Georgie’s Wanderlust

Oh Torres del Paine.. simply wow! What an incredibly beautiful hike, every corner turned offering a new paintable scene.

The O Trek is a circuit trek in Torres del Paine national park. Located in Chile’s Patagonia, it boasts huge glaciers, unique mountain peaks, crystal clear streams and enormous lakes, and an abundance of plants and animals.

Around 120kms in length, The O Trek combines the famous W Trek with a route through the other side of the park, connecting it to form an “O”, hence the name.

An immensely popular national park, the region attracts a huge amount of tourists every year. As such, it is necessary to book the trek in advance, as campsites book out quickly. Literally months and months in advance. My friend Mac and I booked it in October 2023 for March 2024. That was the first availability we could find that far in advance.

I was incredibly fortunate to do this trek with one of my favourite people, a very good friend of mine, Mac. While this experience is very possible as a solo traveller, I’m super happy to have had this one with my friend 🙂

It COULD be possible to wing it and show up and hope for a cancellation or availability, however I do not recommend this. It is the most expensive hiking trip I have ever embarked upon. Per person, we paid $400CAD for 6 nights of camping in the park, including park entry fees. Albeit one of these nights was in a luxurious premium camping tent as all of the self catered camping spots were unavailable for one night of our trek. The prearranged tent was very comfortable, and came to $90pp for the one night. It was essentially a cars rooftop tent erected on metal stilts.

We also spent $35CAD per person, one way for the boat. We took this twice, adding an additional $70 per person.

The bus from Puerto Natales to Torres del Paine and back again (paid as a round trip) was $30CAD with Bus Sur. Make sure you book this as soon as possible, as the time you want to depart and return may be full. It is possible to book it at the Bus Sur office in the town of Puerto Natales.

As I have a wheat allergy and must eat gluten free, I brought a lot of my food with my from Australia. All of my dinner meals, including the snacks I bought in Chile, equated to about $175CAD for the week. I also spent about $30CAD on mars bars and cookies in the park 🤣 a gals gotta treat.

So overall, my ✨ experience ✨ cost me around $705CAD for an absolutely delightful 6 nights and 7 days in Torres del Paine. I highly recommend, it is an experience to do once in the life and I am grateful for mine.

Our itinerary

Day 1 – Paine Grande to Frances- 23km, 8 hours

This was a huge first day, we left puerto Natales at 6.30am, took the 3 hour bus to the national park to Pudeto, followed by a 45 minute boat ride before even beginning to hike.

Our hike began at Paine Grande, a high would also serve as our finishing point in seven days time.

We visited Brittanico mirador, an out and back trail, before arriving to our campsite at Frances. I was super loopy this evening, having been four days into my antibiotics, I was still not fully healed from my tonsil infection.

I felt very grateful to arrive to a pre-set up rooftop tent in the sky.

Day 2 – Frances to Central – 18km, 6 hours

This was a very up the hill down the hill hiking day, exhausting yet oh so beautiful.

I found the kms estimated on the old wooden park signs to more often than not be inaccurate. Typically the trail was longer than the sign would say.

Day 3 – Central to Torres Mirador to Seron – 36km, 13 hours

Today was massive, we woke up to a 2.45am alarm and set off by headlamp up to Torres mirador to not only make it for sunrise, but also ensure we could make to our next campsite at a good time.

The hike up in the dark was interesting, windy pass was indeed f&$*ing windy, and once we arrive to the halfway point of Chileno, we discovered the only communal area that was open at 5am was the toilet block.

We ate our breakfast there of bars and cheese slices for me. Deciding that it was the best for us to wait there for half an hour so we weren’t too early for sunrise up on the freezing windy mountain.

And we were very right to do this, we indeed arrived early for sunrise, and the waiting around seeking refuge from the wind between the rocks and boulders was freezing to say the least.

Fortunately for us the clouds hadn’t totally consumed the Torres del Paine towers, and I was quite pleased of the mysterious and moody view we got of them. A few photos later and we were ready to head down the mountain to eat our first warm meal by stove of the day.

We lunched at Central while packing up our tent in the sunshine, and then began the first “O” part of the trek.

Seron was by far my favourite campsite. The walk to it is really special, we didn’t pass anyone on our way there as we left quite late in the day for it, and The O Trek is a one way circuit, heading anti clockwise only. The chocolate coloured mountains with their forested green skirts and snow dusted tops were my absolutely favourite.

Once we arrived at Seron, the weather was massively in our favour, the ground was dry and the sun was shining. After our dinner we practiced our yoga in the sun before resting our tired feet for our next biggish day.

Day 4 – Seron to Dickson – 18kms, 6.5 hours

Now I am quite an avid hiker, I love to get out as often as I can. Today however I had issues with my left there is no blknee, something that has never happened to me before. I think it was a combination of things. Having a heavy pack full of 7 days worth of food, some really huge hiking days at the start of the trek. After reminiscing on my past experiences, I would usually begin a hiking trip a bit slower. Or I would have been out tree planting for months and months, essentially preparing me for long haul days. I had also tested low for iron right before I set off. I was all booked in for an iron infusion the day before I flew to Santiago, and not even 24 hours before I had a call from the nurse letting me know the doctor wouldn’t be giving me the iron infusion because my iron wasn’t low enough. For reference low iron is considered under 30, I tested at 32. High iron is over 300. In my mind, I had enough symptoms for it to be a valid result to have an iron infusion. Low iron can cause stress to the body in particular ligaments, this is my thought on why my knee had issues anyway. A combination of sorts.

There is no blame anywhere for my knee having difficulties during and after this trek. I learnt from the experience, and I still went on the complete and absolutely love The O Trek

Back to the itinerary..

This day was a pleasant hiking trail, a bit flatter and wider than the W portion of the trail. As we trekked in March, the leaves were starting to change colour, it was most prominent on this part of the trail for us.

Day 5 – Dickson to Los Perros – 13km, 4.5 hours

This was our shortest day, and much needed for me to have the option to take it slower, and rest my knee for longer in the evening. Los Perros is “the dogs”, and there’s a beautiful glacier of this name seen right before the camp.

Day 6 – Los Perros to Grey – 27km, 7.5 hours

Everyone will tell you THIS IS THE BIGGEST AND HARDEST DAY. And while I do agree with that as a general thought for the trek, I think day three for me was the hardest.

I very much enjoyed this day. There’s a huge up section, and typically sore knees suffer the most on the down.. So warming up and feeling good going up felt really special for me after two days of discomfort. Mac and I made really good time, reaching the John Garner pass in two hours (after being yelled at by one of the camp hosts to get out of the kitchen because we were eating a bit to late in the morning for their rules).

We celebrated with hugs and photos, many, many smiles and laughs at the top.

I had a good time on the way down, pain killers helped. I typically prefer to feel these kinds of pains when I am exercising, so as to know the limits. However this was a huge day and I wanted to get up and down the mountain comfortably: and I did. Muchas gracias ibuprofen.

The hike down is absolutely fantastic, grey glacier is the most enormous glacier and sheet of ice I’ve ever seen before in my life!

Day 7 – Grey to Paine Grande 11.5kms, 3 hours

Now today was a bit weird, and a lot special.

We had discussed and hoped to complete the “Q” trek. That’s right, there’s another letter you can hike and make with your feet on the gps.

Essentially, the Q part is from Paine Grande, the tail of the Q that extends down off the O and finishes at administración. An additional 18kms. When Mac had first mentioned it before we even began our hike I was super excited to add it onto our trail! I just love the big days! However my knee was not a fan of this option at all.

So even though we woke up at 4am and hiked for 3 hours in the dark and the rain (I know, crazy, I was there), about 30 minutes from Paine Grande, Mac stopped me and said let’s just finish our O Trek at Paine Grande, your knee needs rest. An incredibly good friend and a fantastic hiking partner. I was very grateful for the support, as I had slowed down a decent amount on our last hour of hiking. Also hiking in the dark in the rain is really not my favourite.

So upon arrival to Paine Grande I removed myself from all of my damp from rain and sweat hiking attire, and snuggled into my warm and dry clothing – the BEST feeling.

I finished the rest of my lamington flavoured porridge (coconut & chocolate for those unfamiliar with this iconic Aussie treat) with a huge hot cup of tea.

Our good luck rolled on, we boarded the boat to Pudeto shortly after we arrived, and were able to exchange our bus ticket from the 2pm to the 10.30am – what an absolute joy.

Puerto Natales

This charming little coastal town has lots of little things to discover. The first day I arrived to Puerto Natales I couldn’t believe my eyes, they have black necked swans with white bodies. In my small Spanish I flustered to the taxi driver:

En Australia el cygnets es negros y en Canadá el cygnets es blancos!

In Australia the swans are black and in Canada the swans are white.

As I live in both Australia and Canada, it felt quite special to me to discover that there is a species of swan in the world, in Patagonia to be specific, that is both.

Dining in Puerto Natales is good, as Mac is a vegan and I have a wheat allergy (gluten free, or sin tacc as often found in Chile & Argentina), it was pleasing to find that vegan & gluten free go hand in hand in restaurants that offer these specific dietaries.

I recommend El Taller, they make the best vegan and gluten free sandwiches for a really great price! I paid 3600CLP for one in March 2024. Just don’t add hummus as this will add about 2500 😉

El Taller also made me a dense loaf of gluten free bread for my trek. They sliced it into fourteen for me, giving me two pieces per day. It held up really well, except for the second half of it I was storing in the bottom of my bag that got super squished and was a bit crumbly for my last few days.

Hablemos Coco fed us the day we finished our trek, I recommend their gluten free falafel burger, so satisfying after eating dehydrated food for six nights.

Chilean visa for Australians

Something to mention, for all of my Aussies following along, is that the tourist visa is a bit of a weird and lengthy process. You NEED to apply a good amount of time in advance, and they ask you for bank statements, payslips, and some other personal information. It then takes a while for them to get back to you, but some random email, they will ask you for payment to the appropriate consulate and then you will wait for another email.. that may never come.

If like me, your visa never arrives to your email, CALL THEM. I completely forgot about it and remembered two days before I flew, “oh, the visa I paid for never arrived…!!!!!”

The lady I got on the phone at the consulate in Melbourne was super kind and helpful and processed everything within an hour (thank all of the gods), and Chile was still a reality for me.

Thanks for reading

As always, thanks for reading. I appreciate all who visit my blog. This one read a bit more as a diary entry, please let me know if you liked that.

Love Georgie ✨