Blogs from Torres del Paine, Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 35

Boarding a bus before sunrise and settling down to a 10-hour round trip, we wondered if the half-day we were going to spend in Chile's Parque Nacional Torres del Paine would, in fact, be worth it... Oops, sorry for doubting! We were lucky again with the weather, which definitely contributed to the experience, as did our guide, who related his encounter with one particular visitor to the park, a bootylicious American star who plays up her Latina roots and apparently dresses highly inappropriately for trekking in national parks. (The amount of trekking, by all accounts, was nominal: it seems she wasn't much of a nature lover). Not that we did much trekking ourselves! But it was only a half day; those in the know recommend spending several days camping in the park to fully appreciate it. ... read more

After Ushuaia, I was back in Chile for a bit more than a week. I arrived in Puerto Natales, a place of passage before heading to the National Park of Torres del Paine. I was planning to do some trekking on my own but got an email from two frenchies I met in Ushuaia and an Australian friend. At the end, I had to wait an extra 3 days for the troop to arrive. Puerto Natales isn’t the most exciting of towns and got pretty boring. The whole duration of my stay was spent in the hostel as the only customer. It was a special place, the owner was a real “gaucho”, the typical Patagonian cowboy, and the time of my stay was trying to understand his mumbling stories in Chilean slang and drinking “Mate” (the ... read more

What can we say about Torres del Paine national park, except that the long and winding road down here was worth it every centimeter !! I'll publish this one for now without too much text, if only for the pics. Will update it later ! Ciao !... read more

Chile´s Best National Park - 9th to 14th February We spend a day running around Puerto Natales trying to sort out our Torres Del Paine trip. Its also an incredibly frustrating day as we have to find out whats happening with our tickets for the cruise to Antarctica and end up running to a fax machine to send all the details still needed, even though the trip is less than 2 weeks away! I´ve also managed to forget my PIN numbers for both my cards so we´re left with Kate´s card, which has a daily withdrawal restriction. We realise we can´t get enough money out that day to pay for our trip to the National Park so we have a stressful evening waiting until midnight to finally withdraw some more money!! Eventually it is all sorted ... read more

This past week I was occupied with an eight-day trek in the Torres del Paine National Park in southern Patagonia, Chile. Torres is known for having cold, windy, rainy weather, and it definitely lived up to its reputation. Just approaching the park the enormous peaks appear to be surrounded by swirling black clouds, I started the trek out by hiking up to the base of the Torres, a series of 3 granite peaks. I met a few Argentines on the way up, and they insisted on stopping to drink mate on the way up, so we didn´t make it to the campsite until around 10 pm. However, it´s light until late, so sometimes I enjoyed hiking in the evening. The following day I began the circuit and at the first campsite met Clement, a strange French ... read more