Fernando Torres Del Paine

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Hola! Back from Torres Del Paine and now in Puerto Natales so giving you a quick insight into what we did.

29/1/09

Get the bus from El Calafate to Puerto Natales in Chile. The border crossing is a real pain in the ass. Have to go though 2 separate controls - one in Argentina and one in Chile. Dogs are running around giving most things a sniff. Get to Puerto Natales and immediately get accosted to a hostel by a female Chilean whose English sounds a lot more like Chinese - ´I have boyfwiend in Basil!´. I don´t care about your Brazilian boyfriend. Her hostel is terrible. When we ask her where we can leave our bags when we go to Torres Del Paine she thinks for a bit and then points to a nearby ledge. Very secure. End up in a nice hostel called Patagonia Adventure and meet 2 people who end up trekking with us for the next few days - a Swedish doctor called Cecilia and a North Carolinan called John. Both cracking people and even better that they both speak Spanish!

30/1/09

With all our equipment hired we set off for Torres Del Paine. Pitch our tents then go walking up the East side of the ´W´. About a 7 hour round trip hike which is very steep at the top but with great views. Jude introduces a game where you´re not allowed to say the word (or the sound)´mine´in any form in a sentence (so no mind games, minesweeper, minus or anything like that). Punishment for saying said words are 10 press ups. Shrennie asks me what Hitler´s book was called. I answer and do ten press ups. End up sharing a small 3 man tent with Shren and Jude which is very uncomfortable. John is a walking quote machine. Today he was telling us about his discussions with a German in the last hostel. The conversation had got onto football and the German was getting very defensive about his national team (as Germans tend to do). John says ´I wish they´d just stick to talking about the two things they do know - beer and salami´. Too right.

31/1/09

Bit of a pain in the ass hike which involves us carrying all of our stuff to the next location - Campo Italiano. Not much happens today. Ask Jude what his favourite German phrase is. He says ´Ich mache meinen hausaufgaben´. 10 press ups please.

1/2/09

Hike up the middle part of the ´W´- another tough, steep hike with stunning views surrounding us. Shrennie gets 3 points today - one for regularly falling over, one for leading us in the wrong direction several times and one for forgetting his water bottle. I get one point for a spectacular fall. Shrennie starts whistling the Nickleback tune ´this is how you remind me´. I sing along and take the 10. Meet Mr Spivey AGAIN! This man is everywhere. End up spending a few thousand Chilean Pesos on some dinner in a refugio. It´s a bit like school dinner but we´re all pretty hungry so it tastes good.

2/2/09

Do the final West side of the ¨W¨. Probably the easiest day in terms of hiking but legs are pretty sore by this point. The view of ´Glacier Grey´from the top is pretty amazing. Ask Jude how to get the number 2 using numbers 8 and 6. He gives the correct answer but has to do 10 press ups. Get back, pack up all our stuff, get ready to take the boat home when at the very last second Adam remembers he´s forgotten the tent. Good one. 2 points. Get back to Patagonia Adventure where there´s no room and all of us get roughly treated by this rude female member of staff. End up staying in a hostel which looks pretty rough but isn´t actually too bad. After dinner, Jude and I go to a Chilean casino. Much fun.

3/2/09

Finally sort out flights for the next leg of our journey through Sky airline. Thankyou Sky, you have saved us many thousand Chilean pesos. So we´re getting the bus to Punto Arenas and then a flight from there to Puerto Montt, and then from there another bus to Bariloche. Complicated. But believe me, it could have been a lot worse. Meet a random American from New Jersey on the street who can´t stop talking. He tells us about how embarrassed he is at how fat Americans are (despite being incredibly rotund himself), how he managed to get a hole in the crotch of his ´pants´and how he subsequently got them fixed (if my trousers break in the next 2 hours, I now know exactly what to do), and how he didn´t think much of Torres Del Paine because it was too windy (what did you expect fat-ass). Think I´ve managed to get Skype working so if anybody is interested in a chat, my address is james.saddler. I´ll try to get on when I can.

Until next time! Ciao x

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