's a lot easier to get into Punta Arenas, um, and instead of Puerto Natales, because the irregularity of the flights, the weather, and the size of the airport.

It's just, yeah, you have more secureness coming into Punta Arenas. In Puerto Natales, the reason that you come here is because this is the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park, which is where the W Trek is located. So this is the jumping off point. This is where everybody comes to prepare for their trek, to rent gear, to buy gear, to buy snacks.

Everything that you're doing to get ready for the W Trek or the O Circuit, which is the longer version of the W, essentially. that all happens from Puerto Natales. And it just happens to be an incredible little town, and we'll talk about that more on our day two, but just so you know, that is why people come to Puerto Natales.

And the bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales is very simple to take. So this is not like a giant airport where it's hectic and you have to figure out where to go. These airports are extremely small. The bus that you, that you're going to book and you book the bus on bus bud.com, that's a website you use to book the bus.

It's, I think, $12 to get from Punta in us to Port Na. So probably 20, 25 bucks. Total round trip. It's three hours. It's flat, it's easy. So if you do end up flying into Punta AEs, you catch the bus right outside the airport and it's very simple to get to Porta Na. Yeah. All right. Now, once you actually get to Puerto Natales, um, day two is exploring it, seeing everything you want to see here.

Like Melanie was saying, uh, stock up on your hike, get your hiking poles, get your snacks, uh, meet your guide. If that's something that you're doing. Um, but really just exploring the town. It is. It is a really, really amazing town here. Yeah, Puerto Natales is absolutely, I think people really overlook it because they're just excited about going into the national park, but I have been lucky enough to spend a couple of weeks total over the last few years in Puerto Natales, and it is such a gem.

This town is so cute. There are incredible restaurants, bakeries. There's, the people are so kind, it's extremely safe, and the best part, possibly, is the dogs. There are stray dogs everywhere, which might sound sad, but they have a life of their own, they're well fed, they're taken care of, they survive the winters here, which is incredible.

And they're just, they're so friendly and just cute. So, yeah. And it's, we were finishing dinner the other night and we had pizza, obviously. And I had some pizza crust and I'm like, I'm gonna go find a street dog and give it to, my pizza crust to these street dogs. I went up to three dogs. None of them took it.

They're like, no, thanks. Unless it has toppings. I don't want it. They're very well taken care of here. Like these are, uh, the community of dogs are, uh, are really a big part of Puerto Natales and all the animals here. There's, there's a lot of, Goats, sheeps, and uh cats. It's There's animals everywhere. It's like a little bit of Narnia and and to Melanie's point the restaurants here are Phenomenal.

I think we need to make a completely different podcast just on things to do in Puerto Natales because we've been here now 25 or 23 days and we've we've explored almost every corner of Porto Natal so we'll have to do a separate podcast on everything to do here Definitely. Yeah, it's it's worth a visit and also after traveling for 20 probably the minimum amount of time it would take you to get here is 20 hours So after traveling from 20 to 30 plus hours, it's good to just have a day to Rest and to eat real food.

That's not airport food And explore a little bit and just kind of like you might be a little jet lagged depending on where you're coming from So just catch up on some sleep and it's absolutely worth it to spend a day here in natales And then let's go on to day three Yeah Day three, uh, for us, and maybe some people don't want to do this, but we are so happy we did this because I think this was the highlight of our trip.

It really was. We went to an estancia, and what that is, it's pretty much just a ranch. Uh, And, uh, what was the name of the ranch? Estancia La Peninsula. Estancia La Peninsula. And it was kind of a journey getting there. Uh, we took a, uh, a boat to a coast that was probably a 30, 20 minute, 30 minute boat ride down to a coast where a guide, Alejandro, told us a lot about the history.

of the ranch of the Estancia and what they do there. And it was, it was really, really magical. Once we finished the boat ride, as soon as we got there, we got introduced with a homemade breakfast with coffee and tea, and they made their homemade donuts, which were with the jams and jellies that they fed on.

Sound from the ranch. Um, and after we had a nice little breakfast, we went outside to the, uh, stables where they had horses ready for us. And everyone in the group got to pick a horse. Um, and it was really beautiful. All the horses in this ranch are just white. Uh, cause they wanted to. And you know, get this magical vibe of this ranch, uh, which I thought was really cool.

Um, and uh, we all mounted up on a horse and just went around Horseback riding for about an hour and a half around the ranch around the entire ranch. We went uphill. We went downhill. We saw hawks and eagles and uh wildlife I am not a big horse gal Horses make me nervous because I didn't I didn't grow up riding horses but this was a Literally like as soon as we started riding I was like, oh my gosh.

I'm on a horse in patagonia This is a bucket list experience that I didn't even know was on my bucket list. So even if I almost skipped the horseback ride because I'm not a horse person, but even if you're not a horse person, these horses were so chill. Get on the horse and ride it around the ranch. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

And Patagonia several times. This is my first time visiting in Estancia. I would not come back here without doing an Estancia again. We, they cooked us a traditional, after we finished the horseback riding, they cooked us a traditional lamb barbecue. Like they roasted this lamb for hours and hours over an open fire.

And it's one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life. Like melt in your mouth, delicious lamb. It's making my mouth water right now. It's so, so good. So when you come to Patagonia. If you can visit Estancia La Peninsula, go to that one. If you are in a different area, visit a different Estancia.

It's a little pricey, but it is so worth it. Do not let the price keep you from doing this activity. Just just do it. You're gonna love it. It's gonna be one of the highlights of your trip to patagonia So yeah, it's a full day thing if you want to get some more information on the estancia or our nine day Itinerary reach out to melanie on instagram at travel light mel You can get all the information of what we did from there And then if you have any questions on where to find anything about this itinerary Just reach out to her and she will tell you everything.

Yeah, so go to the Estancia come back to Puerto Natales Have your dinner And then you will be getting packed and ready for your W track, which in our itinerary starts on day four. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the day one of the W track. Yeah. So we hiked the W from west to east. You can do it either way.

There's several pros and cons of each way, but either, either way you do it, it's going to be gorgeous. You're going to have the same weather, whether you're going east to west or west to east. So whatever way you pick and whatever way works, honestly, it might even be dependent on the availability of the park.

Because the campsites and the lodging can be a little bit challenging to book. And just so you know, this is a hut to hut trek, which means that you have the opportunity to stay indoors in dorms, in dorm style rooms and refugios and bunk beds for the entire trek. Now when the dorms sell out, you are only going to have the option to camp, and they have something called premium campsites, where the tent is raised off the ground and you climb up a little ladder to get into your tent.

And there's a pretty nice mattress in there, and pillows, and sleeping bags. Very nice. I was surprised how nice those were. Yeah, the tents, we actually slept very great in the tents. Some people were a little nervous about the tents, but everyone slept great and in the end loved the tents. So uh, premium, the premium campsite is the way to go.

And, um, yeah, if, if the refugios sell out, don't, don't freak out. It's not like you're going to be freezing to death outside. Like, they really, they take care of you at these refugios. So, on day one of our W Trek, since we started, From the west what we did was we took a private transportation And if you if you want information if like if you want our my taxi driver's name or the van driver's name Send me a message like enzo said on instagram.

I'd be happy to hook you guys up with these details So we took a private van For about 90 minutes from our hotel in puerto natales Out to a hotel called hotel lago gray You And we did this because this hotel offers something that they call the navigation, the hotel, uh, the Lago Grey Navigation, where you get on a boat and you take a boat to, and it passes a couple beautiful glaciers, and you take a boat directly to Refugio Grey.

So that is what we did. The boat ride was under an hour. They give you a beverage made with glacial ice, which is kind of fun. And then you get to Refugio Gray, and I want to tell you that the, one of the most spectacular parts of the National Park of Torres del Paine is the bridges. The bridges are actually part of the O circuit, but you can add them easily if you're staying at Refugio Gray.

So what we did was we got off the navigation, we dropped our backpacks off at Refugio Gray, and we took our day packs to hike to the bridges. The bridges are about an hour and a half one way, and it's all uphill mostly, to get to the first and the second bridges. And along the way you have several incredible views of Glacier Gray.

Once you get past the second bridge and you cross it, you continue for about five minutes. And you have this view that looks like heaven. You, it looks like you're so close to the glacier. You're in this beautiful little wooded area. The wind is crazy and it literally feels like you might just be in heaven.

So, uh, the bridges, again, are not technically part of the W, but they are a worthy addition. And you skimmed over the bridges pretty quickly, but I think there are something to really talk about because if you're afraid of heights, this is going to be a challenge because these bridges, I mean, what? 60 feet long.

They're long and they're really high up. 60 to 80 feet long and they're really high up and you're, it's over a waterfall. It's, I don't know how many feet off the ground. And it is, I mean, it is a very spectacular view. One of the person, one of the people in our group was afraid of heights and, um, they were able to do it, uh, um, But they were scared the entire time on the way out, but when we were coming back, they got to enjoy it a little more because they felt secure.

And they are secure bridges, but when you're walking on them, there's some, there's some bounce to them. They, they are, and it's a crazy story. Two days before we got to the bridges, um, we heard that the second bridge was, Not operational. It was not working. It was damaged by the wind. It was damaged by the wind and what people were doing from the O Trek Were they were zip lining across the instead of taking the bridge because the bridge was down They were zip lining across and we heard that two days before we got there And then we got to the bridge to our surprise.

It was functional And we were told, Oh yeah, it was fixed yesterday. So it was even scarier to be like, Oh, we're the trial people to make sure that this bridge was working, but it was working perfectly fine. It was a nice rush. Uh, so it was, it was beautiful, but, And I am scared of heights and I've done these bridges several times.

If you're like extreme, extremely scared of heights, maybe you'd want to skip them, but it's still worth it to Walk over to where the bridges are you don't have to cross them You could always turn back but walk to where the bridges are so you can see the view of the glacier from there Yeah, it is a beautiful view.

So then we finished The hike to the uh the bridges and um, How how long was the whole thing the entire day that day we did around 10 miles and that includes Going to the second bridge, uh, walking across the beach, which was 30, 40 minute walk, uh, to get to the navigation. And that includes going all the way to the second bridge and back.

And it also includes the mi door, the lookout, the gray lookout, which is totally worth it as well. If you're staying at Refugio Gray, go over to the lookout. It's probably only 15 or 20 minutes from Refugio Gray. And you get to see the area where all of the icebergs that break off the glacier, they float into this little cove.

And so you get to go and see all the icebergs and it's really, really cool. Yeah, it is really. So we did about a total of 10 miles that day. So then we get back to, um, Refugio Gray. We have our dinner. And we slept in the refugio that night. Very nice refugio. Then we wake up. Yeah, so this will be day six. Oh, sorry, day five.

Day five. So this is day, day five of our itinerary. Day two of the W Trek. And how our group started day two is we did a glacier trekking. Tour and this is optional. You don't have to do this. You can go directly to Paine Grande directly from Refugio Gray, but we wanted to do this glacier trekking because we heard a lot of good things about it and It did not disappoint.

I got to do it. Um, Melanie stayed back because she's going to do it with our second group. And what it was is we did it with a company called Bigfoot. And we got on this boat and took a, probably a 20 minute boat ride to this enormous glacier. We glacier gray, great glacier gray. And then we hiked up this mountain to this little spot where we got to put on our clamps.

Crampons. Crampons. Crampons for our feet. And they gave us some ice axes and, you know, gave us helmets and, and all that. And, um, and we just trekked on a glacier. And it was beautiful with the weather was perfect. We were able to, you know, hear about the history about the glacier and some of the things that the glacier does every year or every 10 years or hundreds of years.

We were able to drink water from the glacier, which was, it was the freshest water we ever had. And this was probably a five. Six hour Ordeal the whole thing including the boat ride, but it was Definitely definitely worth it once in a lifetime experience that That was really really magical. The only thing I would say with the glacier trekking is If you really want to enjoy it, don't forget your sunglasses.

That's one thing because especially if you have Sun the reflection from the sun on the glaciers. It gets really bright. It's not going to ruin your eyesight or your, you know, burn your cornea off or whatever, but you, it's just going to be a little uncomfortable. So make sure you have your sunglasses to do that.

But yeah, it was, it was really, really magical. It makes for quite a long day because after the glacier trekking, We hiked to Paine Grande. Yes, which is about a seven mile hike It's one of the easier parts of the W track We were really relaxed. I would say the whole time it does have some some good incline some good uphill sections but overall It's a beautiful It's a beautiful walk.

You're walking by Lago Grey the whole time, and you see the glacier most of the day. We also saw a guanaco on this day, which is, it looks like an alpaca, and that, that was really awesome. So that's, it's a pretty, that walk takes about four hours. But combined with like the five to six hour glacier tracking experience, it's a very long day But then you get to Paine Grande.

This is the biggest lodge in the park and This also so, you know, they have boat access here So if there's anything like if for any reason you need to get out of the park Paine Grande is one of the only places to do that. Sorry, excuse me So, we got to Paine Grande, we had our, uh, our lovely, uh, buffet style dinner and we slept inside at the refugios again.

And then upstairs at Paine Grande they have this really cool bar where they serve pizza and pisco sours and wine. And you get that kind of like cush experience while you're indoors, but looking out at the incredible mountains, you can see Paine Grande, the biggest mountain in the park. perfectly from there.

You can also see Los Cuernos, another iconic mountain, and it's just, it's a, it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful place to spend the night. Yeah, the, the, the views from Paine Grande were, were phenomenal. Uh, the sunset was beautiful. There's a little fox that runs around. There's a little fox, a little falcon.

Each room has a very large Window that you can look out of so you can watch the sunset from inside or you can go outside and and Watch it and then the sunrise as well the lake that's right next to it. Is it a lake? it's it is such a Deep blue that it doesn't even look real. It's it's a really really magical place We had a full moon that night, which was just amazing Icing on the cake with the sunset.

It was it was really spectacular there Um, all right with the glacier trekking and this hike it does make it for a long day If you don't do the glacier trekking, it's very very chill chill day But if you do the glacier trekking, I mean we started glacier trekking at eight Got back at one had lunch from one to two and then we didn't get back to hike term two to six two to six So it's it's it's a long day But definitely worth it So then we go on to day six of our itinerary, which is the WTREC day three so this day is very dependent on the weather as is everything in Patagonia if you have a rainy cloudy day Your WTREC day three is going to be much shorter Because what you do on day three is you're starting in Paine Grande You And then you're finishing either in Frances or Los Cuernos.

Those are the two options for sleeping that night. And you are going up, so the W Trek is called the W because it's in the shape of a W. So on this day, You go up into what is called the French Valley, which is the middle crack of the W. And if it's a gorgeous day, perfect weather, you're going to go all the way up probably to the Britannico Lookout, which is as far as you can go.

And if it's not a nice day, you might just go to the first lookout, which is called the French Lookout. Um, and if it's like a completely nasty, horrible, windy, rainy day, you might not go to either of those because you're not going to see anything. You're going to get soaking wet and be freezing. So you may just go from Paine Grande over to Frances or Los Cuernos, which would be a three to four hour walk.

But That's it. We had really good weather that day. So tell everyone what it was like to go up to the, the French lookout and the Britannica lookout. It was amazing. It really was. The French lookout, um, was phenomenal. We got to see this humongous mountain, Paine Grande. that was so clear that we couldn't believe it.

There were so many people up there because you couldn't not go up there of how beautiful the day was. So we went up to the, the, you also drop your backpacks first. Yes. We go to the Italiano. Um, there's a place called Italiano. It's just a ranger station. It's a ranger station. You drop your Your pack and you, you know, everyone drops their pack there and then you take your day pack and you go to the French Valley Viewpoint and we watched Paine Grande and we had our lunch there.

It was really really beautiful We just sat there for I don't know 20 minutes or so It's like sitting in a theater. Yeah, it looks, it looks fake. It really looks like how clear and beautiful and large it was. It looks fake and it was really cool because while we were sitting there watching our lunch, we were eating our lunch, we saw um, avalanches.

We were watching avalanches happen on this um, giant Pina Grande mountain. Which was really, really special. And, um, and again, the day was so beautiful. We were like, okay, everybody was contemplating, should we go? Uh, to the second. Viewpoint, which was the Britannica lookout the Britannica lookout and we're like the you know Everyone's saying is like you have to like you never get days like this You have to go up it and we did and it was also a very beautiful lookout I personally thought the french valley lookout was more spectacular Then the second Britannical lookout, but both of them were very, very special, but Going up all the way made it for a very long day because yeah We hit between 18 and 19 miles that day.

Yeah, and if we didn't do these lookouts, I mean, what would it be? Eight. Seven. Eight. Yeah, we'd be miles, we'd be done by 1:00 PM Yeah. We started hiking at, we left Pinene Grande at 8:00 AM and we got to Los Enos at 7:30 PM and we didn't stop many times. We had, we had short breaks. Very short breaks. So longest break was to have lunch and that was it.

The rest of the breaks were, were pretty short and I mean, we're, you know, moderate hiker speed. I think and we are going with the group. So we want to we need to make sure that the entire group gets there. So Um, it was a long day, but it was definitely worth it These are and I say this every time I have a multi day hike.

I have one day that I lose my mind and I just contemplate Hiking entirely like it's just like why am I here? Why am I doing this? And we were talking about it and this is the true definition of type 2 font because as soon as like I was like, you know, mother effing the entire time at the end of the hike because I was so tired and it was such a long day, but it's so interesting as soon as I got to the refugio I got a beer.

I got a pizza. And I was like, wow, that was awesome. I'm so glad we did it. I'm so glad that we didn't skip out on it. And we got the views that we did because of the nice weather and that's type two fun. And most of the trips that we do are type two fun, but it was just very interesting on how quickly a flip Uh, switch will flip as soon as you have a pizza and beer.

Yeah. After a long It can solve most problems. It can solve most diplomatic problems. Ha ha ha. Um, so yeah. So that's, that's a long day depending on the weather. And Los Cuernos was the first day that we did the premium Campsite. Yeah, we slept in a tent. Yeah, because the first two nights we were sleeping indoors in the refugios Then the last two nights we were sleeping in these premium um tents where We did have these Raised beds that were really really really nice.

Yeah, it was cozy. Yeah Okay, let's do day seven, which is the w track day four On this day we hiked from, we got to have a later start because this is a shorter day and the two previous days were so long that we allowed ourselves to sleep in a little bit because the trek from Los Cuernos to Chileno is only about 8 miles which takes about 4 hours and it does have a lot of incline but again, it's just, the trail is is relatively mellow.

We were very relaxed. It was beautiful, of course. And so I also want to tell you that there's two options if you cannot get into Chileno. And Chileno is under construction right now. So, um, You have to camp at Chileno and there's limited space. So if you can't get into Chileno, which is, Chileno is the closest to the tower, so it's the best place to stay for the sunrise hike.

If you can't get into Chileno, you can stay in Central, which is about two hours downhill. into uh, like down by the welcome center and you can stay there. It's a lot bigger so they might have better space for you, but it just is an extra two hour walk to get that sunrise at the towers experience just so you know that.

So we stayed at Chileno. We slept in a tent. Chileno is very crowded because the dining room is super small. And the reason it's also crowded is because a lot of people that want to see the towers. And just do want to do a one day trek We'll stop into chileno because you can start from the east side of the w track Go to chileno and then just do a day hike to the towers.

Yeah day trippers the day trippers Sounds like a slur And they just stop at chileno and go to the towers and go back and the size of chileno small and on top of people doing the day treks Alone, it really, it really felt very congested. Yeah. Yep, so we, I was glad that we did stay at Chileno though because, and I think I already said this, but that's about eight miles, Los Cuernos to Chileno.

And then I was glad we stayed there because we did want to get up at the sunrise, for the sunrise at the towers. It's one of the most iconic views in Patagonia. Um, you get up really early and if you're lucky, you have a nice day with low clouds and you get to see the the first sun hit these iconic granite peaks and they turn orange and it's awesome.

You are at a higher elevation, so it's cold and the weather is really unpredictable. But, uh, this, this moves us into day eight, which is the W Trek day five, the final day of the W Trek. The tower is at sunrise and tell everyone what happened, what our experience was. So we had a departure time of 3. 30 in the morning.

And we did that so we can get this, uh, sunrise on the towers and we started at 3 30 and it's pitch black. It's completely pitch black. We have to hike with our headlamps and you're half asleep. We, we do only carry our day pack, so we're just, you know, hiking, I would say, what, an hour and a half? Hour and forty five, I think it took us to get there.

Hour and forty five. And we were booking it. We were going really fast, just because nobody was really talking, and it's cold, there's nothing really to see, because it's dark, there's no stopping or taking pictures or anything, and it's cold. So we're hiking. All the way to the top takes her an hour and 45 minutes.

And as soon as we get to close to where the towers are, that's when the snow. Really starts to hit us. It was windy. It was snowing. We saw some snow tornadoes. It was I mean it felt like War up there. It was dead nuts. We couldn't it was just it was snowing sideways and You know as soon as we got to The you know the iconic Lakeview with the towers We sit down and then we just immediately start freezing because it is so cold and it's snowing We brought hand warmers.

We brought our sleeping bag liners we brought everything and they've still just so freezing up there and you know, usually You stay there to, for a couple of minutes. You could stay up to an hour to watch the sunrise. Yeah, just to see the sunrise. But as soon as we got there, we, I mean everyone clearly knew we're not gonna get a view of it.

I mean we could, we could barely see the entire lake. Yeah. It was snowing so bad and then we had to, you know, we climbed an hour and 45 minutes up. We stayed there maybe two to, some people say two minutes, some people say ten minutes, and then we just started going back down. Yep. And going back down was really tough because of the snow and the wind really iced up the rocks.

So you really had to watch your step going down because it was very slick. So it was, took a little bit longer time. In the, in the beginning of the descent to go down. But once we got, you know, 20 minutes of descent, then we got back into the forest and there wasn't much snow. And then it was just beautiful.

Yeah, because the sunrise started coming up, the birch started chirping, it started getting a little bit warmer. And you see the snow and the trees it was really really beautiful It was really beautiful up there on the top. It was crazy snow tornadoes. Yes, no tornadoes But once we started getting down it was It was really, really pretty.

And it was so interesting because we were experienced the track for the first time, because then the way up, it was just completely dark. And on the way down, we got to see everything and it was, it was really pretty. Um, and then we got to Chile, you know, we had some breakfast, picked up our backpacks and walk down to the welcome center.

And that's about a two hour walk down And and from the welcome center We were able to see the tower as clear as day. Yeah, it cleared up It became summer. Yeah, like it was hot. We were laying in the sun stretching And we literally were in a blizzard earlier that morning. So We got to experience all the seasons and and we saw the towers from the welcome center So yeah, if you when you end at the welcome center, they have like a shop with all this cute stuff to buy They have pizza beers cocktails Snacks bags of Doritos.

Don't get the pizza at the welcome center Yeah, the pizza at the welcome center wasn't as good as the pizza at the at the refugios. Yeah Avoid the pizza, get the Doritos and beer and celebrate finishing the W track, which is a huge accomplishment. So that day, which is the fifth day was we hiked about a total of 10 miles going up to the towers, back to Tulano and down to the welcome center.

Yep, and then once from the welcome center we you could either take a bus or private transportation to puerto natales And where you will spend your last night in Patagonia because the next day is day nine of the itinerary And that's when you fly home. You fly home from Puerto Natales or like most people's Punta Arenas.

Yeah, take the bus and then fly out from Punta Arenas and that is the nine day itinerary in Patagonia and that's it. That's and that's all in Chile. So Patagonia is split between Chile and Argentina, but we only talked about the Chilean version, and I will just do a really quick add on. I'm not going to talk about this a lot, but if you're like, I really want to see the Argentinian highlights too, and I have an extra, let's say, three to four days, then what I would recommend that you do is you take a bus to, there's, there's two towns that most people go to on the Argentinian side, One is called El Calafate, and that is where the glacier, the very famous glacier is.

You can walk on the glacier, you can take a boat around it, or you can just walk. They have all these like platforms you can just go visit, see the glacier from afar. And hope that you get to see a chunk of it falling off maybe. So you can go, you can visit that town. And if you make it that far, I highly, highly, highly recommend going to El Chalten.

C H A L T E N On the Argentinian side. That is this like, picturesque, little perfect mountain town and that's where the Fitzroy mountain is and you can do some really cool hikes right out of town and unlike Puerto Natales where you have to take like a two hour transportation into the national park Once you're in El Chalten, all, all of the hikes are from town.

So you walk out of your hostel, you're hiking. You're on some of the most beautiful trails in the world. So those would be my, my places. If you're going to add a little Argentina extension, visit those. But that pretty much wraps up our podcast here. All about the, the, what we consider to be the most perfect nine day Chilean Patagonia.

Itinerary. Yeah, and uh, because we have spent so much time in puerto natales We will do another podcast on things to do in puerto natales. If you have the time favorite restaurants If you have the time to stay here, don't just use it as a, you know, a loading zone, if you will, uh, really spend some time here.

It's beautiful. It's, uh, the food's amazing. The people are very nice. And, um, and yeah, if you want to listen to any other podcast episodes, check out our Spotify or anywhere that you listen to your favorite podcast. And we have a bunch of different podcasts from all the traveling that we've done. And.

Follow us on Instagram. You can follow Melanie and all of our adventures on travel light mel l i g h t M E L. And, uh, uh, follow our YouTube channel. Uh, we have Travel Light Adventure Duo YouTube channel where we post a lot of tips and tricks on packing as well as some, uh, highlight videos of all of our travels.

You get to just follow along with us visually and join one of our group trips Then you don't have to do any planning yourself You just get to show up and we do all of the heavy lifting for you. And we just also have so much fun So we hope to see you on a group trip. Send me a message on Instagram I love to hear that you guys got value out of these podcasts It really gives us a lot of motivation to keep doing what we're doing You So thank you so much for being a fan of travel light And for listening to this podcast.

We love you Happy trails. Bye Have a good one. See you later adios