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Grey Glacier, Patagonia
The Grey Glacier (Glaciar Grey, en español), fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, flows southward into a lake by the same name: Lago Grey. The glacier occupies 100 square miles and runs 17 miles long. We visited the Grey Glacier as the first of our three excursions from EcoCamp, our retreat in Torres del Paine National Park.
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EcoCamp, Patagonia
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.
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Valle de la Luna, Chile
It was our first day in the Atacama Desert. We had driven an hour’s dusty road from sleepy Cálama to sleepier San Pedro, eaten lunch, and dropped our bags at our hotel. After stopping at the only gas station in 200 miles (truly) and filling up on diesel* and Gatorade, we headed to one of the region’s most famous sites: Valle de la Luna, or Moon Valley. *yes, our car only took diesel As I’ve explained in prior posts, the Atacama Desert is one vast, expansive, uncompromising desert. It is so similar to an extraterrestrial landscape that scientists from all over the world perform experiments on its soil to learn…
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The Salt Flats of the Atacama Desert
The vastness of the sky, the clarity of the air and the flat, endless horizon are disorienting. It's hard to tell which direction you came from or where you're going. Everywhere you look, the earth is a rough, grainy field of rust-colored salt deposits.
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Santiago, Chile
"Night, snow and sand compose the form of my slender homeland . . . ."
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Magellenic Penguins, Isla Magdalena, Chile
Off the coast of the southern tip of South America is a tiny island called Isla Magdalena. It sits in the frigid Antarctic waters of the Strait of Magellan, a curvy, navigable sea route separating South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The channel’s major port city is Punta Arenas, where we stayed while we awaited our descent into Patagonia. The Strait of Magellan is named after Ferdinand Magellan, the first European to navigate the channel in 1520. His passage wasn’t easy: the Strait of Magellan is known for its treacherous weather, tricky passageways, and glacial climate. It took him thirty-eight days to complete the…
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Hiking Torres del Paine, Patagonia
In Patagonia a storm clears and the alpine monoliths stand like teeth set in a dragon’s jaw . . . The message broadcast from the peaks is as jarring as the scream of a train whistle. ‘Show yourself,’ they say.
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A Love Letter to Patagonia
El que se apura en Patagonia, pierde su tiempo.
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Lagunas Miscanti and Miñiques, Chile
We were thrilled to see some of its natural residents make an appearance on the day we visited: flamingos, horned coot (a big, black bird that nests in the shorelines), rheas (a huge flightless bird that's a distant relative of the ostrich), and vicuñas.
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San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
The Atacama Desert stretches 600 miles from the Pacific coast of Chile to the western Andes mountains. Three countries lay claim to its territories: Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina, although most of the desert is located in the Antofagasta region of Northern Chile.
