Heading North Through Chile

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The past two weeks have been spent mostly in Patagonia and then travelling North through Chile. We successfully completed the ´W´ trek through the Torres Del Paine National Park in the South of Chile. Including a bit of ´off piste´ walking, the W took 4 days and 4 nights and covered roughly 90kms through amazing scenery including lakes, mountains and all in between.

Our guidebook said that you could experience all 4 seasons in one day, which we didn´t really believe until we woke up in our tent on the third night to three inches of snow. This was after sweltering heat the day before when climbing the valley. All walking was off for the morning as it was too dangerous so instead a massive snowball fight ensued. Once the worst of the snowing had stopped we set out and reached the top of an hour climb up snow-covered boulders but just as we reached the summit our triumphant conquering was somewhat of an anticlimax as the weather broke again and our view of the "Torres" was completely obscurred by a freezing mist/fog. Luckily by the time we returned to the Base Camp the weather had changed again and the Torres could then be seen for miles.

After the trekking we had a days rest in Puerto Natales and managed to get all of our clothes washed! Unfortunately for Helen, Puerto Natales has as many stray dogs as inhabitants (and for some reason pharmacies), the strays were inexplicably attracted to her and we had a lot of fun trying to shake them off!

We then boarded the Navimag ferry which took us up through the Southern ice fields of Chile (there are no roads between Patagonia and the rest of Chile, you have to cross back into Argentina). Navimag is a converted cargo ferry which takes a mixture of backpackers, tourists and inhabitants of a tiny fishing village called Puerto Eden which is inaccessible apart from the once a week stop by the ferry. The accomodation and food were simple but we were entertained with a mixture of geographical talks, glacier sightings, films and the odd game of bingo!

We docked in Puerto Montt and took a quick bus trip to the town of Puerto Varas which sits on the shore of Lago Llanquihue in the Chilean Lake District. We had a picnic by the lake surrounded by 3 volcanoes.

Another quick bus trip (12 hours) now finds us in Santiago.

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Photos

At the Torres
The Torres are there somewhere!

Comments

[Craig]

Looking like there's an excellent beard going on there Mr Rowe!!