Advertisement
Published: April 18th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Chile...
not the best season to visit... Hello all,
Sadly, I have to say that Chile was met with disappointment for me, though in truth, it really is my own fault! We jumped on some painful night buses and started our journey south, and the scenery was flat desert for hours on end - not displeasing, just unchanging and uninteresting... Until we finally arrived in Santiago. Well, I have to say that Santiago is a lovely city. There were colonial buildings and cafes and restaurants that lined the neighbourhoods with intermittent parks popping up to remove you from the main hi ways and busy hustle. We even climbed up to a park on top of a hill in the city center for a view, albeit complete with smog lined on the horizon. But, even the pollution didn´t detract too much from the city. We wandered it for hours, checking out shops and eyeing out restaurants and local wines.
Of course, we did decide to cut Santiago short on account of the beauty and lure of Pucon - ultimately our big mistake! We took yet another dreadful overnight bus to arrive in the land of rain. Now, we realize that it is rainy season here, but somehow
santiago...
where the weather was good! there was a false sense of security when we were strolling about in sandals and shorts in 30 degree weather in Santiago. But, low and behold, as we arrived in Pucon, the sky was dismal, unrelenting grey and the rain, constant and unwelcoming. We asked locals.... and it wasn´t looking good. They said that weather like that was common and could last up to two weeks. We couldn´t see a thing, not even the buildings in the distance and were getting soaked just walking from Internet cafe to bus station, so we jumped on another bus immediately going further south...
Now this thrust us into Argentina sooner than we liked, but we made out way south and crossed the border back into Argentina to see the national park, Torres del Paine. Now this park is in every brochure, postcard, and tour book around... spectacular mountains and views. So, we bought ourselves 5 days of food and decided to embark on the W hike... winding around two mountains, with three scenic points at the three tips of the ¨W¨. We had a rather unpleasant rest (finding rats and earwigs snuggling down with us) and caught the bus to the park.
We decided to do the hike the opposite way to avoid the crowds, so we were off... of course, no one told us that the first sight, being a glacier had 60km winds gusting off it.... into our faces! Now, I have to say, I have never had so much troubles walking in a straight line in my life! Our eyes were clenched closed, and our bodies as tucked away as possible in all the layers we had as we were shoved around by the wind. We managed to make it to the first lodging (where a dorm was about $50 American!) and decided since we had just come from a glacier, and there was clearly no views with the heavy clouds looming above, that we would miss the first view, and head on to the free camping at the middle of the W so that we could ascend the peak the next day. Our ambitious hike in had us pulling into the camp in the dark, after loosing the trail once or twice, soaked to the bone and setting up in the rain. Needless to say, after a lovely night´s sleep, we woke up rather wet from the incessant
rain that night, and had to force ourselves out of our tent back into more wet... with absolutely no views and no visibility! We starred at the sky as we munched our breakfast, and yet again, decided that there was no hope at all for any view from the peak, so we skipped the top and made our way for the next destination - another all day bust to get there, and we managed to hike up to the free camping. Now, I have to say that despite the rain, wind, and snow, we actually did manage to get a wee bit of sun, and there was some beautiful, if fleeting, views. So, just as we stopped to throw together our wet tent, we noticed just how cold an windy it was at the camping site, before we knew it, we were bundled in our tent, hovering for heat and wondering what on earth had possessed us to do this hike in the off season anyhow! We woke up the third morning, and it was the worst, we tried to out wait the rain for several hours, but by 10:30, we decided there was no hope. The clouds were descending,
and forever busing...
this is how I think of Chile! our tent and stuff was soaked, and there was no hope at all of a peak hike for views.... so, one last time we opted to skip the view and hike out.... as fast as our legs could carry us so that we could take the one bus into town that same day. Now, I have to say, in my recent memory, that section of the hike would rank as probably the worst hike I have ever done. It was terribly unpleasant and we were chilled, soaked, and rather dispirited when we did finally make it out... only to go back to the same earwig-rat hostel since our spare stuff was being stored there... so, all in all, Chile was not the best experience for us... to be fair though, I think I will have to give it another change some day... maybe not in the off-season!
More to come,
Trish xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.173s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 27; dbt: 0.024s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.1mb