In following this series, you may have figured out in one sense we’ve reached the end of the literal road. You’re in Cochrane, and there for the most part the road runs out after going south a bit and then east to the Argentine border. The most famous part of Chilean Patagonia, however, is over the impassable mountains and fjords farther south, and I still aim to get you there.
We are talking about the parks at the end of the world, Tierra del Fuego. The first of those parks is one of the largest and most formidable, home of the Marine Elephant, austere icy peaks, and giant condors. It’s Parque Nacional Alberto Agostini, and you can only get to the park by boat. But to even get to a place where you can board one of those boats, you will have to take a long roundabout trip into Argentina before getting back into Chile during which you will pass many famous Argentine destinations like El Calafate. Another alternative will be to go back north from Cochrane to the nearest major airport at Coyhaique (Balmaceda) and fly directly from there to Punta Arenas. I’ll describe this in more detail in the Transportation Options section further below.
Unless you tap into my little secret! Take two connecting ferries that are more a direct line than either the land or air options I mentioned above.
The main question is, “Is it worth it?” And I say absolutely yes! The end-of-the-world parks are in a league of their own, so surreal and magical without diminishing any other unique parks we’ve hiked through already in this series. You’ve come this far, don’t stop now!
Following this park series of articles, and going in the order presented, then the airport you will have gone through already is Puerto Montt if you started from the very beginning, or Balmaceda (Coyhaique) if you started about half of the way in with the parks like Cerro Castillo, Patagonia, or San Rafael.
However, if you’re starting your journey with the Alberto Agostini park, then you would be better to fly directly to the international airport at Punta Arenas. From Punta Arenas, you are equidistant to all of the national parks in the Magellanes region that I’ll be covering from here to the end of the series.
You must get your park pass in advance online and carry it with you at all times on your way to the park. Don’t discard it after you leave the park either, as it’s important tracing documentation for government ministries. Simply go to Pases Parques to pay for and download your park pass. The fee for adults who are not Chilean citizens is 11,000 Chilean pesos (roughly $12 USD) per person. The park pass site belongs to CONAF, which is the official ministry managing all of Chile’s forests and national parks.
This fee covers any contact with or transit through the park, even if you don’t get off the boat.
There is no overnight camping permitted in the park.
Assuming that you are picking up where you left off with the previous park (Laguna San Rafael), you’ll probably be in Cochrane, unless you stayed overnight closer to the park in Puerto Tranquilo.
Whichever is the case, you’ll want to head back north to Coyhaique (7.5 hours from Cochrane by bus and then another hour by private shuttle or taxi to the Balmaceda airport) if you’re choosing to fly to Punta Arenas; east if you’re going to travel entirely by bus through Argentina and back into Chile (not recommended); or south if you’re going to take the ferries through the Chilean fjords (recommended). All of these options are further detailed in the Transportation Options section below.
Photo by Balou46, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Open Year Round
Topography: Evergreen forests and glacial ice pack.
Climate: Rainy and cold.
Agostini is the largest park in the Magellan Antarctic (and the third largest in all of Chile), a wilderness so unique that it seems it belongs to another planet. The archipelago of islands that the park claims include their own mountain range named after Charles Darwin, with peaks that jetty right into the sea or send glaciers down their slopes.
As you navigate through the park, look for massive marine elephants on the Marinelli glacier, leopard seals, foxes, several species of dolphins. Flying above you will see albatross, cormorants, gulls and petrels.
The park is so unique and precious, it was declared by UNESCO an official Biosphere Reserve and is considered one of the 24 most pristine ecoregions on Earth.
This is one of the few parks that doesn’t have public access or administrative services (although you still have to pay a fee to go through it), but fortunately, it is big and domineering enough that it brings its stunning beauty right in front of you as the ferry goes through the Beagle Strait, including the impressive Monte Sarmiento, an icy mountain shaped like a pyramid that was featured in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
There are a few private outfitters who can help you set foot on land in the park, like Solo Expediciones departing from Punta Carrera (50km south of Punta Arenas), or Puerto Williams.
Since there are no trails in Agostini to wrap your schedule around and you’ll be seeing it all from the ferry, really all you need to do to optimize your travel plan is figure out whether is choose between the 1:00 a.m. (that’s one hour after midnight) Monday ferry from Punta Arenas to Puerto Williams, or the 18:00 (6 p.m.) Thursday departure. Then work your travel time backwards from there and depending on which form of transportation you’ll be using as described above.
Normally, I would advise resting for a couple days after you get off a bus, but the ferries provide you so much opportunity for walking around and getting the freshest marine air imaginable, that I don’t think you’ll need to plan much downtime at all.
However, Puerto Williams and the island it’s on (Navarino) is interesting enough that I would recommend saving your hiking boots for exploring this southernmost island. It has a couple museums and other services that I don’t think you’ll want to miss the opportunity to fully check it out before you plan on heading back to Punta Arenas.
This is only recommended for those who have a lot of time and perhaps want to first go into Argentina to see El Calafate, before going back into Chile to Puerto Natales, then from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas. While El Calafate is cool, you will see many more glaciers near equal its size from the ferry, so I don’t think taking this long trek is really worth it.
Buses from Cochrane or Puerto Tranquilo heading east to Argentina don’t have published schedules and cannot be reserved online. You will just have to ask an innkeeper where to go catch one. Once on the Argentine side of the border (Los Antiguos), again you will have to just ask locally about buses going to El Calafate or at least to the town of Perito Moreno where you can hail down a connecting bus on its way south.
From El Calafate, getting back across the border to Puerto Natales in Chile is really scant; the roads are in really poor condition and unpaved, so you may need to ask around in El Calafate about anyone going that way that can bring you along. But there are two of these roads available, one of them going through the Rio Turbio area, which is a minor tourist destination itself, and the second road is route 293, which has the advantage of being a shorter span of unpaved ground before reconnecting with a Chilean highway.
Once you’re back in Chile proper, yes, you can reserve seats online for the last stretch from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas, no problem.
From Punta Arenas, you can board the ferry to go through the park on its way to Puerto Williams.
From Cochrane or from Puerto Tranquilo, you can reserve bus tickets to get back to Coyhaique, a trip ranging from 5-7 hours. Once in the city, it’s another hour plus in a taxi or private shuttle to the Balmaceda airport.
Balmaceda is an international airport, so major airlines like LATAM service it and can provide connection to Punta Arenas. However, they all first fly one hour flight time further north to Puerto Montt, and there you transfer onto another flight going to Punta Arenas (2 hours). So if you minimize your layover right in Puerto Montt, it’s possible to get from Coyhaique to Punta Arenas in less than four hours. Add in the bus and taxi time for an overall time budget of 12 hours, assuming you have minimal layover time.
Get ready for one of the most spectacular journeys of your life! This option is not the shortest, but it is much less hassle than the bus option going into Argentina, so follow closely.
The primary mode of transport is on the ferry, but you have to take a couple bus or private shuttle trips along the way to get to the ferry docks.
From Cochrane, you can either use the local bus, or a private shuttle arrangement to get you to Caleta Tortel. Technically you can also target Puerto Yungay, but there is nothing except a ferry dock there, whereas Caleta Tortel has charming boardwalks, some restaurants and inns. For the bus, you will have to go to the bus terminal and consult with the company Aldea about their next scheduled departure to Caleta Tortel, which is 2 hours south of Cochrane. Aldea is a small bus company but doesn’t publish schedules and sometimes only makes the trip a couple times per week, so you will have to make sure they can get you to Caleta Tortel by 23:00 on a Saturday, as the ferry also only leaves once per week on Saturdays at 23:00.
If you would prefer the private transfer option, we can arrange a car to pick you up from your hotel in Cochrane and take you directly to Caleta Tortel to make sure your get there on time and on any schedule you want. Just go to our private transportation page to make a reservation, but please give us a full week to scout for an available driver, as this part of the country is pretty unpopulated and remote.
The ferry leaves from Caleta Tortel only once a week, on Saturdays at 23:00, and you can reserve your ferry passage from there all the way to Puerto Natales, a 38-hour trip. The ferry has comfortable seats and couches on board and a full cafeteria, and you’ll be going through the most intricate and mysterious fjords showcasing this pristine wild part of the world.
Once you’ve arrived in Puerto Natales, hop on board a bus to Punta Arenas, which you can reserve here. This route has multiple departures daily and takes a little over 3 hours.
Finally, in Punta Arenas, you can then get on to the ferry that winds through Parque Alberto Agostini with a destination of Puerto Williams (just across the channel from Ushuaia in Argentina). Note this ferry takes 32 hours to reach Puerto Williams and leaves twice a week, so plan ahead.
Basically, the ferries offer you a more authentic encounter than a cruise ship, and for less money, too. You get to see more on land and have more flexibility with each segment of the trip if for example you want to stay longer at some point along the path and then just get the next ferry or bus a few days later. Plus, the biggest benefit is that on the ferry from Caleta Tortel, you will be actually going through a second national park (Bernardo O’Higgins), which is the largest national park in Chile. Basically, everything around you as you sail south belongs to that park!
For coming back to Punta Arenas to continue hiking through other parks, you can just reverse the route from Puerto Williams on the ferry. Or there are also flights back if you’re pressed for time.
While the expeditions with outfitters are certainly available as mentioned and linked earlier, I think you will be so overstimulated from what you can see from on deck of the ferry that you don’t need to make a further investment in an expedition. Often this requires more permits and expenses than are really necessary or beneficial, unless you’re doing some scientific expedition.
South America Buses (SAB) is the luxury channel of AndesTransit, the land travel transportation schedule and reservation hub preferred most by travelers to Latin America. SAB has a select team of distinguished travel experts who have dedicated themselves to research, document, and curate routes and carriers in South America that meet nothing short of the highest quality standards in land travel.
Other Links
Copyright © 2024 SouthAmericaBuses. All rights reserved.
