Hiking the W-Trek in Torres del Paine, Patagonia

Traveling to South America had been a dream of mine for many many years. A little bit over a year ago me and my trusted adventure friends Hannes, Eeva and Daniel got serious about this idea to go and hike the W-trek in Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. It took quite a while to actually get things sorted out and decide a good time to go. We needed to get our busy schedules match and pick a good time so the fall colors would be in full action.

Getting there is not the easiest thing in the world and our last minute rental car cancellation due to no border crossing with this company gave us few extra bumps for the preparation. Me and Eeva flew from Finland and met up with Daniel in Madrid airport to catch the flight together to Santiago and then Punta Arenas. Flights went well and we arrived in Chile and took a bus to our first accommodation in Puerto Natales after about a 3 hour bus ride. Hannes was waiting us there as he had been traveling around the area for a week after his trip to the Antarctica.

We had few days to prepare before heading to the national park and we needed to gather all the food and other missing equipment, which turned out to be a quite challenging task as it was Easter. Luckily at the end we had all things collected and were able to head out for our 6 days adventure in the park.

The trek was super nice with amazing views that kept you going although the hike was quite hard from time to time. We were camping the whole trip in our tents so we were carrying all the camp gear needed and food for the whole time. We got were really lucky with the weather and it only rained a little bit twice or so. We actually ended up sleeping one night in a cabin on the way as the wind got over 40m/s for the night. I'm very sure our nice Fjällräven Dome tent could've taken the beating, but sleep quality would've suffered for sure and Daniel's tent couldn't take it as he had some competitor tent in use... HAHA! But yeah, this kind of hiking is not the best place to have lack of sleep, so we made a common decision to spend the night in a nice and warm cabin.

The hike went well until the last two days as my knee was kind of feeling it and it got really painful to make the last part of the hike. Eeva had also been having issues with her back. We made our way to the Dome Hotel where we had a nice relaxing night with hot showers before heading out from the park. 


After hiking in Torres del Paine, it was time to pick up a rental car from Puerto Natales and drive up to El Chalten in Argentina for some hiking around Mt. Fitz Roy. We were still kind of feeling the hike from Chile and couldn't do all the hikes we had planned. We were happy to make it to the Cerro Torre for a night hike dispite the painful trekking.

Enjoy the photos below!

Adventuring through Tansania

I had always wanted to visit Africa. All the smiling faces, incredible looking nature and animals that only exist there had given me this urge to go there in some point of my life. Finally an opportunity came up to travel to Tansania as few of our friends were heading there to shoot for a documentary in the Highlands of Mufindi. I was asked to join the team and help out with the documentary and also shoot for another project. We were able to combine two different trips in one and see Tansania in a way that not many tourists do. 

We were carrying a lot of professional video equipment and of course we faced some problems at the border landing into Tanzania. Our team had worked hard with all the permits and all was supposed be fine, but apparently we didn't have all the required paperwork for bringing such valuable camera gear into the country. Luckily after running around Dar Es Salaam for two days and visiting multiple offices from tax office to the Finnish Embassy we got it all figured out and we were able to continue our planned trip. 

We started our two day bus ride to Mufindi. I think I have never been so scared of my life than on those two days on the road. I have never seen so many crashed cars and trucks on the side of the road. We witnessed quite many close calls and definitely had adrenaline rushing on the way. 

We made it to Mufindi safely where we got to spend a week filming and following a Finnish doctor at her work. It was quite an eye opening experience and definitely stopped me to think of my own life and how privileged I am. I'm happy to see that there's people who have basically given their lives for helping these people out here. 

After a week there it was time to start heading back towards Dar Es Salaam. We had planned a few stops on the way where we got to go to the national parks to do few safaris. This was definitely a dream come true as I've wanted to do this for a long time. Below there's some photos from the trip!

Already missing those smiles!
-Daniel

Roadtripping through California and Oregon.

I had a nice slot in my calendar to make a trip somewhere this spring. I had always wanted to visit Yosemite and explore some Oregon, so it was obvious that I would head that way.

This trip took place in May. I was traveling for two weeks visiting my family and all the locations that I wanted to see. My cousin had few days off, so she joined me to visit Yosemite, where I actually met a Brazilian guy who joined me to do a short trip through Oregon after those few days in Yosemite.

The trip was a success and I enjoyed it a lot. It was very much different than what I expected as the weather was very warm and sunny the whole time we were in Oregon. Apparently it was the warmest it had been in years, so we didn't really get to see that moody and rainy Oregon that I had been hoping for, but it was still a nice experience.

Here are some photos from the trip. Enjoy!

-Daniel