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Published: February 18th 2011
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Okay, well not quite camping in the wild, we were in a designated campsite, but still very much outdoors and away from the simple little things in life like a bed. We left El Calafate early in the morning and travelled for several hours to reach the Argentinian/Chile border where we had a relatively easy and quick crossing given that we were on a bus with 40 or so other people. We arrived in Puerto Natales in the afternoon only to change to another bus which would take us to Torres del Paine. It was in Puerto Natales that we met Christian, our local guide for the next three days.
After another two hour bus ride we arrived at the entrance to Torres del Paine where we transferred to a smaller bus to take us to our campsite. As we headed into the bus we reached a bridge at which point we all had to get out and walk across the bridge before the bus slowly made its way over. The bridge was so narrow that the bus had to fold its mirrors in to avoid having them snap off and demonstrates the need for the driver to have accuracy
when beginning the crossing. Once we were all safely on the other side, including the bus, we all piled back on and continued on for another twenty minutes to our campsite. The cooks that would be looking after our meals for the next few days had set up our tents and once inside Lauren and I realised that we would be sharing pretty close quarters for the next few days. With our humble little abode set up, we wandered up to the meal tent where we got a run down of the park and the hike that we would be taking the following day. We were served up pisco sour, a local drink, which I quite liked. It is made from brandy, lime (to make it sour), and whipped egg white - don't go judging it until you taste it. Actually, by my second sip I could feel it rushing straight to my head which was quite a pleasant feeling! The chefs cooked us a chicken and rice dinner which was homestyle and very yummy. I headed off to bed about 10pm decked out in my thermal long johns, a thermal top, jumper, beanie and had faith that my sleeping
bag would be sufficient. By about midnight I could feel the coldness on my face and, worried about frostbite on my nose, I huddled down deep in my sleeping bag and vowed that the next night I would be added my gloves to my night time apparel.
Waking the next morning, feeling reasonably refreshed and ready to face our hike to Mirador Las Torres we had a great scrambled egg brekky cooked by our chefs, organised our lunch packs and were off. The first hour of this trek required us to ascend about 400m with a reasonably steep incline which, although tough, was doable. At one stage, we had to make way for a group of rangers who were descending quite slowly as they were carrying a lady on a stretcher. The lady was so rugged up, and lying so still, that from a distance it looked like they were bringing down a corpse, thankfully, for the lady's sake as well as ours, this was not the case. We were later to find out that the lady had fallen and injured herself on the boulder fields the previous morning, a stark reality that if you injure yourself help and
medical treatment could be a long time coming.
We made it to the Chilean Refuge, the first camping site along our hike, in time for some morning tea. From this refuge the path became very picturesque as we hiked closely beside a rapid flowing river for some time, crossing it several times. About another hour into the hike, on an upward incline, I took too big a step and heard, and felt, something in the back of my leg snap. I knew that if I stopped climbing I wouldn't make it to the top so I limped to the top of the incline and told the group what had happened. At this stage, I had images of being stretchered down the mountain, and started to panic about how in the bloody hell I was going to get down. A minute after panic set in, I calmed down and with the help of Christian who helped me stretch it out (and he wouldn't stop even when I told him it was hurting - his reaction being that yes it would hurt) and a heavy dose of Ibuprofen, I managed to limp on to Campamento Torres. Here I made the decision
that I wouldn't be able to continue on to the boulder field, given that it is basically like climbing oversized steps, and I couldn't fully put my heel on the ground without pain. By the time I started to head back to our campsite, the Ibuprofen had really started to kick in, and that, combined with walking on my tip toes everytime I had to ascend, was how I made my way back to our campsite. The cooks had made us a special dinner that night - a typical Chilean BBQ complete with black sausage, roast pork, chorizo sausage and potatoes. The weather was much warmer that night, I'm guessing that it was at least 2 degrees, so I had a relatively comfortable sleep.
Day two in Torres del Paine saw us hire a driver and with Christian leading the way we travelled right throughout the park. It was absolutely amazing, we had beautiful weather and we stopped and saw many sights including the local guancos which are like a Llama, flamingos, waterfalls, Cuernos del Paine (Spanish for "Horns of Paine" -- horn-like mountain tops), grey glacier and so much more. It was a beautiful day and one that
we all really enjoyed as we got to see all of these fantastic sights with little effort on our part!!
The cooks continued to feed us well making a "pasta" dish for us that night that was much more like a vegetable crepe. Our last night in the tent was very much like the first, but I was well prepared, with my thermals, and an additional layer of clothing, along with my beanie and hat.
Our third morning, which was Monday, was exciting as we woke up knowing that we would be sleeping in a bed that night!! It was with vigour that I rolled up my sleeping bag, packed my belongings and took off to the meal tent for brekky. This morning we would hike for several hours to see aboriginal paintings and we were promised we'd see plenty of wildlife along the way. Not long into the walk we came alongside a number of guanaco who seemed reasonably comfortable with us being there provided we did not get too close. We continued to walk and continued to see guanacos, it appeared that this would be the only wildlife we would see. About an hour into the walk
Christian pointed out several condors that were coming in to land, and he said that they were most likely feeding on a dead carcass. He told us that if we approached quietly we would most likely be able to see a close up of them feeding. So creeping along, very much crocodile hunter style, we came upon the most amazing scene - there would have been more than 60 condors feeding, even Christian was amazed at the rare sight of so many condors. Steve was there snapping photo after photo, and I can't wait until he processes some of them, as he will hopefully have got a number of good shots. Given that I only had a small digital camera on me, the photos I have are quite distant.
After watching the condors for almost half an hour we continued on and finally got to the aboriginal paintings - to be honest I was expecting a number of paintings but this was not to be. All the same, it was a nice way to fill in the morning knowing that we had to get back on a bus for the two hour journey back to Puerto Natales.
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