This trip was originally planned in 2024.
We were supposed to travel to Chile in December for 2024 Patagonman but in September, Karel learned he had a tear in his left meniscus (the flap was stuck and needed trimming), which required surgery in January. We cancelled everything with no idea how 2025 would work out. Thankfully, we purchased race insurance to get a full refund and almost everything else was refundable (flight/Airbnb/hotel). Karel ended up needing another surgery on his left knee and since he met his insurance deductible, he also had the hardware removed from his wrist (which has been causing him issues for the past few years after he had surgery to fix his broken wrist from a MTB crash). When the lottery for the 2025 Patagonman opened in February, Karel entered and got accepted. Whereas I became interested in extreme triathlons by watching Norseman, Karel was intrigued by Patagonman. Karel was unable to participate in IM 70.3 CDA and IM Lake Placid as his knees were giving him a lot of complications post surgery. I waited until October to book our flights as we were still unsure if Karel would be able to participate in an extreme triathlon (considering he was struggling with biking due to his spine issues and running due to his knee issues). I booked our lodging (Airbnb) in the spring and reserved our rental car soon after Karel registered.
Because of the point to point layout of the event and remote locations, for anyone who is interested in participating in Patagonman, here is what I planned:
-Flights: Fly international into Santiago, Chile. Take a domestic flight into Balmaceda, Chile.
We flew Greenville to Atlanta to Santiago on Delta. Originally we were going to leave on Mon December 1st but during the government shutdown, I worried about all the cancelled flights so I changed our flight to leave on Friday Nov 28th. We will return home on Wednesday December 10th. After our 9 hour flight from ATL to Santiago, we arrived early (first flight = no wait) and went through customs, collected our luggage and because we were not continuing on with Delta, we left the airport with our luggage and then walked to the domestic terminal across the street behind the Holiday Inn (10 min walk) to check in for our flight with LATAM. We had 5 hours between landing and departure but LATAM allowed us to check in (many times with domestic flights, when traveling internationally, you can't check until 2 hours before the flight). We used our Amex Platinum Business credit card for Centurion Lounge access in GSP and ATL and used our Priority Pass for lounge access in Santiago (we went to two different lounges - the domestic terminal was extremely quiet and hardly anyone in the lounges).
-Lodging: I suggest to book two locations. One in Coyhaique and one near Puerto Chacabuco or Puerto Aysén. There is one hotel in Puerto Chacabuco (where the race starts) but it will fill up quickly so if you want to stay at the race start, book in advance. There is a practice swim outside of Puerto Aysén on the Friday morning before the event that is highly recommended. There are more lodging options (hotels and Airbnb) in Puerto Aysén, which is ~15-20 min drive from the race start. Packet pick up (Friday or Saturday), the mandatory pre-race meeting (Saturday) and awards celebration (Monday afternoon) is in Coyhaique. T2 (Villa Cerro Castillo) and the finish line (Puerto Ingeniero Ibañez) are located ~1.5 hours and 1:45 hrs, respectively from Coyhaique.
I booked three Airbnbs (total for all three was less than $1000 for our ten day stay). The first Airbnb in Villa Cerro Castillo (Nov 29th until December 2nd) so we could check out the T2 area. Plus, there is a beautiful (strenuous 8-mile) hike to Laguna Cerro Castillo that I want to do. The 2nd Airbnb is our "home base" in Coyhaique from December 1st until December 10th (this way we can check in anytime on the 1st or 2nd). The third Airbnb (December 3rd-7th) is a few miles from the race start. This way we have two options to go back and forth to (~1 hour drive) without having to pack and unpack. We plan to spend the night near the race venue (Airbnb #3) on Wed and Thursday evening and then again on Saturday until race morning on Sunday).
Rental Car: Patagonman connected me with Ricardo from Varona Rental Car (email: supervisor@rentacarvarona.cl). He helped me rent a SUV for our trip (pick up and drop off at Balmaceda).
So far, everything has gone smoothly. We are two hours ahead of EST. We arrived to Balmaceda airport around 3pm and arrived to our Airbnb at 4:50pm. We unloaded our SUV and made a trip to the town (one grocery store and one gas station) to get a few things for our short stay in Villa Cerro Castillo.
At the end of the trip, I'll share my thoughts if I would have done anything differently with my travel planning.
