Torres del Paine, Chile

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We have stayed at this nice hostel in Ushuaia now for 3 nights and it is time to move on, towards the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.

To do that we must first exit Argentina into Chile, then exit Chile into Argentina, then exit Argentina again back into Chile. This takes most of a day, waiting at border crossings, carrying all of our stuff into the crossing office to be xrayed, throwing away any open cheese, apples, nuts, fresh vegetables or meats, and so forth. This means that some of our meals are made only with canned food, since there are no stores between our crossing and our next campsite.

This evening we camp at a ghost town near the beached wreck of the Barca Ambassador, on the Chilean coast. We aren’t sure of the history of these abandoned buildings, but the locals seem to be quite superstitious about these buildings. This was a spooky place, with a sickly blind dog wandering around the tents, sheep baaing all night long in the pasture, and just sort of an aura of abandonment, but these are the kind of free camping places Oasis finds for us.

Early the next morning we visited a Penguin Refuge at Otway Sound, where we could walk around and observe the small Magallanes Penguins doing what penguins do, which seems to be stand around and look at the tourists.

And finally we arrive at out campground in the Torres del Paine National Park. The park was founded in 1959 and declared part of the international Biosphere Reserve Network by UNESCO in 1978.

The park surrounds and is dominated by the Paine Massif, a mountain system unto itself, independent from the Patagonian Andes Range. The park is about 242,000 hectares of lakes, mountains and trails.

Rimmed by jagged peaks and glaciers, this is a spectacular place to camp and hike. The campgrounds are well maintained, with hot showers and clean flush toilets, numerous camping facilities, hostels and hotels, some restaurants. Ferrys are available to take you across the lake for more hiking or camping.

Torres del Paine Nat Park identifies over 200 km of marked hiking trails, and they promote a 76 km 5 to 6 day hike around the highlights of the park. They discourage hiking off the trail, and actually prohibit you from hiking or climbing in some spots.

It was cool and drizzly a good part of the time; actually quite nice for hiking.

In the three days we were here it was possible to do 3 hikes with a total of 75 km of hikes, and some of our group did all three, ending with sore muscles, blisters, bum knees and so forth.

I did part of 2 hikes and had a good time, saw some great scenery.

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Photos

Barca Ambassador
Near our Ghost Town camp