The set-up
I arrived at the EcoCamp late in the afternoon, and they showed straight to my unique dome room. I also took a tour of the community, restaurant and bar domes, surrounded by incredible views on all sides. Your stay at the camp includes three meals a day - a buffet breakfast, a packed lunch and a delicious three-course dinner that features Patagonian and Altiplanic cuisine. The wine with your evening meal is included, while the rest of the drinks are payable locally.
Patagonia eco-domes
There are three standards of the dome at the camp, but the set-up is glamping with a focus on proximity to nature and sustainable tourism. I stayed in a Standard dome with a shared bathroom, but there is also a Superior dome and a Suite dome, both of which have private bathrooms. If you’re a solo traveller like me, you can stay in the shared dome with another traveller, so there’s no single supplement to pay. This is a real bonus.
All electricity at the camp is generated sustainably via solar panels, but there is limited electricity throughout the camp. There’s LED lighting on the walkways between the shared domes and the main hubs, but on particularly dark nights I asked for a torch so I could see to walk back to my dome.
My standard dome was the most basic, so there is no heating and no electricity apart from a couple of small LED lamps by your bed. But before you panic, I was travelling in March (Patagonia’s autumn) and the dome never felt cold. If you like reading before bedtime, you’ll probably have to do this in the community or bar domes which have power and places to charge your devices and camera. Alternatively, bring a head torch and read a book tucked up in bed.
Inside, the domes have a compact, cosy and rustic interior with comfortable beds. The highlight for me was the skylight right above my bed! Every night it felt like falling asleep under stars, and in the morning I would wake up to the most stunning view of the iconic Three Towers. The shared bathrooms were always clean, and there are hot showers with biodegradable toiletries.
Community: meeting other explorers
On arrival, I met with the other travellers who had booked the ‘Wildlife Safari’ package, as I’d be sharing excursions and meals with them over the next few days at the camp.
Each morning at breakfast, I prepared my own packed lunch and chose my option for dinner. Usually, there was a fish, meat or vegetarian option accompanied by a starter and Chilean wines – all included. All the meals were delicious, so there’s no need to worry about going hungry on this trip!
Picking your activities
At dinner, you choose the treks for the following day. There are always two options, an easy and a hard hike. I’m not into super-difficult treks, so I chose hikes of different difficulties and lengths every day. You can choose between bike rides, guided nature walks and all types of trek, so there are plenty of options. No matter what I picked, I was never disappointed. All along, I was impressed by the knowledge of the guides and stunned by the beauty I was witnessing around me.
Your guides will help seek out the wildlife as you explore Torres del Paine, and we saw guanacos, foxes and Andean deer on our adventures. My five-day tour including cycling to Laguna Azul, a trek to the base of the grey granite towers and a navigation up to the incredible Grey Glacier. We also sailed across Pehoe Lake and hiked around the western lakes and French Valley.
Whether or not you’re a seasoned hiker, I recommend the trek to the Three Towers. Although it’s quite challenging, it’s one of the most famous and beautiful walks that you can take in the park, if not the world!
The ‘W’ trek
Some of the treks offered are part of the well-known 5-day ‘W’ trek circuit. The beauty of doing the ‘W’ trek through EcoCamp is that instead of camping in tents, you get to come back to a cosy dome and a delicious dinner in the evening. If you want to complete the whole circuit, you can do this through Ecocamp, spending your first and last nights in a dome and the four nights of the trek in refugios (mountain chalets). This way, you’ll share your experience with a group of like-minded trekkers.
