Having a nice lunch in the sun amidst gale force winds close to the Penon Glaciar at the top of the Penon Pass with Cerro Castillo and all its glory about a mile away.

Great holiday

Our guide, Pancho, was wonderful. He stayed with us the entire 5 days. We knew our pace for the trek would be slower than most because we are simply slower and we like to savor our surroundings. Pancho quickly caught my interest in all things growing, including mushrooms, and woodland birds. He shared his immense knowledge of the trek's flora and fauna (and mushrooms), and had plastic covered 'field guides' to help with identification. He would alter the trek to bring us in range of other plants and animals of interest which might be found along the trek. Pancho also oversaw the two porters who carried equipment and portions of the food supply (which turned out to be WAY too much) and cooked our meals from scratch each day. Pork chops and fresh sauteed vegetables in a camp site--we've never eaten so well. Pancho always had a smile and, even during a day of non-stop soaking rain, kept insisting the sun would shine the next day. He was right.

Make sure you identify with your agent in advance your expectations for your trip. List them out in advance and talk about each one in as many Zoom calls as you need. Also, ask every question you can imagine, no matter how inocuous or obvious you might think it is. We had failed to inquire about camp cookware for a previous trek with another company--turns out the guide had expected us to provide our own cups, plates, saucers, utensils, etc. We had brought only a camp cup and a spork. The six of us ate in shifts.

My husband has traveled internationally most of his adult life, not always to the 'nice' places in the world. My international experiences are limited but growing. This was our second trip to Chilean Patagonia, my third to South America. Chilean Patagonia has been a delightful surprise. Beautiful. Accessible. Not extremely expensive. Accommodating.

While determining which trek we would undergo, we had also been interested in the Los Glaciares Wildnerness Trek in Argentina. We had waited several weeks to have a discussion about pack weight and the trek with the guide who had been on a bicycle tour. The cost of the trek was at the high mark for our budget, which is on us and not Swoop. Our agent identified another couple who were committed to do this trek; adjusting our timetable to the other couple's made this trek more amenable to us and we have informed via email our agent that we were ready to move forward with the Los Glaciares trek. When our agent and I began to hammer out specifics, based upon the description of the trek indentified on the Swoop website, our agent notified me some options I preferred were not available anymore and the cost was more. Surprised, I looked again at the trek on Swoop's webstie and it was now different from only a few days prior! The cost had increased over $700. The starting point had changed, with an unnecessary trip up to a town (I believe it was where the guide lived) instead of staying at one of the (previously identified) rancheros and much closer to the trek starting point. I get it--economics, change of start point, whatever. However, this change to the website for a substantial increase in cost and logistics was made in late October and not at the beginning of the trek season; a business practice such as this makes Swoop look bad. Because of this, we determined it was no longer worth the bother or additional cost and moved forward with our Cerro Castillo extended trek which we had wanted to do for two years. And we were not disappointed!!

We were prepared for Patagonia and very excited to have had the opportunity to visit such a variety of Patagonian locations: Punta Arenas, Isla Navarino and the Dientes hiking trail, Puerto Varas, Chiloe Island, Los Horquetas Trail of the Cerro Castillo National Park, and Puerto Rio Tranguilo.

Yes

No

No