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Published: February 11th 2017
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Isa and I then crossed the border into Chile and based ourselves in Puerto Natales to get ready for the 6 day trek we were about to do in Torres del Paine National Park. We started by hearing the catamaran we wanted to take on the first day was broken and we would have to walk an extra 5 hours on the first day. Woops. By the time we got there, thankfully it had been replaced with a smaller motor boat, which meant we had to wait a little bit longer to get on it but it was still shorter than walking 5 hours more and risking arriving past dark to our first camp. We therefore walked the 4 hours planned and set camp in Refugio Grey, near the Glaciar Grey. That night was very windy so we did not sleep very much worrying about the tent breaking or the food bag flying off the tree we had put it on. In the morning, everything was still intact! We had planned to do some kayaking to the glaciar but the wind was too strong, it turned into a boat ride to the glaciar. It was very cold but beautiful, we saw
an iceberg that broke off 3 months ago only and got stuck in a shallower part of the lake. The guides showed us where the glaciar was in 98 and 3 years ago, it is receding soooo fast, donĀ“t know if it will still be there in 10 years! In the afternoon, we packed up and left to walk further north and get a better view of the glaciar. Walked on some cool bridges. Turned out the next campsite was full and the ranger not nice so we headed back to the same campsite as the previous night, it would make a shorter day tomorrow if today is longer. The views were very beautiful on the glaciar, we got a lot of wind but the occasional sunshine for pictures was there!
On day 3, we hiked back down to where the boat had left us on our first day, went to a view point since we arrived early and stayed the night in teh windiest place of the W. Turns out, it was raining a lot more than it was windy.
On day 4. we headed east along the lake then up into the Valle Frances. We set camp and
continued to the view point into the Valle Frances. It was raining the whole time but at this point it didnt matter cause we were basically walking in a river. It was a fun hike once we gave up on being dry. It was probably the coldest night of the whole week but we warmed ourselves up with some tea. The views at the top were beautiful as we could the sun was shining on the lake in the distance (just not on us), felt like being in the Himalayas looking through a spatial window showing you the carribeans. There were Avalanches, really impressive ones across the valley.
On day 5, we had to hike the longest distance and time, it was the 22km in 10hours supposedly, we did it in 9h which made us proud. At least we got bright sunshine for it. We had to walk back down valley frances, all along the lake and up into the eastern valley. The sun kept us motivated and we had each other to push ourselves to continue. We made it to the furthest campsite into that valley so we could see the sunrise on the Torres del Paine, the famous
viewpoint of the park, the next day. Isa, crazy woman went the extra hour uphill to see the Torres taht same evening too.
On day 6, I was grateful Isa knew the way to the Torres cause we were hiking up in the dark at 3.30 am with our headtorches, some green tea in the backpack and some chocolate Isa had brought from France. As we climbed up, we started seeing beautiful stars which meant the sky would be clear and the sunrise beautiful, we got excited and waited patiently. It was worth the cold and tiredness, the blisters and knee pains, the view on the towers was magnificent!! The clouds turned pink as the towers turned orange, then the colours switched to orange clouds and yellow towers before reaching their daytime colour which is a lot fader. We had such a great end to the trip that we forgot about how wet we got before! We then hiked back down the valley to grab the bus back to Puerto Natales.
We had a nice quiet day in Puerto Natales to reminisce before we had to part ways.
Thank you so much Isa for coming over and share this experience
with me, it was so much fun to do this with you and your energy! Miss you xxx
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