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Published: December 1st 2010
"W" Here We Come
On our way to start the "W" trek in Torres del Paine. Those are the mountains in the background we will be hiking through! I’ve been told that some people are anxiously awaiting my inaugural blog post, so I figured I’d take the time to write about our week-long excursion to southern Chile. It turns out that this area provided quite a bit to write about. So, here it goes…
As many people know, travelling (especially for the length we are travelling) can have its ups and downs. If you've read Erin's blog entries up to this point, you probably think our trip thus far has been nothing but magical and has been void of any hitches. Surprisingly, that's not a case of Erin just looking at everything through the rose colored lenses of her Kaenon sunglasses, but in all reality, everything (the weather, the accommodations, the food, the travel arrangements, the people, the places, etc.) was truly working in our favor... and then we hit the Chilean border! Don't get me wrong, we have done some amazing things and seen some absolutely awe-inspiring landscapes thus far in Chile, but our time has also has also given us quite a few of our more amusing and comical events as well.
As we neared the Chilean border via bus, a lovely young lady began
Pretty Patagonia
Erin's artsy shot of the Torres del Paine mountains. asking for passports. She didn’t really say what she was going to do with them, or even who she was really, but just wanted to put them in a cardboard box. Being told to never relinquish your passport to anyone, we were a bit skeptical… but, when the German couple next to us handed over their passports without any argument, so we figured we might as well do the same. From there we all sat on the bus, passport-less mind you, waiting for something to happen. Or at least an idea of what was going on. But we just were kept in the dark, waiting for ten minutes, which turned into a half hour, which became an hour just sitting in a bus. Just when we were beginning to wonder if we would ever make it across the border, the bus driver returned, passports in tow, and we were on our way.
We thought, foolishly, that was the extent of our border crossing. It turns out that was just where we were given clearance to leave Argentina. No sooner were the passports returned to us before we were coming to another stop. This time, we had to get off
Ready! Set! Hike!
Fully loaded with snacks and supplies, we set off on the "W". the bus, taking all of our personal belongings with us, to go through Chilean customs and walk ourselves across the border. Our introduction to Chile was standing in long line outside of a small customs building in what seemed to be near hurricane-force winds. (On a side note, we soon found out that isn't really what you would call a "windy day" in southern Chile, but instead, it is just a normal day in southern Chile). Needless to say, being that this bus was already taking two hours longer than advertised, we were delighted to see a small cafeteria as we came out of the customs building. Figuring we had at least ten minutes before everyone behind us would be able to make it through the line, Erin decided to quickly run in and try to grab something small to eat. What we didn’t know is that bus drivers in South America don’t really care who is or who isn’t on the bus when they are ready to leave. They just go. So, with half the passengers, including Erin, having not yet returned to their seats, the bus started moving. I hurried to tell the driver he had to wait,
More of Pretty Patagonia
Just a snapshot of the beautiful scenery during Day 1's hike. but of course he didn’t speak English and “mi Espanol es un poquito malo”. The bus driver just continued to drive until I finally pointed and he saw Erin sprinting towards the bus. With a lesson learned (we have yet to attempt getting off another bus without keeping a locked eye on the driver), we were on our way to Puerto Natales.
Getting off the bus, we were greeted by a sea of eager and very determined hostel owners. They were also quite polite and organized. Each respective owner would stand in a single-file line asking for business. It didn’t matter that you had said no to the three or four before them, or that Erin and I were clearly together, they still waited their turn ready to give the sales pitch. When I would say, “No gracias”, they would just take a step to the right and start again with Erin. Both Erin and I are of the strong belief that if you have to ask that hard for business in a town based around it being a tourist stop, your place likely isn’t where we want to stay. So, we followed Lonely Planet’s advice and made our
Erin and the Torre
It truly was a scramble up a boulder field to get to Mirador Torres. way to Hostel Dos Lagunas.
We were met by our gracious host Alejandro, a Puerto Natales native, who likes to do business in a way that was very refreshing, and in a way that is often a lost art back home. Before he would discuss anything about Torres del Paine National Park, he poured us a cup of coffee and sat down to get to know us a little bit. Every time we asked a question about the trek we were hoping to do, Alejandro would reply, “Sure, sure. We will get to that. But first, coffee.” It turns out that Alejandro has been running a hostel for ten years, and whether you’re staying for only one night or for a full week, he wants to truly take the time to get to know everyone who comes through the door. It also turned out that Alejandro was a wealth of knowledge about the Torres del Paine National Park, and the infamous “W” trek we were looking to do.
Fully caffeinated and with our questions answered, Erin and I went on our way to hit up the ATM and then go shop for 5 days worth of trekking food.
Mirador Torres
We made it to the famed Torres del Paine for which this National Park is named. How hard can that be, right? Well, it turns out we had a little issue with our bank, and so the ATM wouldn’t give us any money. We had just enough on us to go to the nearest internet café, where Erin hopped on a computer to figure out a solution and I ran around town trying to figure out how to make a collect call from Chile to Wells Fargo. Honestly, with me being more familiar with computers than Erin, and with her certainly being more familiar with the Spanish language than me, why we didn’t do this with roles reversed, I don’t know. Let’s just say that it was two hours later when we finally found ourselves standing in the grocery store searching for backpacking food. Both our little red bible (Lonely Planet) and Alejandro had said that the grocery store was well stocked for camping food. As we were standing there trying to decide how many packets of dehydrated milk to get and whether or not a packet of rice could constitute a dinner, we realized that a Coloradan’s vision of backpacking food and a Chileans differed greatly. However, with a little creativity, we bought about $15,000
worth of food. (Don’t worry Mom and Dad, that’s in Chilean pesos… it came out to about $35 US dollars for the entire five day trek).
For dinner, we had read in Lonely Planet about a little place called “Afrigonia” owned by a chef from Zambia and his wife from Chile. Therefore, it was a little combination of AFRIca and PataGONIA. Knowing we were going to be surviving on next to nothing over the next five days, Erin and I indulged in wine, ceviche, Patagonian beef, potatoes, salmon, and an apple crisp dessert. It was the absolute best meal we had consumed up to that point, hands down. We were ready for a trek!
Aptly named, the “W” trek is shaped just like that - essentially three parallel out-and-back trails connected at the bottom. When you start the “W”, you have a decision as to which end you want to start your journey on. We were told that if the clouds are not covering the Torres (tower rock formations for which the park is named) when you enter Parque Nacional del Torres del Paine, to start on the eastern side and head there first. Being that it was
a beautiful and rarely cloudless day in Patagonia, we set out for Campamento Torres as our first destination.
The hike started with a steep, laborious climb, and it continued that way for over 500 meters. While tough, the pain was more than bearable when you looked around to see snow-capped Patagonian peaks. After only 3 hours of backpacking, we made it to a very nice campground situated amongst the trees with a babbling brook running through it. We found a great spot next to the creek to call home for the night and set up camp. Though tired and quite hungry by this point, we knew that we were only an hour’s steep scramble up a boulder field to the Mirador Torres (viewpoint). With every sweat inducing step, I could only hope the climb was going to be worth it. As the Torres began to appear over the ridge, Erin and I both knew that this climb was not only going to be well worth it, but it was going to be spectacular. We summited to a close-up view of the three grand torres of this incredible National Park peaking above a large glacier melting into an aqua blue
Day 2 Views
The hike went from the lake's shores to the high ridges above on the hillsides. glacial lake. I can only hope the photos do this view even a small bit of justice.
After a wonderfully cooked pasta meal from Casa de Campbell, a campsite visit from a Red Fox, and an amazing night’s sleep, we were ready to embark on what would be our longest day of the entire trek. We descended the nearly 2,000 feet to where we began day one in only about two hours and then started heading west. It wasn’t long before we came across our second encounter with the local wildlife – a herd of Guanaco (llama-like animals). A few photos later, we climbed to a ridge overlooking the absolutely awe-striking glacial-fed Lago Nordenskjold encased by beautiful green hills in the foreground and tall glacial peaks in the background. From here the hike took us from the high ridges above the lake, down to the lake’s rocky beach, and then back up to one of the many for-profit refugios along the route. Six hours in and two more to go, the cabanas with running water and even an outdoor hot-tub looked nearly too enticing to pass up. We settled for buying two Austral beers and kept on trekking to
Shore of Lago Norgedskjold
Erin walking along the beach of a glacial fed lake. Campamento Italiano, where we would stay for two nights and set up camp right next to a raging glacial river just below an avalanche-prone snowy peak. After 16 miles of trekking that day, Cocinero Fuge served up a great pot of dehydrated mashed potatoes paired with cerveca Austral night 2.
We awoke after a night where sleep was interrupted by thunderous roars of walls of falling snow and ice, and were ready to hike the middle out-and-back of the “W” to Mirador Britanico in the Valle Francés. To be completely honest, the most picturesque point of this five-hour round-trip hike was only about a thirty minute walk from the campsite at a point where you could get a front-row seat to watch glacial avalanches about every fifteen minutes and, while waiting to hear the next thunderous boom, you could look out to the valley floor to see Lago Nordenskjold, Lago Pehoe, and a few other smaller bodies of water in the area. Whether it was that we were tired, whether it was due to the clouds in the sky, or whether we are just spoiled coming from Colorado, we thought the rest of that day’s hike and even the
viewpoint were both nice, but nothing spectacular relative to the rest of the scenery.
We started the fourth day of hiking with two hours of a relatively flat “walk in the park” to Refugio Pehoe. From here we would travel north to the end of the last out-and-back of the “W”. This was only three hours, but it was without doubt the most taxing mentally. The hike included many steep rocky climbs and descents through high winds carrying a cold rain. The one thing that kept us going was knowing that our destination was Refugio Grey, where we could buy a beer… or maybe two. No matter how much we were thinking of how we’d rather be eating white-bean chicken chili while sitting next to the di Santi’s wood fire (did I mention that no campfires are allowed in the National Park… camping is not the same without a camp fire), all of the strain was erased when we reached our final campsite of the trek. Campamento Grey is situated on the sandy shores of Lago Grey, named for the glacier that feeds this body of water, and that produced the icebergs that were floating just yards away from
our tent. After a quick pot of rice, we mustered up enough strength to walk another fifteen minutes to Mirador Grey, where you get a great viewpoint of what seems to be an endless glacier cutting between two enormous Patagonian peaks. While this was beautiful, the wind and rain made cerveca Austral even more enticing. So, in short order, we headed back to the wood-stove heated refugio, ordered up a couple beers, and then a couple more, before calling it a night.
The final day was the 3-hour hike back to Refugio Pehoe, where we hopped on a 30-minute catamaran that would take us back to where we began our adventure. The hike was beautiful, the catamaran was a unique way to experience the park, and yet, both Erin and I had our minds on one thing and one thing only – you might expect that to be a shower or a nice bed at Dos Lagunas, but really, after a week of nothing more than rice, dehydrated mashed potatoes, and some trail mix, it was solely what we were going to order at AFRIGONIA! Our second trip to Afrigonia became, hands down, the best meal of our trip,
Looking up from the bottom of the French Valley
Our campsite for nights 2 and 3 was just in the trees on the right hand side of this photo. and has yet to be topped.
We were sad to leave Alejandro, as after only two nights in his hostel we felt like we were truly leaving with a new friend, but we had a bus to catch to Punta Arenas, which is more or less solely a destination for Patagonian travelers to stop in before flying out of the region’s main airport. With that said, there is one large attraction for tourists if you are going to be in Punta Arenas for an afternoon, and that’s the Seno Otway Penguinera. Of course, for Erin, this was an absolute must. She was more excited than a 12-year old kid meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time at Disney Land. It also was probably the most amusing point of our travels thus far.
We were met at our hostel by a nondescript white van and were told to hop in. From here we went on to pick up a few other couples from other hostels until the van was full, or so I thought. We continued to drive through the streets of Punta Arenas, which I started to believe was just an endless array of similar looking suburban neighborhoods.
It wasn’t until the third time we passed the same dog leisurely strolling in the street that I began to realize our driver was lost. Let me tell you, it’s real reassuring when you’re in an unmarked tour van and the driver has no clue where he is. After about 45 minutes of driving in a circle, a short stop at headquarters, and then asking random pedestrians on the streets, we found passengers 14 and 15 for our small little van. As we headed out of the city, our tour guide plugged a microphone into the car speakers and started giving the tour in English. This presented a great deal of awkwardness, the least of which was because Erin and I were the only native English speaking people in the van. The real trouble was that the microphone was of very poor quality and cut out every few words. Moreover, our tour guide had an impressive quantity of English words in his vocabulary, but unfortunately, he didn’t really know how to put them together properly to make grammatically correct sentences. After hearing “Louis has sorry for…(microphone cut out)… Louis makes apology due to…(microphone cut out)… Louis gives you remorse because…(microphone
French Valley View Point
Looking one direction... cut out)… Hijo de Puta (Spanish swearing)” , Erin and I couldn’t help but just looking at each other and laughing. To feel better, we tell ourselves we were not laughing at the poor guy’s expense, but more at the ridiculousness of the situation. And really, when it came down to it, we were going to see penguins, so Erin didn’t care what we had to endure to get there as long as there were penguins at the end of the ride.
Much to our delight, not only were there penguins at the end of the ride, but they were incredibly accessible. We were able to walk on a nearly mile long trail that wound through a natural magellanic penguin habitat, and in most cases were within ten feet or closer to these cute, funny creatures. It’s hard to describe the hilarity of watching penguins. Some people say that when you’re in an unfamiliar position you are “like a fish out of water”. They should really say you look like a penguin out of water. Under sea, penguins are quick, agile, athletic creatures. However, once ashore they look uncomfortable and laughably clumsy. One of the highlights of the walk
...
...and then looking the other. was a small tower from which you could see both the penguin colony as well as a small lagoon in the distance that was home to Patagonian flamingos.
All in all, our Chilean Patagonia adventures provided us with some of our most unforgettable moments, from the beauty of the “W” to the absurdity of the Chilean way of doing business (from border crossings, bus driving, and tour guides).
Next stop: Chiloé – where we’ll be renting a car and I’ll have to learn the eccentricities of South American driving. Ciao for now!
e squared everywhere (written by Eli)
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Andrea
Fantastic!
Great pictures, wonderful blog. Thank you for sharing your fascinating trip!