Boaz Kantor

Hey guys,

Where are we? What is Patagonia?
The Patagonian Andes is the south-eastern region of South America, spanned across Chile and Argentine. It´s a land of wild mountains, gushing rivers, thick forests and huge glaciers. People come to Patagonia to see nature at its best.
First stop: Barcelona
We first spent a day in Barcelona and had a speedy day of tourism around numerous sites there. We used the Metro to get to places, and walked quite a bit through the wide and crowded streets. The beauty of Barcelona to me lies within the huge modern roads with fashion corners, with hidden narrow alleys of gothic cathedrals, combined with out-of-place crazy artworks of Antony Gaudi.
South-most inhabitated place in the world: Ushuaia
There's no better place to begin our South America journey than the southernmost city in the world: Ushuaia. There's nothing much to do here. The city is a base of Antarctica excursion teams, so everything here is around that. We went to see some penguins, hiked among the lakes and forests of Tierra del Fuego and took an adventure in the woods and swamps to see the hidden Laguna Ezmeralda. Of course, the most significant advneture here was waiting for my backpack to arrive from Spain, after Iberia had decided to lose it, be rude to us, not return calls and of course, have me pay for a taxi to pick up my bag from the airport 4 days late. We then left Ushuaia a bit north (where else) to Puerto Natales, a backpackers town and a base for Patagonian trekkers.
Parque Nacional Torres del Paine
As we arrived at Puerto Natales, we quickly packed only the basic stuff needed for trekking (weighing about 20kg) and left to the park. There are 4 hotspots in this park: a grey glacier you can get very close to, a viewpoint in the middle of a mountain-circle (called the French Valley, or as I call it "trois valles"), 3 granite towers rising up to 2,000 meters and more, and a "pass", which is the highest point in the area, that as you pass it you see the entire park and the whole glacier at your feet.
We, as beginner-trekkers, decided to take it easy. We set up a tent at the bottom of the park, and in the next morning we took only necessities (about 7 kg) and hiked to see the glacier. We reached it after about 4.5 hours of a not-too-easy walk. I took another climb down a rock just to touch some huge floating ice coulders that disconnected from the main glacier. The glacier is really big, not really grey and the view was magnificent. We took some photos and headed back to our base camp.
Surrendering to the winds
The next day we packed or stuff and headed towards the next resort: the 3 towers (the Torresses). The plan was to climb from the base point to the next camp carrying all our gear, then waking up at night and climbing to the torresses with nohing but cameras and water. But God has his own tiny little plans for us.
We started climbing. It was hard. VERY hard. Heavy. My thighs were burning. As we got higher and higher, the winds became stronger. And stronger. And stronger. At some point, we actually had to lie down and hold on to tree roots in order to stay put. The wind got so strong at the top, we were afraid to be thrown off to the chasm below. Jenis fell and hurt her knee. I got boulders stuck in my eyes. It was too much. Too dangerous. After 2.5 kilometers, we headed back down. The descending was even harder than the climbing, even with the wind in our backs. Thank God we arrived safely down. For my birthday, Jenis took us to a luxurious hotel (that's stuck here for some reason), and so we had one of the best showers and beds in history of mankind.
The plans
We now plan to get back to town and head straight north to see the glacier Perito Moreno, and maybe climb it and do some "ice hiking". If time allows, we may be touring the Fitz Roy mountain and drive the Carratera Austral.

Kisses to all, pictures soon,
Boaz.