Puerto Williams and the Sail to Argentina

This was a great adventure in every regard, which was clear from the moment we arrived in Puerto Williams to find that the “airport” was no more than a wide concrete strip on which a plane could feasibly land.

Puerto Williams, a tiny town on Navarino Island in Chile, has very minimal tourism despite claiming the title of Southernmost settlement in the world. My six week trip through Chile just didn’t feel complete without a visit, so I showed up with Nikki, who I’d first met on the O Circuit in Torres del Paine. Here’s a photo of the main road through town (left) and the “downtown” strip (right), which had a restaurant, bar, and coffee shop:

There were no hostels in the traditional sense, but there was El Padrino, a refugio with about ten twin beds across four rooms, run by a lovely woman named Cecilia. Photos of El Padrino:

El Padrino had no reservation system or even check-in process, as Cecilia was usually nowhere to be found. One day a French guy stumbled upon the place, having just hitchhiked via sailboat from Argentina (more on that later). I informed Cecilia via WhatsApp that he’d be staying, and his “check-in” was complete:

And again a few days later:

Cecilia did occasionally appear with food. One night she brought cheese fondue for dinner, but most nights there was a communal cooking effort with whoever happened to be staying. Here’s a photo of one such effort, and of the crew for that particular evening. The French guy is on the right, Nikki on the left, and on the far left, a Chilean guy from Santiago who was both my chess partner and Spanish teacher all week.

Speaking of the crew at El Padrino, on day three a newcomer arrived, and this newcomer was none other than my German friend Chris. I had met Chris over a month ago at the bus station in Pucon, and we had then climbed Volcan Lanin together. The Lanin climb was the most absurd day of my travels, possibly of my life, and Chris was by my side for all 17 hours of it. We were thrilled to see each other.

One neat thing about countries with established backpacker routes, like practically all of the South American countries, is that the same people turn up to all the same places, so it’s actually quite common to bump into travelers you’ve met before. I have countless examples, but Chris at El Padrino was easily the winner, in part because Puerto Williams is the one place that most actually never turn up.

I had once wondered what we’d actually do in Puerto Williams, but to our pleasant surprise, there were tons of things to do. We hiked Mount Carancho, which was absolutely spectacular and yet we were the only two on the trail that day, and quite possibly all month. When Chris arrived, us three took a road trip in a “rental car,” which was actually just the personal car of El Padrino’s neighbor. There’s one road on Navarino Island, and we drove it both ways in about six hours. I also spent a day biking parts of this road, and ran into a pack of wild horses while doing so:

Eventually it was time to depart Puerto Williams, and here is where we encountered some problems. Puerto Williams is just across the Beagle Channel from our next destination, Ushuaia in Argentina, but no commercial boats offer a border crossing here. Hence why the French guy had hitchhiked from Ushuaia on a northbound sailboat, which is actually quite feasible given the high volume of boats that depart from Ushuaia. Hardly any boats depart Puerto Williams though, so while we could literally see Ushuaia across the channel, we couldn’t get there.

It was clear that we were not the first to encounter such a predicament. El Padrino had ten written rules, the last of which read: “I remind you we are a place easy to get to but hard to leave from, yet there always exists a solution. Don’t stress.” One solution, I would learn, was a guy named Luis who lived in Ushuaia, owned a sailboat, and would pick up travelers in Puerto Williams in exchange for cash.

Luis agreed to a departure date, but the day prior he sent me a weather forecast and it was immediately clear that no sail would be happening. So we instead passed a stormy day at El Padrino with a chess board, red wine, and great company. The weather then cleared and the sail was a go, so Nikki and I convened at the Puerto Williams harbor and anxiously awaited the arrival of Luis and his boat. When a Chilean customs official (who was a friend of Luis) arrived on the dock out of nowhere, we knew that we were in business.

Luis himself, along with a handful of Puerto Williams bound travelers, turned up just after the customs official in a boat that didn’t quite look sea worthy:

The 8 hour crossing was cold, rough, boring, and it rained. I mostly spent it laying below deck to stay warm and dry (an aside, but the backpack below is all my gear for a year on the road):

We did once have momentary relief from our boredom, thanks to a heated disagreement with Luis over the foreign exchange rate that we’d used to calculate his cash payment. The middle of the Beagle Channel is a terrible place to fight your Spanish speaking boat captain on foreign exchange rates, so we gave him all the cash we had (in multiple currencies), and he was satisfied enough to bring us to Ushuaia.

We arrived at 11pm to torrential downpour, and practically ran straight to Ushuaia’s Irish Pub, where we sat at the bar soaking wet with our large backpacks and ordered a celebratory drink and pizza. Chris, who is in Ushuaia as well, met us at the bar. Unaware of Luis’ services, Chris had booked more commercial (but drastically roundabout) travel to Ushuaia: an hour flight back North, then 10 hour bus back South.

The three of us are staying in an AirBnb that is truly luxurious, or at least feels that way to us, but admittedly the bar is quite low:

Tomorrow I depart for Antarctica on a boat from Ushuaia, so today is a day of administrative tasks like renting a waterproof parka, taking a COVID test, and posting the blog. I typically write the blog on my phone from a variety of precarious places, like Luis’ boat (sea sickness permitting) and my personal favorite and current blogging spot, the long queue (multiple hours sometimes) at Western Union. In the next blog, which should be after the Antarctica trip, I’ll describe the Blue Dollar rate so that the Western Union trips will make some sense. Thanks for following!