Last time we wrote, we'd just arrived in beautiful (yet cold compared to the tropics) Patagonia - or Puerto Natales to be exact.
Aaroncito had done a fantastic job of finding us a hostel on the Internet that was not only out of the town centre, but also had a problem with a sewerage leak under the property (i.e. very bad smell) and happened to be right next door to a night club / massage palour. Nice. Despite all it's bad points the staff were fantastic, most of the guests were great, and for breakfast they did the best scrambled eggs and coffee that we'd encountered anywhere in South America - so we were reasonably happy chappies.
After arriving in Puerto Natales, we spent a day kicking around getting our stuff ready for the hike (e.g. more Powerbars than you can shake a stick at, a heap of dried fruit and nuts, plus some sexy shorts for Scottito), and then embarked for the Parque Torres del Paine at some ungodly hour of the following morning... 7:30am I think it was...
The Hike...
Day 1: After the early morning start we endured about 4hrs of bus journey before arriving in the parque. Once at the parque our poor out-of-condition legs faced what turned out to be the toughest part of the whole trek - an arduous 2hr hike up a rather steep valley. It was about this time that we met a fellow traveller (who happened to have worked for Aaroncito's company in Germany) who had decided to bring ALL his gear from Puerto Natales, not just what he needed for the trek... the embarrassing thing was that he ended up beating us to the top - and our backpacks weighed nothing!!! After the 2hr climb we ditched our bags at our luxurious accommodation (no joke) and proceeded uphill again, but sans-backpack, to see the famous Torres (see link to photos below). For those who haven't seen them, the Torres are quite something - in the same 'take your breath away' way that Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat or Iguacu Falls are. Words can't even hope to describe what we saw and the way we felt when we first set eyes on the Torres, so instead, have a look at our photo's, or better still, go visit Torres del Paine and see it with your own eyes.
Day 2: In some ways day 2 wasn't that eventful, so we'll start with a description of our luxurious accommodation... when you do the famous "W" circuit in Parque Torres del Paine you have two choices: (1) Carry your own tent and food and do it the 'traditional' way; or (2) Carry squat all, sleep in a nice lodge each night with 3 square meals provided (incl a packed lunch) and hot showers. Being tough kiwi blokes we obviously went for option #2. This made for a very pleasant trek - very light packs and a nice warm bed, hot shower and cooked meal (and did I mention wine and beer?) waiting for you at the end of every day, plus a great place to hang out and shoot-the-shit at night. Getting back to trekking on Day 2... it is quite a pleasant day really - you essentially spend the whole day leisurely walking gradually downhill alongside of a lake. Nice, but nothing as breathtaking as Day 1.
Day 3: Ahhh... day 3... the first of our 'solid' days. Up into the stunning Valle de Frances we climbed on Day 3 - 21kms of up-and-down and rough terrain. The Valle de Frances is a glacial valley with stunning peaks (and small glaciers) all around, and the walls of the valley are polished like nothing I have ever seen before. It was also blowing like crazy and friggin' cold.
Day 4: The second (and last thankfully) of our 'solid' days... 24kms; the first half of which was ridiculously easy, while the second half was less so... The first half of the day we walked past the opening to the Valle de Frances again and then continued on past a number of beautiful lakes (not unlike down Wanaka / Queenstown way in NZ). The second half of the day you walk up a different valley towards the MASSIVE Glacier Grey. We knew Glacier Grey was going to be big, but we weren't quite ready for exactly how big it was... it made Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers look like ice cubes. What's more impressive is that Glacier Grey is just one of many, many, many glacial 'fingers' coming off a massive icefield in southern Chile that we were told stretches for 350km and is 1.6km deep in some parts. Now that's a lot of ice.
Day 5: We awoke on Day 5 freezing cold (thanks to the massive chunk of ice known as a glacier on our doorstep), but amazed that it was still sunny and that we were going to finish our trek without getting wet - something we had never dreamed possible given what we'd heard about the weather in Southern Chile. The only issue on this day was that we had to be at the ferry terminal to catch our ride home by midday (next boat was 5hrs later) and we had a short, but tough 11km trek to get there. We thought we were making good time (we were both clock-less), but at roughly the half-way point we met a girl who told us that we had used up 2/3 of the time we had, but only covered 1/2 the distance... at which point we freaked out a bit. So for the next couple of kms we walked like madmen, often breaking into a light jog hoping to make that ferry. You can imagine how we were feeling when we then checked the time with another chap we met on the path and found out that the girls watch had been at least 30mins fast!!! Grrr... oh well, we ended up with enough time for a very relaxed beer before we had to get on the ferry, so it wasn't all bad... It was also on this last day that it was confirmed to us that a massive forest fire was burning near the other end of the park (where we had started on day 1) - apparently some goose had been a bit careless with his camp stove. A few days later we heard that the lodge we stayed at on the first night was evacuated in the middle-of-the-night as the fire had crested the ridge overlooking the lodge - exciting stuff! In some ways we're disappointed we weren't there for the night-time dash for safety...
Until next time,
J&J
PS Click here to see photos from Parque Torres del Paine
