Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the second episode of The
Speaker 1: Dean Lounge. Gosh, I just don't like that name very much.
Speaker 1: I was going to bed last night thinking about what
Speaker 1: I could name this segment. The Dean Lounge is just
Speaker 1: not doing it for me. So I'm going to keep thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep coming up with ideas for this
Speaker 1: for the name of this, but today I am going
Speaker 1: to talk about a trip that I went on. This
Speaker 1: is going to be the first first time talking about
Speaker 1: a specific trip that I've been on, and from here
Speaker 1: on out, it's going to be a lot of this.
Speaker 1: I probably will do this like two or three times
Speaker 1: a month, and then one episode will be something more
Speaker 1: specific about maybe like photography or I don't know, drone
Speaker 1: or traveling cheaply or how to pack without taking a
Speaker 1: checked bag. I don't really know, but we're gonna figure
Speaker 1: out as we go. I do have some bad news.
Speaker 1: Kaylin is at the DMB right now, so she will
Speaker 1: not be taking part in this episode today, but fret not,
Speaker 1: I am going to play her role for her. So
Speaker 1: it's going to be tricky. I am going to uh
Speaker 1: just try to try to make lemonade out of lemons,
Speaker 1: with this, but let's get started. I guess right. So
Speaker 1: for this first trip I wanted to talk about, it
Speaker 1: was the trip that I went on that changed my life.
Speaker 1: And that might sound a little melodramatic, and it probably is,
Speaker 1: but I went on this trip, and after going, after
Speaker 1: getting back home from this or even while I was there, Honestly,
Speaker 1: I just my life changed. It opened my eyes to
Speaker 1: what I wanted to I don't want to say what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, because I don't necessarily think that's
Speaker 1: what I'm doing now, but it opened my eyes to
Speaker 1: a world of just traveling and experiencing new things and
Speaker 1: allowing myself to be alone and be comfortable with being alone.
Speaker 1: Which if you listen to our main podcast, Suckers, there's
Speaker 1: an episode ways Back. I have no idea which one
Speaker 1: it was exactly, but I talk about how we so
Speaker 1: many people these days, we just are not comfortable being alone.
Speaker 1: We're always around friends or our significant others or family,
Speaker 1: and even when we are actually physically alone, we're not
Speaker 1: actually alone because we're on our phones, on Instagram, on TikTok,
Speaker 1: on all of these social media platforms that allow you
Speaker 1: to feel less alone. And this is the trip that
Speaker 1: made me realize that being alone is a good thing,
Speaker 1: you know, in moderation, as most things are. If you
Speaker 1: can be consumed by love and family and friends and
Speaker 1: then also have the ability to go off and be
Speaker 1: alone and be happy and enjoy your time with yourself,
Speaker 1: I think that's an incredible asset to have, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people are kind of overlooking that in the
Speaker 1: state of the world today. It's actually something too With Kaylin,
Speaker 1: my wonderful wife, she hasn't really traveled much alone, and
Speaker 1: after this trip and this experience, it's something I always
Speaker 1: encourage her to try to do because, like I said, it,
Speaker 1: it helps you better understand yourself and kind of shows
Speaker 1: you your own capabilities. I when I'm alone, I I
Speaker 1: start thinking different, not necessarily better, but just different. Where
Speaker 1: you know, my brain's allowed to just be itself and
Speaker 1: it's not influenced by other people's motives or desires or
Speaker 1: actions or anything like that. It's literally just me doing
Speaker 1: what I want to do, thinking what I want to
Speaker 1: think about. And you can't say talking what you want
Speaker 1: to talk about because I'm not really talking to myself,
Speaker 1: but I guess I'm talking to random people that I meet,
Speaker 1: But it's just it's it's a wonderful thing, and I
Speaker 1: think it's it's often overlooked and overshadowed because loneliness is
Speaker 1: a prevalent issue in today's day and age. But being
Speaker 1: alone doesn't equate to loneliness in my opinion. So if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, you're thinking about traveling, but you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have someone to go with, but you want
Speaker 1: to travel, I say one hundred percent, one hundred out
Speaker 1: of one hundred times, go for it. I will say
Speaker 1: ninety nine out of one hundred times go for it.
Speaker 1: If you're traveling alone to a dangerous part of the
Speaker 1: world and maybe you're not comfortable with that, then potentially reconsider.
Speaker 1: But ninety nine out of one hundred times, if you're
Speaker 1: thinking about traveling, can't find people to go with you,
Speaker 1: just bite the bullet, go alone and see how you
Speaker 1: handle it. Like you'll never know whether you can handle
Speaker 1: something until you actually get out there and try it.
Speaker 1: So that's my advice. Let's get to this episode. So
Speaker 1: this trip I'm referring to is a trip that I
Speaker 1: took back in November twenty eighteen, So that's what five
Speaker 1: and a half years ago at this point geez Luise
Speaker 1: h five and a little over or a quarter maybe
Speaker 1: years ago. At this point, I went to South America.
Speaker 1: And at this point in my life I had traveled
Speaker 1: a little bit. I wouldn't say much. I had been
Speaker 1: to Mexico. I think I had been to like India,
Speaker 1: maybe with my friends. I was going through my camera
Speaker 1: feed or my camera role to see when exactly this
Speaker 1: trip lined up in the in the synchronosity of whatever
Speaker 1: I've done, and I think India came before this, which
Speaker 1: was surprising because I thought that I had gone to
Speaker 1: India with a little bit more experience, but I guess not.
Speaker 1: But this was my first ever solo trip, I know
Speaker 1: that for a fact at least. And I went to
Speaker 1: South America. My goal was to get to Torres del
Speaker 1: Pine in southern Argentina, Patagonia, more or less. And after
Speaker 1: doing a little bit of research, I found this thing
Speaker 1: called the W Trek, which is pretty popular. In hindsight,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more popular than I had realized at
Speaker 1: the time. The W Trek is like, it's a fifty
Speaker 1: mile hike through the Patagonia wilderness in quite honestly the
Speaker 1: most beautiful place I've ever been to in my entire life,
Speaker 1: and like I said, it changed my life, not only
Speaker 1: because I went there alone and I did all this
Speaker 1: stuff myself. I was the only person responsible for myself.
Speaker 1: But just the beauty down there is unmatched. And I'm
Speaker 1: staring at my office window right now at a beautiful
Speaker 1: mountain here in Colorado, and the Colorado Mountains are incredible
Speaker 1: and I love them so much, but I don't think
Speaker 1: anything comes close to Patagonia. It is as good as
Speaker 1: it gets down there. So what I did was I
Speaker 1: flew from La to Buenos Aires. Spent a couple of
Speaker 1: days in Buenosaires. And I had heard from a few
Speaker 1: people how great that city is. And while I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say it's not great, I just personally didn't have
Speaker 1: a great time there. I think I'm just not much
Speaker 1: of like a city traveler. If I travel somewhere like
Speaker 1: let's say, go to Paris or London or I don't know,
Speaker 1: some other like bigger city, I just don't really I
Speaker 1: ever find myself having that good of a time, and
Speaker 1: Buenos Aires was no different. I just I struggle with
Speaker 1: finding things to do. I'm not really big into like
Speaker 1: the night life scene. I'm not a big foodie, not
Speaker 1: a big drinker, Like I don't I don't go and
Speaker 1: enjoy a nice glass of wine. I just don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't have the taste for it. I don't know
Speaker 1: the difference between good wine, bad wine, good food, bad food.
Speaker 1: It's all it's all on the same kind of spectrum
Speaker 1: of middling to me. And when I went to Buenos Aires,
Speaker 1: everyone's like, you have to try them all back, you
Speaker 1: have to try the steak, And it was all good,
Speaker 1: it was very good. But for me personally, it was
Speaker 1: more of a layover than it was a destination for
Speaker 1: me because it just I just couldn't I struggled finding
Speaker 1: things to do. And I might get some plaque for
Speaker 1: that because it is a beautiful country, it is a
Speaker 1: beautiful city specifically, but I just personally didn't have a
Speaker 1: good time. So I'm not really gonna dwell on that
Speaker 1: too much. So then when I did so, I went
Speaker 1: LA to Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires to Santiago, And what
Speaker 1: I've kind of noticed is Santiago is kind of like
Speaker 1: the hub for traveling throughout South America. You can find
Speaker 1: cheap flights from Santiago to pretty much anywhere in South
Speaker 1: America for way less than what I would have assumed,
Speaker 1: like a Rio or a Buenos Aires would have been
Speaker 1: more of a hub, and they probably are still hubs.
Speaker 1: But I found that flying out of Santiago was significantly
Speaker 1: cheaper at the time, at least than it was flying
Speaker 1: out of any of those other cities that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: So went to Santiago. I only spent one night there.
Speaker 1: I will say, after just kind of ragging on city
Speaker 1: traveling a little bit, that Santiago is pretty awesome and
Speaker 1: I only spent one Yeah, I spent maybe like twenty
Speaker 1: hours there, so not a long time, but it just
Speaker 1: gave me a better vibe. It's a little bit less
Speaker 1: busy than Buenos Aires, is a little easier to navigate
Speaker 1: as well. It's not quite like Buenos Aarres is huge,
Speaker 1: and Santiago is at least a little bit more manageable,
Speaker 1: and there's beautiful mountains over to the east. What I
Speaker 1: really wanted to do from there was travel to Easter Island,
Speaker 1: which is I don't know, five hundred miles off the
Speaker 1: western coast of Chile. What I found with that is
Speaker 1: if you're a Chilean local, you can fly to Easter
Speaker 1: Island for like sixty bucks. But if you're a tourist
Speaker 1: like I was, obviously from probably any other country, not
Speaker 1: just America, it's like a thousand dollars just to fly
Speaker 1: that little flight over to Easter Island, and that might
Speaker 1: be one way. I can't remember if it was around trip,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was way out of my budget.
Speaker 1: It was it was within my budget, but it was
Speaker 1: too It just it didn't feel fiscally responsible for me
Speaker 1: to go to Easter Island for four hours and then
Speaker 1: fly back over to Santiago. So I didn't actually end
Speaker 1: up doing that. So what I did was, once I
Speaker 1: got to Santiago, I realized that there aren't many direct
Speaker 1: flights that fly into Port Donatale, which is where like
Speaker 1: the base camp for the w Trek specifically is like
Speaker 1: that's kind of where most tour groups would start. You.
Speaker 1: I didn't use a tour group, but there are like
Speaker 1: buses that bus you up from Port Donatalast into Torrest
Speaker 1: Dell Pine a park, so that seemed like a good
Speaker 1: place to start. A lot of people will fly into
Speaker 1: Punta Arenas, which is I want to say, like a
Speaker 1: four hour drive and then bust over to Port Donatales
Speaker 1: those four hours and then start their trek from there.
Speaker 1: It could be longer than four hours, it could be
Speaker 1: like eight. I just remember being it was long enough
Speaker 1: to where I didn't want to do it, and the
Speaker 1: flights into Port de Natals were they don't fly every day.
Speaker 1: I think I remember it being like once a week
Speaker 1: there was a maybe like twice a week there was
Speaker 1: a flight down there, and then twice a week there
Speaker 1: was a flight back up. So you kind of really
Speaker 1: had to pick and choose exactly when and where you
Speaker 1: wanted to go. And I think I gave myself about
Speaker 1: a week in Port Donatales. I knew that I want
Speaker 1: to do the W tre but I didn't have any
Speaker 1: like campsites bucked or anything like that. And if you've
Speaker 1: been there, or you've thought about going there and done
Speaker 1: some research on it, you'll know that you can't hike
Speaker 1: through the W without having your campsites buked. They don't
Speaker 1: limit the number of people on the trail per day
Speaker 1: like some national parks would, even this one actually on
Speaker 1: the upper half of the trek, which I did not do.
Speaker 1: It's the O is what the whole thing would be considered.
Speaker 1: They only let like eighty people per day on the
Speaker 1: northern part of that trek, but in the W area
Speaker 1: they don't have any limitations. You just have to have
Speaker 1: your campsites bucked. And the booking platform for that is
Speaker 1: incredibly challenging to navigate. There's two companies that have like
Speaker 1: one has half of the campsites, the other one has
Speaker 1: the other half of the campsites. I think it's like
Speaker 1: Conaff and Vertise or something like that. It's hard to
Speaker 1: navigate because it's like translate the website from Spanish to
Speaker 1: English and there's some stuff that's lost in translation. And
Speaker 1: when you do finally get to the booking page, a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff is booked out, and so unless
Speaker 1: you're planning like a year or two in advance, it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to figure out exactly how to get
Speaker 1: all that stuff booked. So my plan was to get
Speaker 1: to ports Natals they have two headquarters there, Conaff and Vertise,
Speaker 1: and talk to them in person, hope there was some cancelations,
Speaker 1: and just kind of take those bookings. And what's challenging
Speaker 1: about it is most people do the W from west
Speaker 1: to east, so you have to kind of book your
Speaker 1: camp sites appropriately and make sure that, like you know,
Speaker 1: you go chronologically from the first to the second to
Speaker 1: the third to the fourth. If you if you can't
Speaker 1: make all of those campsites or you have to miss
Speaker 1: one of them, your your whole trip is kind of
Speaker 1: shot because you're then either hiking twenty miles in a day,
Speaker 1: which is totally doable, just not necessarily ideal, or like
Speaker 1: you're just gonna go up there, camp at that campsite,
Speaker 1: wander around that area, and then return back to Port Natale.
Speaker 1: So I got there on a let's say I got
Speaker 1: there on a Monday. First thing I did was go
Speaker 1: into the shops and get the camp sites booked, and
Speaker 1: luckily three days from then, So let's say on a Thursday,
Speaker 1: there was a campsite that was able to be booked.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Grays. Grays is kind of like maybe the
Speaker 1: most popular campsite because there's a huge glacier over there
Speaker 1: up in the mountains. That's where the passes that you
Speaker 1: come in through the o from, so a lot of
Speaker 1: people like Gray's the most. Unfortunately I couldn't book Grays,
Speaker 1: but what I was able to do was book what
Speaker 1: was the first time I stayed at Piney Grande, which
Speaker 1: is the one that's like directly after Gray's, and then
Speaker 1: from Piney Grande, I was able to book Frances and
Speaker 1: then Central from there, so it's three nights, four days.
Speaker 1: What you do is then they also give you a
Speaker 1: ferry ticket because you take the bus into the park
Speaker 1: and then you have to take a ferry through I
Speaker 1: can't remember the name of the like Pey Hooey Lake
Speaker 1: or something like that, and then that brings you up
Speaker 1: to like the bottom left side of the W and
Speaker 1: then you hike up into Grays Stay the Knight Grays ideally,
Speaker 1: and then you hike back down the same trail that
Speaker 1: you just came and then you continue on the W
Speaker 1: from there. So I wasn't able to get Grays, which
Speaker 1: was a big bummer and something I regret, and it's
Speaker 1: actually something I've wanted to go back to and try
Speaker 1: to book the O. But like I said, I'm having
Speaker 1: trouble booking those campsites. It's so much easier when you
Speaker 1: get there, but you are rolling the dice because you
Speaker 1: might not be able to get the campsites that you need.
Speaker 1: And it's just one of those things where it's like
Speaker 1: if you can't get it, you're gonna have to figure
Speaker 1: out what you're gonna be doing for the next week.
Speaker 1: And there are interesting things to do there. There's like
Speaker 1: a natural history museum with the Mylodons, which is like
Speaker 1: a giant sloth that used to roam around in that
Speaker 1: area back in the I don't know, prehistoric or Mesozoic
Speaker 1: days or something like that. There's a lot of other
Speaker 1: sites to be seen while you're down there. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna do it, you're gonna probably want to rent a car,
Speaker 1: which is what I did, and highly recommend that for
Speaker 1: a while you're trying to kill some time. So I
Speaker 1: was able to get Plinty Groundey booked for Thursday, Fransace
Speaker 1: booked for Friday, and then Central booked for Saturday night.
Speaker 1: So I had three nights cover fifty miles, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a lot, and at the time I hadn't
Speaker 1: really done much backpacking, so this is not only my
Speaker 1: first solo trip, but my first solo backpacking trip. And
Speaker 1: the nice thing about it is there is some infrastructure there,
Speaker 1: so like I didn't need to bring a sleeping bag
Speaker 1: or a tent or anything like that because they have
Speaker 1: campsites there and the reservations I was able to book
Speaker 1: included a tent and a sleeping bag and a meal
Speaker 1: for I think I got like dinner and breakfast, or
Speaker 1: maybe just dinners actually, because they they'll they'll cook for
Speaker 1: you at most of these campsites too, but you also
Speaker 1: have to book that in advance as well, so something
Speaker 1: to consider. It did lighten your load, you know, like
Speaker 1: if you I didn't have to carry my sixty liter
Speaker 1: with me and with my with all that stuff in it.
Speaker 1: I just brought like nuts and dried fruit that you
Speaker 1: can buy in town pretty easily and for pretty cheap
Speaker 1: as well. So took the verry in to Piney Grande
Speaker 1: and hiked up to Grays to at least see it,
Speaker 1: so that, you know, added a bit of mileage to
Speaker 1: my trick as well. So I hiked up to Gray's
Speaker 1: literally looked at it for I don't know, five minutes tops,
Speaker 1: and I kind of had to turn around quick because
Speaker 1: the hike from there to the next campsite was oh wait, no,
Speaker 1: Actually I didn't stay up Pine grund day. I think
Speaker 1: I stayed all the way at Francis, did I. I
Speaker 1: can't remember exactly what I did, but I do remember
Speaker 1: having to hike through another campsite to get to where
Speaker 1: I needed to go, making my first day even longer,
Speaker 1: which is not ideal. But that first day is amazing.
Speaker 1: The bus takes you in super early in the morning,
Speaker 1: probably like six or seven am is when it leaves,
Speaker 1: and then it's an hour they or so drive to
Speaker 1: the park, and then the boat was about an hour,
Speaker 1: so you have some time to take it all in.
Speaker 1: It's the Patagonia clothing brand company. This is where they
Speaker 1: get their logo from. I'm sure you know that obviously,
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with the area at all. So I
Speaker 1: took the ferry over, did all that hiking, and then
Speaker 1: from there, on the second day, I hiked up into
Speaker 1: the britann Co Lookout, which is kind of like the
Speaker 1: middle upper part of the w and it's amazing. You're
Speaker 1: hiking through these valleys with mountains surrounding you the most,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, the most beautiful mountain scapes you'll
Speaker 1: ever see in your entire life, mountains surrounding you. You're
Speaker 1: you're passing a lot of people because it's a pretty
Speaker 1: busy trail, but you're still fully alone, at least in
Speaker 1: my case, and so you never felt unsafe. There is
Speaker 1: like a pretty decent puma population out there, which is
Speaker 1: like South America's version of the mountain lion that we
Speaker 1: have here in North America, and so you kind of
Speaker 1: are on edge about that. But what I've realized is like,
Speaker 1: as long as there's a lot of other people around,
Speaker 1: the chance of an encounter is pretty small, Like they're
Speaker 1: only going to be seen when they want to be seen,
Speaker 1: and unless you're doing something like so stupid, you're not
Speaker 1: really going to get attacked by one. Not to say
Speaker 1: that the chances are zero, because I think there have
Speaker 1: been some puma attacks down there, but very very very unlikely.
Speaker 1: So went up to the Britannical Lookout, which was I
Speaker 1: was kind of on the fence of it because you
Speaker 1: don't need to go up there to do the track
Speaker 1: complete well, to complete it, I guess you would, but
Speaker 1: the main event comes at the end when you see
Speaker 1: the towers. But I did it anyways, one hundred percent worth.
Speaker 1: It pretty easy day relative to some of the other ones,
Speaker 1: because it was you know that it's not super long
Speaker 1: and there's a little bit of vert to gain, but
Speaker 1: not bad, not bad at all. Hike back down, and
Speaker 1: then on the bottom right of the w you're kind
Speaker 1: of hiking alongside the lake that you I think that's
Speaker 1: the one that you take the ferry over in, but
Speaker 1: either way, you're kind of like water side for most
Speaker 1: of it, so water on your right, mountains on your left.
Speaker 1: I remember there were like these huge, beautiful condors flying
Speaker 1: over occasionally, not the entire time, obviously, but it was
Speaker 1: just it was I can't I'm trying my best to
Speaker 1: like explain how amazing it is, and anything I say
Speaker 1: will not be good enough because it literally was so
Speaker 1: stink and amazing. Then I think I met a I
Speaker 1: think he was a guy, an Italian kid. He was
Speaker 1: probably like twenty years old, just an absolute beast of
Speaker 1: a hiker, like so strong, so fast, never got tired.
Speaker 1: I met him at one of the campsites, and the
Speaker 1: next day he was like, yeah, I'm gonna go all
Speaker 1: the way to the towers tomorrow. But from where we
Speaker 1: were it was like fifteen miles and I was like
Speaker 1: pretty sore. I got these new hiking shoes that I
Speaker 1: absolutely hated, and I was like, screw it, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna come with you and see what happens. And so
Speaker 1: I go with him. It's nice hiking with people that
Speaker 1: are faster than you because it forces you to come
Speaker 1: to be faster and take less breaks. And when I'm
Speaker 1: hiking alone, I'm like, I'll take any excuse i can
Speaker 1: to like sit down for a little bit and just chill.
Speaker 1: So we hiked super fast. The last little push from
Speaker 1: what would it be kind of like central but not
Speaker 1: quite because you kind of like veer up before it.
Speaker 1: But the last push up to the towers of Torres
Speaker 1: still Pine, the base day last tourists lookout, I think
Speaker 1: is what it's called is pretty challenging. It's steep, it's
Speaker 1: loose in areas, pretty rocky, and it's just it's challenging
Speaker 1: to get up there, especially when you're already pretty tired.
Speaker 1: But once you get over the crest and into the
Speaker 1: little what would you call it, not like a valley,
Speaker 1: but you're you're you're basically like in this alpine lake, surrounded,
Speaker 1: well not surrounded, but in front of you are these
Speaker 1: three massive granite I want to I want to call
Speaker 1: them granite towers. And it's it's every picture that someone
Speaker 1: would post from this area has those towers in it.
Speaker 1: It's the most breath taking place in the entire world.
Speaker 1: When I was up there, it was kind of busy,
Speaker 1: like there's maybe like eighty eighty five people up there,
Speaker 1: all hikers. The only way to access it is by hiking.
Speaker 1: Some people just take the bus in, hike up, hike down,
Speaker 1: take the bus back down to Portinatals. But obviously if
Speaker 1: you wanted to get the full experience, you're like, you
Speaker 1: got all your stuff with you. There were like, you know,
Speaker 1: families doing day trips up theres. I guess the point
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make, but it's just mind blowing. Like
Speaker 1: I said, nothing I say can encapsulate how incredible it
Speaker 1: is up there. So the whole track took me four days.
Speaker 1: Maybe was it three days. I might have done it
Speaker 1: in two nights. I can't remember. But anyone can do it, Like, sure,
Speaker 1: there are certain limitations, but if you can walk, you
Speaker 1: could do this hike. It just might take you a
Speaker 1: little bit longer, but that's kind of the nice thing.
Speaker 1: You're on your own schedule, especially without a tour guide.
Speaker 1: You can wake up early, get to the next camp
Speaker 1: site late. Since it was almost summer solstice there in
Speaker 1: South America. In the southern Hemisphere, the days would last
Speaker 1: until you know, you'd have sun until ten pm because
Speaker 1: you're pretty far south down there, so you can, like
Speaker 1: I said, you can take your time, you can go slow.
Speaker 1: I'm not an early riser typically, I would say, like
Speaker 1: my earliest start is ten am on a good day,
Speaker 1: and you know, you have a lot of people starting
Speaker 1: in like six am, so that way they can be
Speaker 1: done hiking before probably like at between lunch and dinner,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty good way to do it. It's
Speaker 1: always the best practice to get started early. That way,
Speaker 1: if there's any complications or bad weather, you can just
Speaker 1: kind of lean on the fact that you have a
Speaker 1: lot of time to get to wherever you're going. So yeah, that,
Speaker 1: I mean the WS It's unbelievably breathtaking. It. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that I like randomly stumbled upon it. I don't
Speaker 1: even remember how I found it. I I think I
Speaker 1: knew someone that had been down there or something, so
Speaker 1: it like piqued my interest a little bit, and then
Speaker 1: I started doing some research on it and looking at maps.
Speaker 1: You're kind of like, oh, yeah, this is cool, it
Speaker 1: should be fun whatever, blah blah blah. But then getting
Speaker 1: down there and seeing it in person. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's life changing. It changed my life for
Speaker 1: the better. So I can't recommend that area of the
Speaker 1: world enough. The food, it's funny. I was kind of
Speaker 1: talking to Crap about not being a big foodie. The
Speaker 1: food down there is amazing. It's it's affordable, it's it's
Speaker 1: high quality. As far as I could tell, you want
Speaker 1: like your American comfort food, they'll have, you know, some
Speaker 1: Hamburger shops. There's some pizza joints that are pretty good.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of other important information that I
Speaker 1: can at least divulge. But the town reports in Natalless
Speaker 1: is incredible. And the three nights I spent there, two
Speaker 1: or three nights, whatever it was that I spent there,
Speaker 1: it felt like I could have spent more time in
Speaker 1: that town for how small it is. It's it's a tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny town. You can drive from one end to the
Speaker 1: other in less than ten minutes, maybe like five or
Speaker 1: seven minutes, so it's not big. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: to do, not only just like driving around seeing the sites,
Speaker 1: but eating and just kind of roaming. I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of cute little stray dogs that'll come
Speaker 1: up to you and they're super friendly. I don't know
Speaker 1: how safe they are to pet in terms of like
Speaker 1: diseases and stuff, but they're they're awesome as well, so
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. And then I made it back
Speaker 1: to portinay Talas and time flew out of the airport
Speaker 1: the next day back up to Santiago, and just something
Speaker 1: about being out there, being alone, knowing that you can
Speaker 1: travel to a place you've never been and do something
Speaker 1: you've never done and succeed. I think that's really what
Speaker 1: was the turning point for me, to know that I
Speaker 1: can take care of myself, I guess in a way
Speaker 1: whereas like you know, I don't need to bank on
Speaker 1: someone else booking a reservation or planning an itinerary, like
Speaker 1: doing that all on my own and realizing that I
Speaker 1: like it more A and I won't die B is
Speaker 1: a very freeing concept. But yeah, that's the w track.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Pricing wise, I have some stuff on
Speaker 1: my blog about how much it costs me to get
Speaker 1: down there, how much it costs for the campsites. The
Speaker 1: campsites were probably more expensive than you think they would be,
Speaker 1: and more than they should be honestly, but I want
Speaker 1: to say it was like sixty bucks a night and
Speaker 1: then like twenty bucks for a dinner, so not bad,
Speaker 1: but definitely not super cheap when it comes to camping.
Speaker 1: The flights were more affordable than I bet you think
Speaker 1: because that Portana Talis flight, Like, since it's so infrequent,
Speaker 1: you would think it'd be really expensive, but it actually
Speaker 1: if you catch it at the right time, you can
Speaker 1: get a pretty good deal. I want to say it
Speaker 1: was like two hundred bucks from Santiago, so not bad
Speaker 1: at all. And yeah, I stayed at a hostel in Portanatalies.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it. Oh, this is
Speaker 1: what I wanted to mention. Cheot too. Before you go
Speaker 1: on the hike, before you make it up into Patagonia
Speaker 1: or into Torrest del Pine and you're maybe you have
Speaker 1: some extra time in Portana Talis, there's a place called
Speaker 1: Erratic Rock in What they'll do is they'll kind of
Speaker 1: brief you on everything what to expect when you go
Speaker 1: up and do the w So they'll tell you like
Speaker 1: weather conditions for the next week, or how to navigate
Speaker 1: if you get lost, like certain things that you would
Speaker 1: probably overlook otherwise unless your experience, which I was not.
Speaker 1: They'll just they'll you in on a lot of things
Speaker 1: that might be missing. It's like an hour long free
Speaker 1: lecture of sorts. Well, they'll just kind of brief you
Speaker 1: and give you information, let you ask questions. And so
Speaker 1: if you're there and you have, you know, a day
Speaker 1: before you start your hike, go to Erratic Rock. Trust me,
Speaker 1: it is one hundred percent worth your time. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a bit I'm not. I'm not super good
Speaker 1: at just like making new friends randomly out in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: but it's a good way to get connected with other
Speaker 1: people who are hiking around the same time as you.
Speaker 1: And you know, let's say you hit it off with someone,
Speaker 1: you guys become friends, then you guys could hike together
Speaker 1: if that's what you wanted to do too. On the
Speaker 1: bus there, I made a couple of friends that we
Speaker 1: hiked up to Grays but they stayed there, so I
Speaker 1: hiked down separately. But Erratic Rock can't recommend it enough.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty it's got to still be there. There's no
Speaker 1: way that's not there anymore. But definitely worth your time.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's that's my w check experience. I whenever
Speaker 1: anyone asks, Like, I'll have friends reach out to me
Speaker 1: occasionally like, hey, I've got you know, two weeks off
Speaker 1: from works in January, where should I go? And they'll
Speaker 1: give me a list of places. Sometimes Patagonia is on it,
Speaker 1: and if it ever is, I say, don't even consider
Speaker 1: any other options. If you haven't been there, that's where
Speaker 1: you should go, Like that is the best place to go.
Speaker 1: So I hope that helps maybe encourage you to go
Speaker 1: down there and try it out and see if you
Speaker 1: like it for yourself. At the very least, I hope
Speaker 1: it encourages you to consider traveling alone. It'll probably be
Speaker 1: a recurring theme at this point on this podcast, because
Speaker 1: I have done a fair amount of solo trips and
Speaker 1: they're usually the ones that I come back from the
Speaker 1: most happy because just from my experience with them. But
Speaker 1: that's it. That's the w trek La to Buenos Aires,
Speaker 1: Buenos Aires is Santiago, Santiago to Portentatales, and then you
Speaker 1: just kind of figured it as you go. I will
Speaker 1: say too, it's nice to not have a schedule, like
Speaker 1: a strict schedule where it's stressful in the sense where
Speaker 1: you you might not get the campsites or the reservations
Speaker 1: that you want, but to be able to fly by
Speaker 1: the seat of your peans and change things as they develop.
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess like be dynamic is it's
Speaker 1: nice because there's no pressure, there's no stress if things
Speaker 1: go wrong. If things go wrong, it's nice because you
Speaker 1: can be like, well, this is still fun and like,
Speaker 1: what did I expect anyways? Like of course things were
Speaker 1: gonna go wrong when I didn't have anything planned. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of the mentality that I've taken with traveling
Speaker 1: is just like get there and see what happens, and
Speaker 1: most more often than not, at least it turns into
Speaker 1: a positive experience that, like I said, that'll be a
Speaker 1: recurring theme. You'll you'll hear me talk about that a
Speaker 1: lot in some other trips as well, of like me
Speaker 1: just going to a place with a zero idea of
Speaker 1: what to do or who I'm going to see or
Speaker 1: what at that place even is, and then it ends
Speaker 1: up being some of my favorite trips. So that's gonna
Speaker 1: do it for this episode. Sorry for not editing in
Speaker 1: Kalan's voice as much as I had hoped to, but
Speaker 1: I guess I was just rambling my coffee is hit
Speaker 1: me pretty hard, so be sure to do you next.
Speaker 1: Next week, it's going to be a continuation of this
Speaker 1: trip I wanted to keep. I wanted to keep the
Speaker 1: W Treck separate because, like I said, it's magical. And
Speaker 1: I actually returned a couple years later that I'll talk
Speaker 1: about as well. I didn't do the W but I
Speaker 1: did some other things down there, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for next week's episode, where maybe we suck
Speaker 1: just a little bit less