Patagonia

v.e.r.b.a.l

Trying to change my flights in the next day or two and trying to factor in what I want to still do in South America. Only thing I don't really know about is Patagonia.

Anyone know how much time I'd need to see Patagonia (flight / bus there, how many days I'd need to spend there etc.)

Don't really know that much about Patagonia yet. Are there tours to be done and has anyone who's been there before got any advice?

Thanks

cailinoBAC

Spent 3 or 4 weeks there in February. Don't really know what it's like this time of year though!
Patagonia is fabulous, but not cheap, especially if you do tours, but there's so much you don't want to miss out on.
We were in Ushuaia, which is so beautiful, but very cold, and that was summer! Would have loved to go to Antarctica, but that will have to wait til I get a fab job or something like that. We went to the Torres del Paine National Park, which was good to walk around for a few hours, or you can camp there too. We did two tours, one around the channel, where we got a close look at the Cormorants and Sea Lions and another where we got to walk among the Penguins.
We had a rough flight into Ushuaia, I mean, it was perfect down from Buenos Aires, but very bumpy after crossing the straits, and vowed that we'd fly out but when the only buses were leaving at 5 am to get to El Calafate at 1am we changed our minds.
Next was El Calafate. There is absolutely nothing to do in the town itself, but like everyone else we were there to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. The pictures don't really do it justice. I didn't really expect to be, as, well, 'alive' as it is. You can actually see and hear it moving. And then of course we went for the walking on the glacier. We did spend a lot of money in Patagonia, but I'm so glad that was early on enough in the trip that we could do it, because looking back, it was worth it.
Puerto Natales is the jumping off point for Torres del Paine. We didn't have enough time or preparation for the W trek, which takes 5 days, but if you don't you can do day trips, you won't have the same send of achievement but you can see the towers and they were amazingly beautiful the day we saw them. Whatever amount of walking you're thinking of doing you should go to the talk at 3 in the Erratic Rock hostel.
On the other hand it was cloudy all the time we were in El Chalten, which was disappointing, as the mountains look so beautiful in the pictures! Still very good for walking. Make sure you bring money, well, I think they were installing an ATM when we were there, but you wouldn't want to depend on it.
Then we took the bus up the ruta 40 to Bariloche. God, I wouldn't recommend this at all. 36 hours and not even semi cama! But the flights were expensive and we decided we had to cut down on flying. On the other hand, we didn't even consider flying LADE but we met a few people who did and said it was fine and the price from El Calafate to Bariloche was about a third of Argentinian Airlines. Something else to look into would be to get the boat from Puerto Natales to Puerto Madryn I think it is. I don't think it's cheap though, but must be better than the bus!
I don't know if you include the Lake district in Patagonia. Bariloche is very touristy, but it's also in such a beautiful location. We didn't do very much there, as recovering from the bus journey, but swimming in the lake, a bit of cycling, walking. There's plenty more to do. I wanted to do the lakes crossing into Chile a la Motorcycles Diaries, but it was $250, so decided to head to San Martin and into Pucon instead. In Pucon we joined the crowds in climbing Villarrica, then did paintballing, canopy, emjoyed the hot springs...
Everywhere we went in the Lake District there was so much to do, so many adventure sports or treks to be done.
Anyway, after Pucon we headed up to Santiago, so that was maybe 3 and a half weeks in Patagonia. You could stay a lot longer, but you could probably do a lot in, say, 2 weeks too.

v.e.r.b.a.l

Thanks for that.

Money is tight at the moment, so not sure about doing everything down there (also not sure how much you can do at wintertime?) My main "must-see" is obviously the glacier. Do you need to do this with a guide? How much time would you need to get the glacier seen (and walked on) properly? Also, what else is there around the glacier area that's worth doing and relatively cheap?

darrenh

Its very expensive to walk on the glacier and you have to go with a guide. Its about €125 where as the same trek on the Franz Josef in New Zealand is €75. My point being it should be cheaper than New Zealand. Patagonia is very expensive in general. If you go to the glacier, rent a car with 3 others, be there before 8am(free entry) and feck walking on it. We spent three hours on a sunny day staring it. The action was unreal. It was this single most impressive thing I have seen on all our travels. DO NOT MISS IT!!!!!

These are my blogs on both.

http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Argentina/Santa-Cruz/El-Calafate/blog-387132.html

http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Franz-Josef/blog-414614.html