Our holiday started on Monday 18th October in Punta Arenas, Chile. We left Heathrow Airport mid afternoon on the 16th October, and via Madrid, Santiago, and Puerto Montt arrived in Punta Arenas early evening on the 17th October, a little tired, but not as knackered as I had anticipated! From the airport we took a taxi and checked into the Plaza Hotel. On the first night we were taken, by our hosts Gustavo and Heidi (of Estancia Travel) to a restaurant in the city where we were introduced to the Chilean national drink of pisco for the first time – more to follow!
Day 1 Visit to Olga Teresa:
Day 2 Estancia Rio Penitente:
After what happened the day before I was to say the least a little bit apprehensive about the whole idea of spending the next six days on a horse, but fortunately I need not have worried as “William” came to my rescue. We rode over open valleys, through rivers and up and down the side of steep slopes covered with dead trees. The views were breathtaking and any attempt to describe them in words does not do them justice. After stopping for a rest at Oscar’s “Bisco” (this did include using his outside toilet which included newspaper as a replacement for toilet roll – enough said) we were taken to a look out point that our guide (“Baqueano”) uses to see where his animals are grazing, the view was spectacular, but I was not happy stood on a narrow ledge, several thousand feet up!
On this trip we experienced several changes in the weather, it started to rain, then hailed and by the time we reached the cave it was dry again. The weather in this region is known to be changeable, you can get all types of weather in one day, but on the whole we were extremely lucky with the weather on this trip, this was the worst day.
My stead for this trip was again William and once again he was superb, though we did lag back so that we could get in a few strides of canter while our guides were not looking. Not much to say about the cave though it was biggest one I’ve seen!
That evening we stayed at the Hotel Tres Pasos, which was undergoing a little refurbishment, fortunately the builders decided to give it rest after several hours of banging nails into wood.
No William today, so my new stead was Angela, who was destined to be my second favourite horse of the trip. Once we got going, it was quite clear that Angela did not want to trot and favoured canter, which made the journey relatively relaxed for me, as her canter was not particularly fast, it was in fact they same pace as the other horses in trot.
On a daily basis the scenery became more spectacular, we rode through a valley that was surrounded by wooded hills with the snow topped mountains in the background.
Cerro Castillo is a small settlement right in the middle of nowhere, we took an afternoon stroll around it, as this was the only opportunity we had so far to get postcards! We did also investigate the rodeo ring, but on arrival found 3 bulls loosely tethered to the front gate and decided to go no further.
Day 5 Ride from Estancia El Pionero to Estancia Lazo
This turned out the longest ride of the whole holiday, a good five hours in the saddle. Today, and as it turned out for the next three days my horse was Rafferity who by the end of the holiday was to become my favourite horse of the trip ( see day 6 for the explanation ). The highlight of this ride was going through a fast flowing river that came up the belly of my horse. The terrain on this trip was the most varied the sand dunes being the most unexpected.
On reflection, probably the best day of the holiday, but it did not start well, as it was freezing, but once we got going we soon warmed up. Manuel our Baqueano took us up to a look out point that gave us fantastic views of the park below. Having got to this look out point obviously we had to go down, and in places the descent was very steep. At one point our guide stopped with me on a 45 degree slope to point out some Puma footprints, which from my point of view was uncalled for, just get me home. Once we got to the point where we were lower than the trees I felt much happier. I did think about getting off, but in all fairness to my horse getting off would have been the least safe option.
This turned out to me our last day on horseback and was a fantastic ride through the park, on the way we saw several herds of Guanaco and the views of the park were stunning.
Day 8 Walk Las Torres
We had 2 options that day, a 6 hour walk or a relaxing day at the Estancia, with the benefit of hindsight we would have probably given the walk a miss. I did get the top of the mountain, the wife did not manage it, but I was very proud of her as in all fairness to her it was not an easy walk and only experienced walkers would find this relatively easy. It was also quite odd, with blue skies, the sun shining and it snowing, all at the same time. I was also very grateful for the stream that ran along side the walk as I stopped on several occasions for a welcome drink.
After the previous days excursion we needed this, as we did not really want to do anything. The trip started with a 2 hour ride in a zodiac to meet up with the boat that would take us to Puerto Natales.