Prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Okonkwo
Curated by Latitude & Larch
2 travellers
Chile to Argentina at Cerro Castillo; return via Ushuaia
Private guide throughout
Passports required for both crossings — keep them with you, not in checked bags
Chilean Peso (CLP) and Argentine Peso (ARS)
- A genuine windproof shell
- Layers, not bulk
- Broken-in boots
- Sun protection — the ozone is thin here
Photo: Lucas Pescador Barcelos / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)Santiago
An overnight arrival and a day to adjust. Santiago sits in a bowl with the Andes on the eastern edge, and on a clear January morning the snowline is visible from the middle of the city.
- 8:15 AMArrive Santiago
- 10:00 AMCheck inCheck in, Lastarria
- 4:00 PMWalking tour, Bellavista and Cerro San Cristóbal
- City walk
- Funicular up Cerro San Cristóbal
- Boragó · Endemic Chilean ingredients, tasting menu
Photo: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center / NASA/Jim Ross / Wikimedia (Public domain)Torres del Paine
- Santiago
- FlyPunta Arenas
- Torres del Paine
The flight south to Punta Arenas takes you past most of the length of Chile. Then five hours by road across the steppe, the last of it with the Paine massif rising in the windscreen well before you reach it.
- 7:40 AMFlightFly Santiago to Punta Arenas
- 11:00 AMTransferMeet your guide, begin the drive
- 1:00 PMLunch at a working estancia
- 5:30 PMArrive Explora Salto Chico
- Estancia lunch
- First view of the massif
- Explora · All meals included from here
The walk everyone comes for: nineteen kilometres return, the last of it a boulder field that gains four hundred metres in an hour. The three granite towers appear all at once over the moraine, above a lake the colour of milk glass.
- 6:30 AMDepart with packed lunch
- 7:30 AMTrailhead at Hotel Las Torres
- 12:00 PMMirador Base las TorresLunch at the lookout
- 6:00 PMReturn to the lodge
- Base las Torres trek — 19 km, 8 hours, strenuous
- Packed lunch on the moraine
A gentler day after yesterday. The catamaran runs up Lago Grey to the face of the glacier, where icebergs that calved off it drift down the lake and ground themselves on the beach at the southern end.
- 9:00 AMTransferDrive to Lago Grey
- 10:30 AMCatamaran to the glacier face
- 2:00 PMWalk the iceberg beach
- Grey Glacier catamaran
- Iceberg beach walk
- Optional ice kayaking
- Explora
Photo: Dimitry B. / Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)El Calafate
- Torres del Paine
- El Calafate
Out through Cerro Castillo and into Argentina. The steppe on this side is emptier still — guanaco, rhea, and the occasional estancia gate — until Lago Argentino appears, impossibly turquoise, and El Calafate with it.
- 8:00 AMDepart the lodge
- 10:30 AMBorder formalities at Cerro CastilloPassports required — allow 90 minutes
- 3:00 PMArrive El Calafate
- Border crossing
- Laguna Nimez bird reserve
- La Tablita · Patagonian lamb on the cross
Five kilometres wide and seventy metres tall at the face, and one of the very few glaciers on earth that is not retreating. You hear it before you see it — the calving sounds like artillery and carries for miles.
- 8:30 AMTransferDrive into Los Glaciares National Park
- 10:00 AMThe boardwalksSeveral hours, all faces of the glacier
- 2:00 PMBoat approach to the southern wall
- Perito Moreno boardwalks
- Nautical safari to the glacier face
- Don Pichon · Above the town, looking down the lake
Photo: lamblukas / Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)El Chaltén
- El Calafate
- El Chaltén
Argentina's trekking capital, founded in 1985 largely to settle a border dispute. Fitz Roy stands over the whole village, and on the rare windless evening the whole massif goes pink for about four minutes.
- 9:00 AMTransferDrive north on Ruta 40
- 12:00 PMArrive El Chaltén
- 3:00 PMMirador de los CóndoresShort acclimatising walk
- Mirador de los Cóndores
- Village on foot
- La Tapera · Small, warm, no reservations
Twenty kilometres return with a final kilometre that climbs four hundred metres straight up scree. At the top, a glacial lake directly beneath the Fitz Roy massif. It is the hardest day of the trip and the one they will talk about.
- 7:00 AMTrailhead from the village
- 11:30 AMThe final ascent1 km, 400 m gain, loose rock
- 12:30 PMLaguna de los TresLunch beneath Fitz Roy
- 5:30 PMBack in El Chaltén
- Laguna de los Tres trek — 20 km, 9 hours, strenuous
- Packed lunch at the laguna
Photo: David / Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)Ushuaia
- El Chaltén
- DriveEl Calafate airport
- FlyUshuaia
South again, to the last city before Antarctica. Ushuaia sits between the Beagle Channel and the Martial range, and the road genuinely does end here — Ruta 3 stops at Lapataia Bay, 3,079 km from Buenos Aires.
- 7:00 AMTransferDrive to El Calafate airport
- 12:15 PMFlightFly to Ushuaia
- 4:00 PMBeagle Channel catamaranSea lion colony and Les Éclaireurs lighthouse
- Beagle Channel sailing
- Les Éclaireurs lighthouse
- Kalma Resto · King crab, caught in the channel
A last morning in the national park where the Pan-American highway finally runs out, then north for the long way home. There is a post box at Lapataia that will postmark a card from the end of the world.
- 9:00 AMTierra del Fuego National Park
- 10:30 AMLapataia BayThe end of Ruta 3
- 2:30 PMTransferTransfer to the airport
- 4:40 PMDepart Ushuaia
- Tierra del Fuego National Park
- Lapataia Bay
Anything at all, ask Latitude & Larch.