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Puerto Natales is a small, sleepy town, with not much to do other than to get ready for trekking the "W" in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. It's called the W because the trek goes in that shape. The national park is situated next to the Southern polar ice cap. It's full of glaciars, lakes and spectacular mountains.
We hired all our camping gear and bought our food for the next 6 days. I was worried what camping food I would have to eat, but luckily we found a supermarket that had exactly the same noodle soups as I love back home - throw in a few frankfurters and I was more than happy.
Day 1: Not the best start. The clouds were so low that you couldn't see the mountains on the way into the park and it was raining. We then couldn't find the start of the trail and got lost in a campsite for half an hour. The day got progressively better. It stopped raining and the sun came out, however, hiking up hill for 6 hours carrying a 25kg backpack took its toll. We camped at the base of Los Torres (the Towers). I have
never seen so many stars - we get a raw deal back home.
Day 2: After going to bed at 7pm (when you're camping there's jack squat to do when it's dark) we were up early to hike to lookout for Los Torres. It's a steep 45 min scramble up a hell of a lot of rocks. At the top, we were lucky with the weather and could see the Towers - an amazing sight. The rest of the day was spent hiking back the way we came on day 1.
Day 3: We hiked all day along turquoise coloured lakes and through lush lenga forests to reach our next campsite: campamento italiano. We were setting up camp and a fellow camper came up to us to let us know that this particular site has a serious problem with mice. The previous night, some mice had bitten through his tent and raided his tent for food. Lovely. We tied all our food in a bag up a tree and had a restless night's sleep - listening out for any kind gnawing.
Day 4: Our bag of food was still hanging from the tree but we later found that the little buggers had managed to crawl up the tree, along the branch, down the rope and onto our bag. They'd gnawed through one layer but luckily we'd wrapped in 3 bags, so our food was ok. We did another hike to a view point, which takes you to the middle point of the "W". We passed a mountain which was caked in snow. Every now again we would hear a loud crack of thunder and witness an avalanche. We got back to camp just at it started to rain. Ideally, we would have just sat through the storm, but we didn't fancy another night with the mice, so we packed up and trekked 2 hours till the next site in the pouring rain. I got cold, wet and my feet were soaking. We were promised that the refugio we were headed would welcome us and let us dry off next to big open fire. When we got there, the miserable owner showed to us to the outdoor wooden shed, leaving us to dry off next to a gas stove.
Day 5: The weather was bad so we stayed put all day. From this part of the W, you are exposed to the winds which come off the ice cap at over 120kph. We spent the day looking at our tent from inside the shelter, praying it wouldn't get blown away. There wasn't much else to do apart from drink coffee, eat noodle soups, chat to some other campers and dream what meal we would have when we got back.
Day 6: We hiked early doors up the last part of the W. We made it to the lookout over Glaciar Grey. We then made it back to camp and took the catamaran across lake and caught the bus back to Puerto Natales. That evening we found a gem of restaurant to cure my carne-malnutrition.
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