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Published: April 13th 2006
After a one night stop-over in Rio Gallegos way down on the Atlantic side of southern Patagonia, we caught the bus over the border to Chile (best bus ride yet with the energetic, helpful bus assistant who made me turn over my salami though at the border crossing- boo hoo), passing through lovely Punta Arenas (the outskirts of town reminded us of Mendocino in CA) and on to Puerto Natales- the jumping off point for our fabulous no-guide 3 day tour/trek through Parc Nacional Torres Del Paine.
The torres are towers, and we are talking Lord of the Rings, Mordor-type towers! These craggy mountain towers are surrounded by glacier lakes of colors you never see- milky grey and aquamarine/turquoise. Somehow we booked a trek-tour through an agency and we never spoke to our agent or met her in person. But her sub-agents throughout the park were always there to meet us and collect our voucher for transport to next point or lodging. We were shocked that we had no--and needed no--guide. Hello-- this is Martha and me- true outdoorswomen right?
We were picked up at the bus station, given our package of vouchers, shuffled to a hostel, where, the
Good times on the boat
This first boat ride was like 4 hours, to a glacier and another boatnext AM, another taxi took us to a boat, which took us 3.5 hours up a river, past amazing scenery, to a glacier and another boat, which took us to a lodge for an awesome ¨box¨ lunch that included 4 courses and wine, then back on the boat to another small shack where a man was waiting in his pickup truck to take us to another station where we met a bus which took us 45
more minutes to our lovely aubergue or refugio (its like a hostel or a lodge in the wilderness)... where we had full room and board for two days, including a true box lunch that we took on our trek...
The trek: Now I´ve done some hiking, but this was serious. Frodo and I set off for Mordor with the ring at around 11:30 when the rain cleared for a bit. We hiked uphill and got hot in the Patagonia sun for 2 gorgeous hours before we entered a forest and it started to rain. As other hikers donned waterproof parkas, hats, and chaps, we pulled out the hefty trash bags we´d procured from the lodge and rolled back down our designer jeans to
Next boat required some new attire
We rode on one of those inflatable speed boat things to next stop... try and keep dry. Nearly two more hours later we reached the base of the towers and marveled at the truly spectacular site. Then it started to SLEET and we figured it was time to head back.
The whole trek was 7.5 hours, including a brief stop for lunch, was around 22 km round trip, and had us climb 870 m. We had all kinds of weather on the way, sun, wind, rain, and sleet too but it was great, every minute of it. The lodge was super fun too and we made some friends. More hiking and some rides through the rest of the park completed our tour, which lasted 3 entire days during which i neither showered or brushedmy teeth! Ok, just kidding, i did brush my teeth.
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ElleGee
Laurie Greer
FREAKS!
Since I got unsolicited comments on my little joke about the Chile flag (geez!), I thought I'd clarify. Turns out the difference is very subtle- in Texas flag, the blue section goes all the way down. Turns out Chile was first (not that I was truly serious about them copying! chill out Chile!), but only by a few years since I believe Texas probably came up with their flag in 1830's- less than 20 years after Chile's independence. Anyway, it's a lovely design so no wonder we copied... sort of.