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Published: March 19th 2007
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The Torres
From the park entrance Travelling is a dirty business. Literally. This pair of cargo-trousers that I am wearing went about with me in South Africa, then Argentina
san wash, now they are expected to do the treks of Torres Del Paine. They do not look dirty but if you know what they have been through you would not even pick them up with your toes. This is what I hate about trekking - no access to my entire clean wardrobe. Ohwell, so long as they do not look dirty, that is fine. And looks is what that counts.
After 4 hours of bumpy ride from El Calafate, I arrived at the
Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine. This is apparently South America's finest national park and is also a trekker's paradise. A paradise? I am not all that sure. The three main "Torres", which soar majestically above the Patagonian steppe, could be seen 10 minutes after crossing the Chile-Argentina border. This three huge granite pillars, each stands more than 2000m above sea-level, are rock-climbers' ultimate challenge. Apparently, no one has successfully scaled the Torres to date. On a gloomy day (which is very often in the Patagonia), the Torres can be easily mistaken as the dwelling place of
More of the Torres
At the Laguna Amarga Sauron - Mordor. The only difference is the Torres is surrounded by beautiful blue lakes and glaciers instead of an eerie desolate dessert.
The Torres Del Paine is probably one of the most popular national parks in Patagonia. The spectacular landscape and the variety of trails attract hikers to the park every year. The park entrace is considered hefty by South American standard. Considering that we paid only 30pesos (US$7.50) for entrance to the Moreno National Park just across the border at Argentina, but entrance fee to Torres Del Paine was US$30! As with most things are in Chile, we are back to European prices again.
I was here to trek the "W". On the map, the routes look like the "W" alphabet. This is a rather popular trail that takes hikers zigzagging across the Torres with campsites dotted within a day's walk distance. Strangely, there was no sign of any trekkers around as we arrived. It was supposed to be the "hiking season". I happened to join a trekking group with a bunch of National Geographic photographer wanna-bes. You know these guys are probably wanna-bes (1) their cargo-trousers have more pockets than mine (2) they have invested
loads in their photokit and have sufficient gears to stuff in each pocket of their cargo-trousers (unlike mine which usually only contain my handheld camera-phone and muesli-bars (3) each time their shots did not turn out well they blamed the light. I felt out of place.
We were trekking it from east to the west starting from the Amarga lake. I was excited. It was a good day with blue sky and sunshine. But the moment the van door was opened, it all became clear as to why no trekkers were around. They would be stupid to be walking in this condition. Strong gust battered the van as the van door was opened. All our little items on the van were swept to the floor corner as the driver fought to shut the van door. Hmm... what a day to start a trek. Stubbornly, we proceeded to unload our gears. I had to hang on tightly on my little day pack to ensure it does not get blown away. Sometimes, I even had to hold on to trees and handrails as I walked and trees and handrails are hard to come by in a steppe.
It is hard
to tell that gail-force winds were sweeping across in a steppe when you have only been in a van before dawn. There were not that many trees around with waving branches. The Llamas (or guanaco as the locals call them) seemed rather cool and calm as they go about minding their own business. The weather forecast was never accurate in a place where they have four seasons in a day.
As the gusty winds blew, we ploughed along with our packs. Some of the lighter trekkers (hurray! that included me) had to bend forward and walk in a semi-crouching way. I had never encountered such strong winds before and even if I had, I would have enough sense to stay indoor. I felt sorry for the wanna-bes. As it was, the wind made it almost impossible to walk upright, let alone to walk with a 20kg pack full of lenses, flashes, tripods, laptops and camping gears. I am a practical gal. I only had a small little daypack which was filled with energybars.
Day 1's trek took us through the Ascencio river towards the eastern face of the Torres. The path was well-marked and should be easy to
Llama Guanaco
One of the many friendly Llamas do without the strong wind. But the last part of the trek required a certain degree of scrambling. Day 2 and Day 3 were incident-free. I did not have any entry on my diary on these days. We spent on average 4-6 hours trekking each day and we usually reached our campsite slightly before it turned dark. It was then time to scramble to put up the tent when there was still light. But time spent waiting around for the wanna-bes to photograph and pack their tools : at least 2.5 hour per day! I was getting impatient with the group. Anyway, I was dead-tired to write anything after the trek each day. On the last day as we were approaching the Salto Grande pier, I was only happy to move on without the wanna-bes.
As for my cargo-trousers, they became so dirty after the 4-day trek that I could no longer make myself wear them without a proper wash. Hence the next stop could only be a place with warmer climate.
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