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Published: August 18th 2023
“If there is a heaven on Earth, this is it”, those were actually the words came out of my mouth when I stood in front of Torres del Paine! I was awed! Speechless! Three jagged edges crowned the snow covered mountain peaks and silently displayed their brilliant beauty under a blue canopy of sky. Waterfalls flowing from the mountain snow emptied into a small river. The light emerald colour water of the river is flowing like a dancing little girl. Not a soul was near by except us. The Nature has given it’s all and the beauty of the Nature is silently observed by Mother Nature herself! I am from Alberta, and I grew up with the beauty of the Rockies in my later part of life. Indeed, Rockies has opened up to me in hundred different forms. But I was speechless in front of the beauty of Torres del Paine!
Let me rewind a bit. A few months earlier when I was planning our trip to Chile, I was spending my leisure times over tons of information on the internet. Chile is such a beautiful country with diverse show of Nature! Patagonia in deep South to the picturesque Lake
District in the middle and rugged beauty of Atacama desert in the North! I wanted to see them all. But we only had 10 days to spend in Chile! How are we going to cover this long 3500 km stretch in 10 days time? I was lost. But Patagonia was on the top of my list. Mountains are my all time favourite. So vast, so magnificent are the mountains, and above all they are so graceful – silent beauty. I feel myself so insignificant when I stand in front of them. Like I said before, I grew up with the Rockies. Just one and half hour drive from my home, I am in the middle of the playground of Mother Nature surrounded by the Rockies. Nevertheless, I believe that all mountains have unique beauties; they have exclusive grandeur that is unparalleled. One can only compare the beauties of two different mountains, but cannot ignore any one of them for their solitary beauty. No, I was not going to miss Patagonia, especially Torres del Paine. Like I said, it was on the top of my list.
It was wee hours in a chilly morning in May. It is winter time
in Chile and it was dark outside Hotel Plaza. The lone street lights just reminded us a deserted street in front of the hotel. It was windy and cold; Ryan and I were waiting inside, behind the entrance glass door of the hotel for the tour guys to pick us up. Yes, it’s an all day tour with an early pick up from Punta Arenas. Torres del Paine National Park is not close to Punta Arenas; – it’s about 318 km north of Punta Arenas along Route 9. Actually that was our dilemma from the beginning whether to stay in Punta Arenas or in Puerto Natales en route to Torres del Paine. Puerto Natales is only 75 km from the park entrance and a much shorter ride. The tour bus travels via Puerto Natales and it is the first stop for a bio break and grabbing a cup of coffee. So, staying in Puerto Natales was more logical to save some time, but Punta Arenas is a much bigger place with more choices of stay. Besides, the flights operate from Punta Arenas. So it didn’t really make sense of staying in Puerto Natales after all. In retrospect, I loved Punta
Arenas and I have no regrets that we stayed there.
The bus arrived a few minutes late. And soon after we took our seat, the bus stopped a few more places in the town to pick up more tourists. The bus was almost full at the end and soon it hit the highway traveling north towards Puerto Natales. It was dark and the bus was traveling along the high way by the side of Magellan Strait. Soon the street lights disappeared as we left the city limit and we were cruising through the darkness towards Puerto Natales. Most of the passengers dozed off and it was impossible to figure out anything by road side. I looked at the sky to check some stars instead. I am used to seeing the belt of Orion in night sky; the three bright stars on its belt. No, not here. The formation of stars was different. I suppose it is southern hemisphere, so the star formation here doesn’t match with Northern Sky.
We drove for about 2 hours and 30 minutes when we came to our first stop – Puerto Natales. It was still dark outside, but we were happy to get
out of the bus, to do a stretch and grab a steaming coffee from a convenience store. From where we stopped, the town looked insignificant. But I am sure the town was not that barren and there was more to see. We could hardly see the place from the roadside stop.
When the bus started rolling on the highway again, the eastern sky was slowly getting red. It lighted up well when we stopped to
Cueva del Milodón or simply Milodon Cave. It’s a large cave with a table top mountain where the remains of an extinct animal Mylodon was discovered in 1896. Mylodon was a very large animal that resembled a large bear. The animal became extinct more than 10,000 years ago. The remains of other animals were also discovered along with human remains from 6000BC. The large cave is extremely spacious and I am not surprised that was inhabited by animals as well as human from time to time.
The daylight was bright when we started towards Torres del Paine. The snow covered mountain range was dazzling at a distance. Guanaco, an animal closely related to llamas, gave us curious look from the roadside pastures as
we were passing by. Two Pumas crossed the highway to a nearby mountain giving us a suspicious look. The whole atmosphere was so serene, so peaceful. It is hard to believe that we human continue to fight each other despite this wonderful gift of the Nature – our planet earth.
I was engrossed absorbing the beauty around me and suddenly came to my senses when the bus first slowed down and then came to a complete halt. The guide told us we reached the destination. We got out of the bus and right in front of us was the spectacular view of Torres del Paine – the beauty of Patagonia, jewel of the crown of Andes Mountain. Sun sparkled in the blue sky and snow-white puff of clouds drifted over the mountain top. Reflection of the mountain was clearly visible in the calm water of a lake in front of us. There are some natural beauties in the world that impacts me so much that I can watch them forever. Even watching them for hours doesn’t end my thirst. I want to absorb them more and more into my veins, into every molecule of my body. The divine, unspoiled
beauty pained my inner core and I wanted to hold her forever. But Time is merciless, it commands our life constantly; we had to leave the place to board our bus again – “miles to go before I sleep”. The next stop was the gorgeous waterfalls in front of the mountain glacier. The guide specified a time for us to return and we dispersed on our own. Indeed, I wanted to be alone a bit, wanted to talk to the dancing little girl flowing in front of me. I stood there alone, listening to the thousand tales the river was telling me. There was not a sole close by, only a profound silence spread all over the place. It created the perfect ambience. Robert Frost haunted my mind in such times – “The only other sound is the sweep of easy wind and downy flake”. Oh, why Mother Nature has to make this so perfect, so embracing that I can’t let it go. Doesn’t your heart pain during such times? Well, mine does!
“Do you want to climb up to the elevation a bit?” Didn’t realize when Ryan came to my side. Of course, it was a great idea
to climb up to the little elevation to get a wide angle view of the whole valley. We did it together and looked around! The Torres mountain range was on our right; far below in front of us a river flowed, glistening in the late morning sun. A bridge connected a small community across the river. We stood there and watched the tranquility surrounded by the gift of Nature. I checked my watch after a while. Time was running out. “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep”, remember? I let out a deep sigh and we headed for the bus.
Time flies and it was already midday. We stopped at a few more view points to capture the heavenly beauty of Torres del Paine and the surroundings. We drove beside some spectacular lakes sparkling in the mid-day sun. Speaking of lakes, our last stop was at spectacular Grey Lake on the east side of Torres del Paine. Beautiful Hotel Lago Grey nestled in the woods by the side of the lake. It was just heavenly and a perfect match with the surroundings. No sound other than the rustle of winds playing through the pine
trees – total sound of silence! Grey lake is famous for icebergs and we spotted one at a distance. The lake showed the colour of the last rays of setting sun, and the clouds complemented the beauty – “Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky”.
We had a stop in Puerto Natales on our way back and when we reached Punta Arenas, it was past 9pm. While stepping on the stairs of Hotel Plaza, I felt content. It was a lovely day passing like a slide show in front of my eyes. I could see the curious look of the guanaco as we were passing by, the pumas measuring us with suspicious look when they were out for the hunt, sunset over Grey Lake, smell of the fresh leaves in the woods near the cottage and above all, the majestic beauty of Torres del Paine. I will remember them forever.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep”.
We called
it a day and went to bed. Thank you and Good Night Robert Frost!
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Eloquently put...
thanks for sharing your journey to a place of such beauty!