EcoCamp, Patagonia

Chief among those motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

At dinner on the night we arrived in Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, we found ourselves seated inside a glass dome eating a four-course meal, staring at each other in astonishment.

Waitresses brought us glasses filled with deep red Chilean wine; we chose our meals from a menu of local seafood and vegetables; and wondered how we’d gotten here.

At some point in the night, someone brought me a tall glass filled to the brim with a mango smoothie; Matt received a strawberry Pisco sour.

I turned in my chair to stare out of the dome’s floor-to-ceiling window. Just beyond, so close we could almost reach out and touch it, sat Cordillera Paine, Southern Patagonia’s famous mountain range.

As we were finishing dessert, still staring at clouds washing over the mountains, a local guide arrived at our table.

Crouching on her heels to kneel beside us, she pulled out a clipboard. In practiced English, she asked us what we wanted to do tomorrow. She gave us three options, which she ranked as easy, medium, or hard. We chatted through the choices for a while and decided to plan out our next three days all at once so that we could appropriately choose which excursions to take. Our guide thoughtfully recommended placing an easy excursion before a difficult one, and then throwing in a “medium” excursion on our final day.

After some willpower tug-of-war between me and Matt, we settled on our three days at EcoCamp:

Day One: boat tour of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field (easy)
Day Two: hike to Mirador Torres (hard)
Day Three: visit the Salto Grande waterfall and Los Cuernos del Paine (medium)

After dinner, we headed next door to the Community Dome, which housed a full-service bar and areas to sit, read, chat, play board games, or play guitar.

We spent a few minutes resting in that dome, sipping wine and perusing the bookshelf, feeling like the new kids at camp. Everyone seemed to know everybody.

People were friendly to us, but we were, for the most part, ignored that first night. But that first night was dear to me, because when we walked outside, we saw the sunset over Patagonia for the first time.

A group of guests celebrating their final night at EcoCamp were getting rowdy and had picked up the guitar and a tambourine to howl a Chilean favorite–Tata Barahona’s No le entregues el poder, a song about Chile’s history of government-sponsored violence and the protests that followed. That night, reflecting on the historical moment in which we were currently standing, where we’d just passed through numerous Chilean cities splattered with protest art, the song seemed quite fitting.

So where exactly were we, and how did we end up in the lap of luxury in the middle of one of the wildest, most uninhabited places on earth?

Finding EcoCamp

Matt discovered EcoCamp while scrolling through Instagram, just about a month before we departed from Memphis to Santiago. Owned and operated by Cascada Expediciones, EcoCamp specializes in luxury adventure trips. Matt and I usually stay far away from any type of guided excursions, but Patagonia and Torres del Paine were beasts we couldn’t conquer by ourselves.

By the time we decided to visit Chile over the Christmas holidays, it was already October. As I read guidebooks about Patagonia, located in Chile’s southern tip, I started to despair. Most people book their trips to Patagonia years out–there was no way we’d manage to plan such an incredible adventure in just a few weeks. Let me explain. Torres del Paine, the national park sheltered inside Chilean Patagonia, is a three-hour drive from the nearest town (Puerto Natales), and five hours from the nearest airport (Punta Arenas). Puerto Natales is a tiny tourist town that caters to Patagonian adventurers. Hotels book up years in advance, as do the shuttles and buses that run every day from the town into the park. If we wanted to do Torres del Paine, we’d have to rent our own car and book campgrounds (refugios) inside the park–and the biggest issue would be that we’d have to backpack through the park, carrying our tent, clothes, and food. We knew we weren’t up for that kind of adventure yet.

And then Matt found EcoCamp, the only hotel located inside Torres del Paine. The camp sits at the base of Cerro Torre; hikes up the famous mountain literally start from the hotel grounds, cutting out at least six roundtrip hours of driving that most visitors to the park must endure for a day hike.

Despite being in the middle of nowhere, EcoCamp offers a truly luxury vacation, although we didn’t realize that–or expect it–when we booked our trip. We got quite lucky–reservations for the camp are usually booked years in advance; the only way we secured a spot weeks before we visited was due to a last-minute cancellation.

EcoCamp’s Green Mission

As the name suggests, EcoCamp operates by a sustainable, zero-waste credo. Its team is a mix of guides, chefs, drivers, housekeepers, assistants, and managers. Because the closest town is three hours away, guides and hotel staff usually stay on site in employee domes that are off-limits to guests. We learned that most guides work on an 11-day-on, 4-days-off schedule during the summer.

The hotel functions on renewable energy sources. Four micro-hydro turbines draw water from a nearby river, converting this into energy in a battery bank. Similarly, solar panels convert energy from the sun. Together, these two renewable energy sources provide 95% of EcoCamp’s power–for the fridges, electricity, lighting, stereos, etc.

The site’s 35 geodesic domes were specifically designed with skylight windows to preserve the sun’s heat. Wood stoves and solar panels provide hot water for the showers. The toilets are compostable, but I won’t go into that. Let’s just say it was an experience. The entire camp was built to have a minimal impact on the environment. The hotel is built on raised wooden platforms to prevent soil erosion and to allow animals to freely pass underneath. Structures and furniture at the hotel are made from renewable materials such as wicker or pinewood. Outdoor solar lamps brighten pathways at night. The lamps are so subtle that they do not disturb animals at night. When we visited, we were lucky to be sharing the hotel space with a family of foxes. We frequently saw the mom and her two cubs darting under the platforms, running through the bushes, or hiding under the bathrooms.

For over 13 years, EcoCamp has been carbon neutral, meaning that it offsets all its CO2 emissions from its hotel, offices, staff flights, and transportation by calculating the total amount of CO2 it produces and converting it into dollars to invest in green projects worldwide. EcoCamp encourages guests to offset their carbon travel emissions by doing the same.

Getting There

We arrived at EcoCamp via a passenger van pick-up in Punta Arenas. After the van picked us up, a local guide offered us two bags of lunch food: Caesar salads, salmon, and cups of chocolate mousse. Thirty minutes later, the van pulled up to the Punta Arenas airport and we welcomed two other passengers, Edmund and Katie, an American couple from New York. Over the next five hours, we became fast friends.

The bus stopped twice: once on the edges of town outside of Punta Arenas to allow us the chance to grab coffees from a roadside cafe; and next in Puerto Natales, the waterside town that sits as the jumping-off point for most travelers trekking into Torres del Paine. The EcoCamp office is located right in the middle of the city. Here, we disembarked to allow our van to fill up with gas while we formally checked in with the EcoCamp staff–they greeted us warmly, scanned our passports, and loaded us up with goodies (EcoCamp field guides, notebooks, and reusable water bottles). The office was cozy but inviting: a giant map hung across the main wall, featuring detailed trails within the park. On the other wall were water filling stations, leather couches, and books in Spanish and English about Torres del Paine. After leaving the EcoCamp office, it was another three hours before we pulled in to the camp.

The final two hours of the journey were increasingly more beautiful as the sharp, soaring mountains of Patagonia came into view. We passed fields of ostriches, our driver screeching to a halt on the roadside to let us look at them. The evening was windy and stormy, typical summer weather for the area, and the roads were unpaved. We passed no other cars and crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t get a flat tire.

We officially entered the park at its ranger station, where our EcoCamp guide collected our passports and presented them to the rangers. Once we were cleared, it was about thirty minutes to EcoCamp.

It was on this stretch of the road that Matt got very carsick. After I mentioned to our driver that Matt was not feeling well, he was gracious enough to let us pull over beside an aquamarine lake for some fresh air. It was here that Edmund discovered the bone-white skull of a guanaco, the small, llama-like creatures that roam freely throughout Patagonia.

Staying There

When we rounded the final curve, Ecocamp’s green domes came into view and Matt and I marveled at each other. Thirty-five hobbit holes sitting at the base of one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the entire world. My heart was racing as we pulled up to the camp. Pink and purple lupins dotted the hillside and greeted us at the entrance.

As soon as we stepped off the bus, guides rushed to greet us and take our bags. We entered the check-in dome, which was bright and cozy, decorated with warm wooden furniture and thick furs. On our last day of the trip, I signed the guestbook (complete with feather pen).

Elevated wooden boardwalks stretched out from the Welcome Dome to the community bathrooms, along to the Community Domes, Yoga Dome, suites, and sleeping domes.

Our geodesic dome was the hobbit hole of my dreams. We had elected to stay in the camp’s smallest dome, but it felt luxurious regardless of size. The dome was one room containing a king-sized bed.

A handful of curtained windows let light in, and side tables flanked the bed. At the foot of the bed was a table set with an espresso station and coffee mugs. Most importantly, though: no electricity, at all.

This was perhaps why staying at EcoCamp became for me and Matt such a blissful experience–we were completely cut off from the world for five full days. We charged our phones nightly in the Welcome Dome, the only dome with electricity, just so we could take photos. Other than that, there was no WiFi, no electricity, and no service. We were free!

And from every angle, mountains. Passing clouds hid and then revealed the three famous granite towers from which the park receives its name, Torres del Paine. Later in the week, we would scale the mountain to reach them.

My life’s most glorious sunset bid us goodnight on our first day in EcoCamp. Matt and I stayed to watch the entire sunset, until the sky was black and sparkling with stars.

Although it was summer when we visited, Patagonia is infamous for its fierce, howling winds and temperature swings. That first night, I couldn’t help but burrow into the bed, wrapping myself in the handmade quilts and furs and feeling safe and warm as winds whipped and screamed outside.

Somewhere in the distance, we heard animals calling to each other. We couldn’t sleep from excitement, and kept peering up through our window to catch a glimpse at the stars, or the moonlit peaks of the cordillera behind us.

The next morning was cold and bright and the wind had started to scatter the clouds away, giving us our first truly perfect view of the towers.

At breakfast, we met at the table that had been assigned to the group that we’d be trekking with today–the group touring the Grey Glacier. This community environment was our favorite part of EcoCamp. At breakfast, you always ate with the group you’d be adventuring with that day. Later in the evening, you’d all gather back together at dinner to talk about the day. At breakfast, you’d come together as complete strangers; at dinner, it was like you’d known each other for years.

We made very close friends on this trip: a young couple from Denver celebrating their honeymoon; a pair of friends from Los Angeles, one an artist, and one a music producer; an Australian couple in their 70s who sold their home in Brisbane and have been traveling the world for the past few years (our new penpals and inspiration); a middle-aged couple who opened a French-language school in Bolivia and could only communicate in Spanish or French; and a pair of friends from New York and Ohio who we only knew for a few hours but who have become our greatest Instagram-buddies since.

Our Experience

Over the next few days and nights, we would transform from the new guys at camp to old hats. We quickly learned the routine–find our breakfast table, meet new friends, go on our adventure, take a hot shower, change, meet back at the Community Dome for Pisco sours, eat dinner with our group, and then split a bottle of wine before bed.

Apart from socializing, eating, and adventuring, EcoCamp also offers guests some moments of silence. After an extra long hike one day, Matt decided to do yoga in the camp’s Yoga Dome.

As for me, I skipped yoga and walked the Contemplation Trail, a quiet nature trail that runs along a creek through the camp. I wrote about my experience here.

On the day we left EcoCamp, we ate breakfast, filled a bag for lunch later, and loaded our bags into the van. I flitted through the camp, saying goodbye to the fox family, our friends, our dome, the staff, the guides, the lupins, and finally, the mountains. The only people I couldn’t find to say goodbye to were the Australian couple we’d met. They weren’t at breakfast yet and they hadn’t been watching the fox family, which was where I usually found them during their free time. It was with a heavy heart that we loaded the van. As it started to pull out of the camp, suddenly the Australians appeared into view, walking down the boardwalk hand-in-hand. When they saw that we were leaving, they waved frantically and I planted my face to the window, shouting goodbye as if they could hear. I turned to Matt with tears in my eyes and we both laughed a little. “Well that was dramatic,” I said, and he nodded in agreement.

It took us about a week to stop feeling so heavy. We had been back in Denver, sleeping in our beds, with our cats, but our hearts were in Patagonia. We resented the constant ringing and pinging of our cell phones. We had waited until the absolute last minute to turn our phones back on once we left the camp–not until we needed to checkin to our flight. The transition was difficult because EcoCamp had been such a meaningful experience. For the first time since we’d been traveling together, we’d had a trip that wasn’t fully about the beautiful places we’d seen, although Patagonia has more to offer than the whole world combined. But it really was about the community we had formed there during those five days–the friendships, the language barriers, the communal meals, the hard treks up difficult mountains, the late-night stories shared as secrets, the bonds. It was the most special place and an even more special moment for us. Our hearts are sealed there, forever.