The "W Trek" of Torres del Paine

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Hola,

We left El Calafate on a bus to Puerto Natales that was supposed to take five hours. Argentinian immigration decided to let two busses go in front of us because the had less people in them and Chilean immigration originally did not give Peter and entry stamp, then thay gave him an entry AND exit stamp, then they crossed out the exit stamp. As a result, the bus took 7 hours to arrive. The saving grace was that "princess" was not on the bus. Did we tell you about princess? We don't think so. Here's the story about princess.

PRINCESS

Ahhh princess... the kind of traveler you do not want to have to deal with on a long journey. However, with the luck bestowed upon us, we encountered such creature, obviously completely out of her element and with no clue as to how backpacking works. The story starts early in the morning in Bariloche around 6h30 in the morning, the bus slowly pulls in 10 min later then it should. The sidewalk is littered with gringos waiting, tired, still wiping the sleep from their eyes. We all pile into this bus that we would more or less call home for the next couple of days. We sit down in our assigned seats, and in walks princess. Lets describe her shall we. She struts up the stairs, doe-eyed, and down the aisle with a somewhat look of bewilderment as if she has never seen the interior of a bus before. She has what we call "British hair", the long thick carefully coiffed locks which you know has taken her about 20min in front of the mirror. Her makeup was not over done though, probably as to give the illusion that she is just like everyone else; you can tell she is pretending not to care, but you know its killing her inside. Her speech is flawless; her accent is groomed as if she attended an Eton equivalent for girls. She is absolutely dripping with attitude, she considers herself above everyone else on the bus, but she must 'fit in' because she is of course 'slumming it' before daddy's money runs out and she has to return home. Now for the fun part. As we all get settled in, and the bus gets going, Princess decides that she is tired and reclines her seat all the way back. Valerie basically has no room left to move, and tries desparately to get comfortable in her limited amount of space, moving her knees around, switching sides etc... Apparently all this shifting about, trying to get comfortable has awaken Princess' beauty sleep. So what does Princess do? She turns around and says to Valerie with an irratated voice, "umm, you are kicking me with your knees and I can't sleep". Valerie is completely shocked that the person who reclined their chair all the way back, taking away someone else's space has the gall to turn around and tell that person that their knees are prohibiting them from sleeping. Valerie retorted with "umm ya I have no room to put my knees, you took it all". Valerie was livid; Princess already had broken 2 rules of backpacking, (First rule: never recline your seat all the way back unless you're in executive cama and have the room to do so without encroaching on someone else's. Second rule: never tell someone that their knees are kicking the seat unless they are actually kicking the seat. All this drama and it was not even 2hrs into the bus ride. Not getting the response that she wanted, Princess turns around in a huff, probably missing the days when she got whatever she wanted all the time. We think she understood that she was not going to get any sympathy from us, so she did not turn around again. After that, Princess refused to speak or let alone look at us. However in the spirit of slumming it, she did strike up conversations with some Irish that were on the bus; people she hadn't yet pissed off. The second part of the journey she was no longer in front of us, thankfully, but our encounters had not yet ended. We think fate definitely got a kick out of it. We saw her again in El Chalten, in a brewery, holding a glass of red wine with 2 hands (I mean who comes to a brewery and orders a glass of wine?!), drooling over some poor guy. Next on the list, was El Calafate where she staying at the same hostel. We came in through the door and she was thankfully putting on her shoes, apparently holding up the airport shuttle. She runs out to the driver, says "lo siento" in the most insecere gringo accent and hops into the front seat. So far, we have not run into her again. We had overheard her talking about how she had to meet some people in Buenos Aires before she returned home. So we're hoping she is there now, hobknobbing with her polo friends, hanging with the jet set crowd and leaving us backpackers alone.

That was the story of princess. We are accepting bidding wars for the publishing rights.

When we arrived in town, we checked into Erratic Rock Hostel and went about tracking down our gear because we were planning on doing some trekking in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. We got half of the supply but they did not have any tents left (kind of important to have when camping) so Peter had to run to another place several blocks away to snap up a good tent before they were all gone. After that, we went to the grocery store and loaded up on food for the trek. We were planning on hiking the "W Trek", which is supposed to take 5 days and 4 nights.

Here is a brief summary of Torres del Paine before we get into the details: 70km of walking in 3 days; 3 nights of terrible sleep; endless uphills; countless downhills; sun, rain, wind, snow, sleet, all in the same day; 1 sprained ankle; 1 injured knee; 1 50% gradient incline for 40 min but a big smile at the end of completing the "W Trek" of Torres del Paine, priceless.

We had to wake up early the next day in order to catch the bus to the park. En route into the park, we saw rabbits, foxes, flamengos, hundreds of guanacos and many rheas including one with her babies. Once we arrived at Lago Pehoe, a ridiculously greeny-blue lake, we took the catamaran to the other started. En route, we had spectactular views of the Cuernos del Paine. What is cool about the mountains is that they are composed primarily of granite but are capped by sedimentary rock which has eroded to make the mountains extremely jagged and thus spectacular to look at. When we arrived at the other side of the shore, we started hiking. We hiked 3 hours over mostly "Inca Flat" terrain along the shore of Lago Grey until we got to the campsite at Refugio Grey which was located on a small beach next to the lake. There is a beautiful view of Glacier Grey that is 10 minutes north of camp but it was extremely windy and very cold so we did not stay at the mirador for long. We cooked dinner on a campstove and then were able to get some hot chocolate in the refugio which, despite being made with milk powder, was quite good. After that, it was off to bed for our first night in the tent on the hike.

The night was terrible for both of us. It rained torrentially, luckily the tent was excellent against the wind and rain, but the noise kept us awake for much of the night. Also, we were in mummy-style sleeping bags and they make it very difficult to strech out one's legs so both of us tossed and turned the whole night and got very little sleep as a result. We both looked like death in the morning so we decided that it would be best to try and do the hike in 3 nights rather than in 4.We hiked back the 11km that we had hiked before through the same terrain only it was less windy this time. We had lunch by the shore of Lake Pehoe before continuing towards Campamiento Italiano. There were great views of the Cuernos del Paine along the way. We left our bags at Italiano and walked for about an hour or so into the French Valley (which is the middle part of the "W")where there are supposed to be spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, it was completely socked in with clouds so the only thing we were able to see was Cerro Paine Grande and Glacier Frances, which is on it. We also saw a couple of avalanches come down its face and that was incredible to watch and to listen to. We trekked back down to Italiano and picked up our stuff and went on further to Refugio and Campamiento Cuernos. The site was on the shores of Lago Nordskjopp and afforded good vies of both the Cuernos del Paine as well as the galcial carved shoreline on the opposite side of the lake. Unfortunately, the campsites were not as good as the night before so we were on a bit of an angle. We ran into a Swiss guy who we had seen at Campamiento grey, so we had dinner with him on a picnic table that had to be on a 30 degree angle. The day consisted of 11 hours of hiking.

After another terrible night, we broke camp before most people and headed west. towards the far side of the "W". We hiked along Lago Nordskjopp for a while and then there was a fantastic shortcut that we thought would save us 30 minutes, but actually ended up saving us 2 hours! After we crossed the pampa we headed uphill until we enterred Torre Valley. We descneded to Refugio Chileno where we had lunch and then we pushed on to Campamiento Torres where we set up camp. There, we met Cesar who is one of the park rangers. He told us a lot about the Torres and shared som mate with Peter. We ran into our friends John and Ilanna (we hope that is spelled correctly) coming the other way and they recommended that we head up so the Mirador torres that afternoon if it was sunny. Well, it was sunny so we headed on up. It was a 45 minute hike but it was on loose rock and gravel and the gradient was 50% so it was quite tiring. However, when we got to the top we were rewarded with extraordinary views of the Torres del Paine, their glacier and the little green lake that is located at the base. We trekked back down the mountain and had dinner. We ran into Toby and Mike, two Aussies who we had met at Cuernos and we talked with them for a while. They even had some peanut butter, which is next to impossible to find in South America, so Peter was ecstatic. We hiked for about 5 hours on the third day.

That night was the coldest we had endured so far in the Parque. We both were shivering in our sleeping bags so it was fortunate when the alarm went off at 415am for us to hike up to Mirador Torres for the sunrise. Believe us, hiking in the dark is challenging. We made it to the top and then got back into our sleeping bags as it was well below freezing with the windchill to wait for the sunrise. When the sunlight hit the Torres, they turned golden for a little bit, but not the red that we had been hoping for. Around 6am, we headed back down and packed up before heading south to try and hike out of the park. Well, the rain started around 7am. Fortunatly, we were in forest for the first hour or so and thus stayed mainly dry. However, we
would have to hike the next bit completely exposed, up a hill of loose rock and shale while trying not to get blown into the valley below by a combination of the sheeting rain or howling wind. At one point near the summit, we actually had to go on all fours for fear of being blown off the trail and falling to the valley floor below. Fortunately, after we made it around the summit, the wind died down a little and we were able to make it to the Hotel Los Torres to dry out. Several other hikers showed up and evetually the hotel decided that we were frightening the guests so they arranged a shuttle bus to take us to Laguna Amarga which is where we would pick up our transfer back to Puerto natales. En route, we crossed a bridge that was 210 centimetres wide and we were both amazed that the bus did not hit the sides en route. We chilled at Laguna Amarga for a while and then slept for most of the bus ride back to Puerto Natales. When we arrived, there was no space at Erratic Rock so we went over to Austral Glacier which had single beds and not bunk beds so we were quite happy about that. We showered (which is not normally a big deal in itself but after 4 days of not showering, it is a pleasant change) and then went out to a vegetarian restaurant called El Living for dinner. The food was vegetarian but we were starving after our hike so we ate quite a bit of it. We then went nextdoor to Mesita Grande, which is located in the oldest building in town, and had second dinner and desert. In fact, Peter may or may not have had 5 deserts over the course of the evening. We were joined at Mesita Grande by Toby and Mike, as well as Kelly and Matthew, all people we had met along the trek. There was some lasagna adultery, a discussion about Mexican jelly beans, sharing of odd medical facts and arguments with the staff over pizza sizes, until the time came when we actually closed the place down.

The next day couple of days were a lot more low key as we spent them wandering around Puerto Natales. Basically, the town is the end of the line for the Navimag (big ferry that heads south through the Chilean fjords) and Torres del Paine. Apart from those two things, there is not a whole lot going on in town. However, there are some good restaurants. We have already discussed Mesita Grande and El Living, but two more are Baguales and Afrogonia. Baguales is a microbrewery with some excellent beer, the best burger in South America (so far) and the heaviest door on the face of the earth. Afrogonia is a Zambian/Argentinian fusion place that is supposed to be the best restaurant in town. The King Crab and Kiwi Fruit mousse was excellent, but the rest of the dinner was a little dissapointing.

The exception being the wind. Puerto Natales is a windy place. The wind actually howls on a regular basis and it is very difficult to walk around at times. In fact, it has got to the point where both Valerie and Peter walk around bent over into the wind in order to not get blown over.

Bye for now,
Peter and Valerie

Things we learned in Torres del Paine:
-The unpredictable weather we have in Vancouver has nothing on Torres del Paine!
-Tony Parsons has a twin and he is travelling in Chile
-Erratic Rock means "a rock or boulder carried by a glacier far enough from its original source to be deposited in a different environment completely." It is an interesting concept.

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