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Published: March 23rd 2009
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Puerto Natales and the Torres Del Paine
We had to get away from Ushuaia it was a place for cozy corners away from the sometimes harsh weather, the hostels, bars and cafes used this to their advantage lulling you into a somnombual state that kept you there longer than you wanted - there were a lot of people who were there longer than they anticipated. Combine this with limited spaces on coaches to other destinations and Ushuaia is a difficult place to leave.
We began to hear of a hike you could do for 5 days around a national park called the Torres del Paine in Chile, yeah we thought, let’s do it, it's only the Andes, we're fit...heh heh well...
So we sniffed around and bought some second hand camping gear - tents and roll mats and set off for Chile through the patagonian wilderness on dirt roads (by coach off course!). Once you left the surrounding mountains and hills of Ushuaia, the journey was remarkable in it's vast emptiness, 13 hours of almost nothing, flat sandy brown land and sky blue water, deserted farms and abandoned vehicles. To be lost or stranded here is
unthinkable.
Eventually you begin to see the Andes shoot back up from the ground as you approach Puerto Natales and the eyes have something to focus on in the distance and you start to feel excited again.
Puerto Natales sits on the shores of a lake and is a nice place to be, the majority of the buildings are a multicoloured affair and are made out of sheets of corrugated steel hammered together in a ramshackle way, which immedeately appealed to Karens love of the Homemade, it looks like everyone in Puerto Natales has built their own house (maybe with the help of their brother...) Who needs architects?
We found a lovely hostel where Omar (Hostel Kaweskar), the hippieish owner would make you an omlette for breakfast and you'd sit around a large kitchen table full of breakfast stuff with an aga burning and think all this for 6,000 Chilean pesos per person a night (7 pounds UK pppn) for a huge double room. After Ushuaia, and sleeping in a dorm, this was like paradise.
Omar and a guy at another hostel called the Eratic rock gave us the lowdown on what to expect on a
The torres!!
You will see a lot of these images - we make no apologies they are spectacular trek in the Torres del Paine. It was really useful to understand the severity and dangers of the weather and terrain. We then went off and bought copius amounts of plastic bin liners to seal all our dry stuff in our rucksacks. We scoured the shops for dehydrated foods that might be a bit tasty, plus a few luxuries like hard cheese, chocolate and an onion!! Karen bought some thermals and we hired our sleeping bags and gas stoves from Omar. Ok we were ready to go.
We left with tents, sleepingbags, stove, roll mats and food for five days on our backs, we suddenly realised that we had never done anything like this before. There's a few thing you had never in your life considered - like how bloody heavy food is, even though it was all dry.
So began five days of hiking up and down the most stunning mountains, camping overlooking glaciers,lama and ostrich watching, (and some birds with a 15cm curved beak watching) by ourselves.
Everyone returning from the mountains had warned us to expect rain, it just rolls in as the mountains have a micro climate all to themselves and weather forecasting is
pointless. If it rains you are drenched in a minute. We were so lucky, we had sun, clear skies and a bit of strong wind (mainly from Marcel)!
We were fortunate the mountain gods shone down on us and we had a great time, it was tough going and knackering for our old bones - we covered 90kms on foot up and down steep climbs over the 4 days and 4 nights.
Our little tent that we picked up Ushuaia served us well, protecting us from the icy blasts when camped above the Glacier Grey on the first night but we ached from the cold that seeped up from ground through our rollmats and sleeping bags.
We survived on porridge in the morning and cheesy pasta in the evening and never did such boring fare taste so good after a hard days walk, we looked forward to reaching our campsites, getting our heavy packs off our back, setting up the tent and getting a brew on.
What made the trek so worthwhile was the scenery, the glacier was immense and an intense blue that went off for miles into the distance, slowly breaking breaking apart with
a roar like thunder into icebergs that floated off down the lake.
This was an amazing first impression for Marcel as he finally understood the power of the glacier to move and shape land.
Because we arrived at the campsite above the glacier in the evening it took us a while to figure out that the aeroplane noise or thunder was actually the glacier moving and breaking apart and we were really worried when the noise we took for thunder (and accompanying heavy rain) the second night were merely avalanches coming down the mountain!
The Valley Frances was a hard slog up over scramble, large wet rocks and gusts that knocked you off balance, it rewarded you with a spectacular 360 degree view of mountain peaks in sunlight so strong you could feel your skin begin to sting after a few minutes (there is hardly any ozone layer here).
The last night was spent climbing up the mountain in the pitch darkness to catch the sunrise over the Torres del Paine. We set out with a maglite running out of battery and a headtorch so weak that you couldn't see your feet, needless to say we
were lost within 15 mins. It was so dark and so steep that it was dangerous to go forward or backwards so we stayed put. Luckily we had set off around an hour before anyone else who was going to take the same journey due to our clock being incorrectly set an hour forward and off into the distance down the slope we could see torches slowly making their way up the ascent. Never had a group of israeli teenagers been gladly welcomed. We hitched up with them and after an hour or so of slow steep scrambling we reached the summit.
At the top we got out our sleeping bags and settled in for the night under a rock to await the magnificent red glowing towers.
The sunrise came along with loads more trekkers and was a bit of a damp squib really, the towers didn't glow and the wind was biting, but we had our stove and revelled in the envious glances as we drank our instant vegetable soup.
The final day was spent making our way to the bus pick up point where we boarded the coach. One thing that will probably stay with
us forever is the collective stench of unwashed bodies and feet after 5 days hard slog confined in a bus on a hot day without air conditioning. Suffice to stay we were so knackered that after 10 minutes most people were asleep and the smell an insignificant aroma.
This trek was a real highlight if you’re in Chile and the weather is good..really do this.
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