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Published: February 26th 2009
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Torres del Paine
Our first glimpse of the towers. With a distinct sense of journeying into the unknown we set off from Santiago on our flight to Punta Arenas, 2.140km South. George had visited six years before with Roz but had seemingly forgotten the logistics of visiting the national park, Torres del Paine. They had also been very lucky with the weather, something we weren't sure would necessarily be the case again!
The descent to the runway was a little unnerving as this enormous plane was tossed about by the incredibly strong winds, this was when I started to dream of gortex jackets.
All the guide books suggested it would be very easy to get a bus from the airport straight to Puerto Natales and the starting point for journeys into the Torres del Paine national park. Sadly this proved to be urban legend and so we were forced to go into Punta Arenas itself where we couldn't then get a bus until 7pm that evening. We did finally make it to Puerto Natales where we were met by Gladys, the friendly host of our hostel. It soon became apparent we were not sufficiently organised to head to the park the next day, so instead we spent it equiping
Waterfall
The stunning scenery of the park. ourselves for the very cold and unpredictable weather. Due to the fact we had not needed any windproof gear for the previous seven months we half considered investing in gortex. After further research we reconsidered and instead bought a delightful set of fishermans outfits, full dungaree trousers and jackets, all for only $10. Not sure we could really compete with the Europeans in their Mamoth gear.
By pure coincidence whilst trying to stay standing upright against the very strong winds, we bumped into Daniel, the Aussie we had met in Bolivia. We had a hot chocolate with him to try and warm ourselves and then assisted in a Blue Peter worthy creative project to make a Happy Christmas poster for him to use whilst on his glacier in order to send greetings to his family. It involved foam letters, sticky back plastic and strict project management from George and also allowed us to be in the warm for an afternoon. After stocking up with various supplies for our trek into the national park we met up with Daniel again for a farewell dinner before his sailing on the Navimag to Puerto Montt, good luck on the glacier!
Next
Iceberg!!!!
My first ever real life iceberg. morning we caught the early bus into the park and after a couple of hours we saw our first glimpse of the magnificent Torres del Paine towers, three majestic pillars of rock jutting out of a snow capped peak. Luckily for us it was sunny and relatively clear so we could see them, they are notorious for being shrouded in clouds. We past several Guanacos (Llama, Vercuna related) on the way to Lake Pehoe, where, after a quick glimpse of the Salto Grande waterfall, we boarded a catamaran to take us across the lake to Lodge Paine Grande. During the boat ride we saw the horn like peaks and some incredible glaciers perching off the sides of some of the mountains. We checked oursleves into the lodge, having decided it was too cold for camping and set off on our first hike. We headed towards Glacier Grey past some beautiful wild flowers and trees, set off by the stunning backdrop of the snow capped peaks. As we made our way out of the valley we caught our first view of some lonesome icebergs floating in the water, spectatcular. Not long after that we were blessed with the first view of
Our Pescador outfits
Setting off at 6am in our trusty fisherman outfits! Glacier Grey itself, more than 7km wide at its largest point. The blue colour created by the compacted ice and the reflection of the sunlight was incredible as it stretched back as far as the eye could see like an enormous frozen river. After a picnic lunch admiring the glacier we headed back to the refuge to warm up and have dinner. Early to bed, partly because of the early start we had planned for the next day and partly to warm up in our sleeping bags. Who would have thought a $50 bed could be so cold?
Next day we got up at 6am in order to get as far as possible up the Valle del Frances before it was time to catch the boat back. The walk was stunning even though it was incredibly windy and our fisherman (pescador) outfits certainly came in use. The big flaw being that they were PVC and so didn't breathe so creating a rather unpleasant layer of condensation in between our jumpers and the jackets! The glaciers that we saw clutching to the sides of the mountains were an awesome sight. The incredible ice blue colour of these massive chunks of
Condor
Considering the Condor is the national bird of Peru, why did we see loads more here in Chile? ice in sharp contrast to the white snow and rocky outcrops. Accross the lake as the wind whipped, it created mini cyclones of water, rising up out of the lake and to cap it all off we saw several magnificent Condors hovering above. After a picnic brunch we headed back to Lago Pehoe to catch the catamaran and bus back to Puerto Natales. Just as we arrived back at the refugio it started to rain and we thanked our lucky stars we weren't still walking!
Once back in Puerto Natales we treated ourselves to a nice hot shower and began to feel a little more human again. Next day we headed back to Argentina, but just for the day. After a fairly long drive along the famous Che Gevara Routa 40 and filling out all the paper work to leave Chile and enter Argentina, we arrived in El Calafate. From here we drove to the Parque Nacional Los Glacieres in order to view the breathtaking Perito Moreno Glacier. We chose to take a boat tour in order to get as close as possible to the actual glacier, at 30km long, 70m high and with a surface area of 195km
squared you can appreciate that the photos just can't do justice to the pure scale of the thing. It is about 5km wide and spreads through the mountains like an enormous solid river.
For those of you who are interested, this is how a glacier is formed: Constantly moving ice masses occupy vast extensions of territory, adapting themselves to it like true ice floods, with no basin destinction at all. They are formed by a deposit of snow creating mounds on a higher basin (snow drift), the snow turns into grains and these begin to eliminate air pockets and so freeze solid into ice. The crystals join and compress the new snow until an opaque mass is formed, (firn). Firn is furthermore compacted to form a spongy kind of ice which in turn develops into the crystaline blue mass of glacier ice.
When you consider how rapidly some of the glaciers are melting and the obvious environmental impact this will have, it was very reasurring to see one which is actually growing. This constant movement meant that great chunks of ice, the size of cars were regularly falling into the water, with an awesome crash, simply breathtaking.
After the boat ride we viewed the glacier from the platforms built on the land in order to get a perspective from slightly higher. I can honestly say that we could have spent hours just watching this phenomenon, it was incredible, despite being very touristy.
On the way back to Chile we stopped in El Calafate and managed to sample an Argentine speciality, the 'Submarino' a cup of hot milk with a submarine shaped chocolate which you dip into the milk until it melts, delicious. Back to the border crossing for more paper filling and once more into Chile, this time to see the Penguins!
The Magallen penguins live about and hours drive from Punta Arenas in a protected area, as well as on an island just off the coast. This particular colony consisted of about 7,000 penguins and despite the freezing and windy conditions we enjoyed watching these incredible creatures playing in the sea and sand dunes, they were mesmerising and along with swimming with dolphins another of my life's ambitions achieved.
After an early visit to the cemetary in PA and marvelling at the incredible moseleums elaborately decorated with silk flowers and pictures, we caught
Yet more Glacier
This whole section came crashing down as we were there! our flight back to Santiago. From here we caught our onward flight to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). We were both really excitied about visiting this very remote island in the Pacific, would it be all we were hoping?
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