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Published: December 4th 2010
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So we have now made it out of El Calafate and crossed over the border again back into Chile heading further south through Patagonia and into the Torres del Paine national park. At over 12,000 hectares, this was one of the most eagerly anticipated places on our journey but who knew that when we got off the truck at our first campsite it would be so windy. We hadn't been overly prepared for this leg of the trip, and were very pleased to have made a last minute dash to the supermarket the night before to buy a couple more sleeping bags. It has turned out to be the best £10 spent on the trip so far. We were too slow out of the truck, and missed out on one of the sheltered spots, but managed to pitch our tent up against a metal wall. Sadly we didn't have many pegs to pin it down, so we were on constant watch to make sure all of our worldly possessions didn't fly off into the sunset. Incidentaly, sunset this far south was about 10pm, which does all sorts of strange things to your body clock.
The main attraction to the Torres
del Paine national park is the trekking. There are 2 main treks that can be walked, The Circuit, which can be completed over about 9 days, taking in the majority of the park, and the "W Walk" which makes up the 3 principal legs of the circuit, and can take 3 to 4 days.
The first leg we took of the W Walk was up to the Towers look out point. These are the centre piece of the park and offer a truly spectacular scene. Sadly, they are not the easiest thing to get to, and we trekked 4 hours to get there. Not a bad thing on any normal day, but it was so windy, there were times you felt you were getting no where, especially for the last 45 minutes which seemed to be a never ending scramble over rocks and boulders with the end never in sight.
Fortunately when you eventually make it to the top of the trek, it is all completely worth while. The view of the towers is stunning, with a glacial lake adding great contrast to the snow covered peaks. This gave us a chance to stop and have lunch (cheese
and ham no less), but as the wind at the top was so strong we only stayed up there for 15 mintutes.
What goes up must come down, and although tired, the walk back down was as equally spectacular, with the views back down the valley awe-inspiring The weather changes so quickly in the national park, one minute we had snow falling, the next glorious sunshine, however the one constant remained - the wind. Fortunately this followed us most of the way so the journey back was slightly quicker.
A good 6 hours and 19 km of trekking was enough for the day, and we returned to the campsite to find our tent still in the same place, which was a relief, even though I think we would have both slept standing on our heads if we had to given our level of exhaustion.
After another windy night, we woke early to pack up our tents and take a boat crossing to another campsite further into the park which was our base for the next couple of legs of the "W Walk". Amazingly the wind had picked up over night, and our boat crossing didn't go without incident.
We were due to cross a lake at 9:30 that morning, so ever the keen trekkers we were at the front of the queue to board our boat. The skipper motioned for 5 of us to walk from the shore across a small bridge on to the dock, but half way across we were caught by another freak gust of wind and pinned to the railing. Megan had her beanie and sunglasses blown off her head, but seeing as her backpack was like a sail, she almost went over the edge as well. Fortunately a friend on the truck grabbed her, and stopped her going over into the glacial lake, meanwhile I was holding onto another lady from the truck who would have gone off like a kite into the distance. The gust died down, and we were very lucky to retrieve the beanie and sunnies, and also all make it onto the boat without taking a swim. When all aboard the boat left, but only went for about 10 minutes, as the gusting wind had made the lake inpassable. The skipper made a very sensible decision to return to shore and wait it out. Fortunately for us we only
had to wait for 90 minutes before we had another crack at it. This time more successful, which was impressive as the wind had been gusting at 120 km/h
On the other side, we pitched our tents again, but this time weighed it down with boulders and other hardware we found lying around the campsite. Today's trek was along the "Lago Grey" heading towards the "Grey Glacier". This was supposed to be an easier trek than up to the Towers the day before, but the poor nights sleep, along with the phenomenal number of blisters combined with general fatigue (lack of fitness), made this trek a lot harder than expected. We trekked half way and were presented with a great view point as the glacier approached the lake, another brief stop for lunch (surprise surprise - ham and cheese) and then we thought that the final push would only take an hour. Not sure who was reading the map, but it was a lot further than an hour to the end. We ended up taking another couple of hours, and walking 11km in total. Sadly for us we had to walk back to the campsite, so we still had
another 11km to go.
It is amazing what you achieve when your feet, knees and hips are in pieces, but we still managed to drag ourselves up to the campsite bar for a little, well earned refresher. After all, keeping hydrated is crucial to survival in Patagonia?! Not sure if she meant to do this but Megan managed to order a shot of Johnnie Walker Green Label. Safe to say I could have had four more beers for the same price, but it was taken for medicinal purposes, so very important.
Needless to say we slept incredibly well despite the howling gale, and awoke to a beautiful calm morning. We had made the executive decision not to do the entire "Valle del Frances" walk that day, as we were physically in bits, so we managed to enjoy a leisurely 15km walk up to the mouth of the valley.
The Torres del Paine National Park is a magnificent place with inspirational views at every turn and we have once again been blessed with the opportunity to experience it, although not without sacrifice of knees and feet!!
We are now heading further south, where it promises to get
colder and windier, with our final destination Ushuaia, before bouncing back up the east coast of Argentina hunting for the warmth of Buenos Aires.
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the bride to be!!
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wow, that really looks amazing. stunning. will definately put the south on my list if we ever get back over there. you will have to put on a slide show in bannockburn when you get and also sounds like hard work, but i guess it would be lazy if you just layed on the beach for a year! enjoy the hiking xxx