Patagonia

Antoine's view

Did you ever experience love at first sight? That's what happened to me the day I saw, in the glossy pages of a magazine, not a "top model", but a mountain range with unbelievable shapes and colors, like a piece of another planet fallen to earth.

The day I learnt these mountain truly existed, that they rose from the Natural Park of Torres del Paine, in Patagonia, I soon included this area il the program of my next voyage... And that's how I found myself in Punta Arenas, on the shores of Magellan's Strait §( It was Magellan who discovered the area in 1520; and who named 'Patagons', the very tall autochthones) then among the mountains and glaciers of Patagonia, before leaving for two other areas of Chile : Mysterious Chiloe Island, and Easter Island.

Patagonia is divided between Argentina and Chile, separated by an often disputed natural border, the Andes Cordillera; on the Argentina side, the city of Ushuaia has been made famous in France by a very popular television show bearin its name. further north, close to the small, dynamic mushroom city of Ejl Calafate, one can see the only glacier in e world that is still making progress, Perito Moreno ; on the Chilean side, north of Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales, Glaciers are especially spectacular in Torres del Paine ; thei sometimes reach the sea, on the western shore of South America, were the Patagonian channels offer to sailorsd who are hardy enough to venture in this often storm-riddled area a shemtered waterway, protected from the waves of the Pacific Ocean