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Published: April 19th 2007
The 3 Torres!
Spectacular view from the base of the Paines. First off all thanks for all the comments as it is nice to keep in touch and as we write this we have only been travelling for 3 weeks but really it has seemed like months.
We are a few weeks behind so excuse us as you may receive a few blogs together as we catch up. The other news is that Robert has had a very senior moment and deleted over 300 photos off the camera(1 day away from backing up - aaaaaagh), the good news is that we do have 2 cameras so all is not lost. The senior moment was done on the small camera and this is the one that we use for going out in the evenings so the interesting meals and the odd glasses off wine(yes odd as we don´t count the even ones) that we have induldged in are now only a distant memory. Sorry Pablo and Javier the photos of our last evening with you guys, the great Chilean wines and the palmitos in Pucon are lost(will explain details once we update the Pucon blog).
Also please excuse the spelling as foreign and often non existant letters on these keyboards
And the great trek begins
Wendy at the earlier section of the hike, still looking fresh! are challenging.
Stayed in a fantastic hotel in Torres Del Paine, a National Park which covers 181,000 hectares and is famous for its three Towers of Paine (Spanish: Torres del Paine). They are gigantic granite monoliths shaped by the forces of glacial ice. Our main aim here is to climb to the base of the peaks, see our pics.
The hike itself is a demanding 8 hours in total, 4 there and 4 back.
When we awoke on the morning of the hike we both had a bit of a cold(Hey James is it a cold or flu - can never remember, cheers china), as it was our only opportunity and it had also rained for the past 8 days we decided to go for it.
We encountered all weathers, besides full sunshine. The route itself was awsome as we went through forest, gravel, dunes, rivers and the last 45min was a hard slogg uphill, more of a scramble actually and unbeknown to us it had snowed as it is 2800m above sea level. So the last section we encountered ice, slush and deep snow, however after the long slog we made it to the base
Robbie strutting his stuff!
Robbie with the magic wand, please take me to the top!! of the peaks and it was a spectacular site. We stayed for around 20 min and then started the descent back. The weather gods had been good to us becuase as we descended the mist started coming in at a rapid rate covering the peaks. Also it had in rained constantly for the 8 days prior to us climbing it and snowed the following day making the final ascent impossible.
The next day we transfered to another hotel at the opposite side of the park, Lago Grey(also famous glacier). As we were galciered out from Calafate we decided to do a shorter walk, Mirodor Ferrier. It was supposed to be a short distance however it was very steep and we encounterd alot of snow so it made it hair raising in places. Well 4 hours later we made it back down, we did wonder at the time why now one else was doing it.
Well 4 awesome days and very tired leggs, next stop Pucon, central Chile.
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Teresa
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WOW !!!
Hi to you both, everything looks geat, I am not sure if I envy you the cold weather though. Shame about the pics that got lost still you have lots of good memories. Looking forward to further updates Love Teresa (Warrants still the same - boring) XX