BLACKBOOK THE HANDBOOK GETTING IT RIGHT IN TORRES DEL PAINE New hotels in Chile’s Magallanes and Antártica Chilena region, the country’s southernmost area, make the wild more accessible than ever before Punta Arenas, a two-hour flight from Santiago followed by a similar-length air journey south of Puerto Montt, is the closest airport to Torres del Paine, Chile’s most famous national park. The park is a five-hour drive from the airport through barren, shrubby grasslands dotted with trees that, having been brutalised by the wind, grow slightly sideways and reminded me of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. About four hours into the drive, out of nowhere, the park’s massif suddenly rises 2,800 metres from the steppe in violent, vertical beauty. New lodging options have set a fresh standard for Patagonian luxury. The Singular Patagonia (thesingular.com) is two and a half hours north of the airport on the Last Hope Sound in Puerto Bories, which is ten minutes from Puerto Natales, a town of 18,500. The reason to stay here one night Torres del Paine‘s Grey Glacier covers an area of 270sq km is to take in the Singular’s one-of-a-kind design. From 1915 to 1971, the complex housed the Frigorífico Bories cold-storage plant. It was the heart of the Magallanes region’s sheep industry, and in its heyday it employed 400 people and processed 3,000 sheep daily. Over ten years, the hotel’s Chilean owners, descendants of the area’s pioneers, transformed the rundown brick plant into a hotel that opened in 2011. Imagine the Titanic’s engine room with a hotel built around it. A glass-walled walkway paralleling the plant’s Victorianera engine leads to the guest wing, which has 57 rooms with Edwardian furniture and picture windows that overlook the water and far-off mountains. Make special arrangements to have an intimate roast lamb dinner in the old blacksmith’s shop, which has been turned into a private dining room. t A times the hotel feels like a modern cruise ship. There are more than 20 group activities included with a stay – say, driving to Torres del Paine (two hours away), horseback riding around Laguna Sofía, or kayaking the fjords. Of the five activities available the day T H E A R G E N T I N A S I D E Two spectacular destinations to visit in Argentine Patagonia are the Perito Moreno Glacier, a 30kmlong ice mass, and Mount Fitz Roy, a trekker’s paradise known for its spiky granite towers The way to get to both the Perito Moreno Glacier and Mount Fitz Roy is to fly to the small tourist town of El Calafate. It’s a three-hour flight from Buenos Aires. Otherwise, El Calafate is a sixhour drive from Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. An hour from El Calafate is Perito Moreno Glacier, in Glaciers National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Easy walkways take travellers right up to the face of the glacier. (Seeing a glacier in Chilean Patagonia, by comparison, requires a boat ride or a several-hour hike.) A two-hour guided ice walk on the glacier while wearing crampons can be arranged from August to May. There are also boat rides to the park’s other glaciers, such as Upsala and Spegazzini. El Calafate, on the southern shore of Argentina’s biggest lake, Argentino Lake, is home to backpacker hostels and a couple of three- and fourstar hotels. Head instead 25 minutes into the countryside to Eolo lodge (eolo.com.ar). Of its 17 rooms, book a Corner Suite. Stays here can be combined with a night at Estancia Cristina (estanciacristina. com), a 20-room former ranch reached by a three-hour boat ride. A three-and-a-half-hour drive north of El Calafate is the hiking capital, El Chaltén, a village backing up to Mount Fitz Roy. The town is a base camp for the world’s top climbers, but there are also more accessible hiking trails, such as the popular full-day trek to Cerro Torre. Don Los Cerros (hoteldonloscerrosdelchalten. com) is an acceptable boutique hotel in El Chaltén with views of its town and mountains. PHOTO IGNACIO PALACIOS/GETTY IMAGES 42 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
