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PATAGONIA: Part Three – Torres Del Paine, One Of The World’s Most Beautiful Natural Wonders

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The beauty of Patagonia outside our hotel window in Torres del Paine National Park

The beauty of Patagonia outside our hotel window in Torres del Paine National Park


Google Patagonia, Chile and the iconic picture that pops up is likely of The Masif. Photos of the 10,000 foot high giant rarely do it justice, especially when you’re staring at its snow-bald cap under a startling blue sky streaked with puffy white clouds. Few get to see The Masif preening in all its glory. Mostly the base is visible under a heavy blanket of fog or grey rain. Once again, the weather gods were kind to our intrepid group.
We’d seen the Masif in the distance, but our six-hour bus ride from Punta Arenas (where we’d disembarked from our ship, the Stella Australis) brought us up close and personal. For the next few days, the rustic 95-room Hotel Rio Serrano, located near the entrance of Torres del Paine National Park, would be our home. Our
An early morning rainbow bursts from the mountain in Torres del Paine area, just outside of our hotel. photo by Russ Wagner

An early morning rainbow bursts from the mountain in Torres del Paine area, just outside of our hotel. photo by Russ Wagner


Smithsonian Journeys-arranged lodging backed up to a horse farm, green and gold grasses, glaciers glinting in the sunrise orange sky and a rainbow bursting from the cracks of steep craggy Read more

PATAGONIA: Part Two of a Series – To the End of the Earth in Ushuaia and Cruising Aboard the Stella Australis

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The beauty of Patagonia outside our hotel window in Torres del Paine National Park

The beauty of Patagonia outside our hotel window in Torres del Paine National Park. photo by Russ Wagner


Thousands of shipwrecked sailors’ bones are forever entombed in the turbulent sea crashing against Cape Horn, the 1,400-foot high promontory soundlessly monitoring the endless savage confrontation of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Gusty winds and roiling seas batter the tiny isle of Cape Horn, of which the fabled promontory is like a jutting chin facing down the world’s most treacherous waters. Naturalist Charles Darwin tried unsuccessfully in the 1820’s to do what our intrepid group of adventurous tourists accomplished; we landed and hiked on Cape Horn (National Park), the northern boundary of the Drake passage and the last spit of land before one reaches Antarctica.
We reached Cape Horn aboard the Stella Australis, a sleek white Expedition ship. But before our afternoon boarding of the elegant lady, our Smithsonian Journey’s Patagonian Expedition group of 20 spent two days in Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city.
Usushaia, Argentina
There are many reasons why Patagonian adventures begin in Usushaia. It’s where our ship would launch.
It’s an easy ride to Tierra del Fuego National Park, a 155,676-acre nature preserve created Read more