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Published: September 19th 2016
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It was a long drive. A tour group thing. We got on a bus and headed north. The road was paved, but we ran out of pavement. The turn off, a dusty gravel road. And a roadside shrine to a populist saint, Gouchito Gil. He’s crossed national boundaries here, an Argentine saint of dubious qualities, in Chile. The shrine is charming, a bright red box, laden with gifts to please a Gaucho: whiskey, photos of beautiful naked women, cigarettes. The bus driver inspects the cache with a pleased smile, and leaves something of his own there.
We continue and I couldn’t help thinking we were going absolutely no where. But, I did know where we were going; I had investigated the route thoroughly on Google Earth before leaving home. A route Google tells me takes 1 hour and 24 minutes to drive. I assure you, it took much longer. This is not a road you travel quickly, even in summer.
We left Puerto Natales in the early afternoon heading for Torres del Paine national park. And, I’d seen pictures, read a few reviews. It looked wonderful, but it’s hard to ‘get it’ just looking at pictures. That
didn’t start to happen until we were driving along the endless shore of Lago del Toro. The road began to incline, and as we crested a ridge, we were met with a full-on hit of nature: a valley, on the windy shores of the Rio Serrano, lightly populated on one side of the river with hotels, hostels, and a few homes, surrounded by higher than high mountains, and completely dwarfed by the incredibly beautiful mountains generally referred to as the Torres del Paine – the light blue towers. Driving into the valley I became enchanted by the sight of horses grazing along the road, in the road, in parking lots, pretty much anywhere they wanted to be. There were fences, but if they had ever been intended to keep horses contained, that plan had been abandoned.
We drove up to the largest hotel, the Hotel Rio Serrano, where all the rooms face the Torres del Paine Mountains. Which would be nice if you could actually see them. The atmosphere was changeable, but mostly, we experienced low clouds and drizzly rain. Our room was on the first floor, with windows that opened to let fresh air in. Chileans
have a different philosophy when it comes to heating. The heat is on, when it gets too warm, you open a window. A little tricky here, though, on the first floor. We are soon told of a guest who woke up to a large curious horse head swinging about in her room!
The hotel is busy. Our bus. A bus of Chinese folks. (The Chinese who can travel, do, they are just everywhere!) Meals are buffet style, an amazing array of new and familiar foods. A bar that keeps our tour group’s thirst for pisco sours quenched. It’s a big hotel, with that clean modern look popular in South America. Maybe a little more wood and iron, a nod to the natural surroundings and the huaso ethos. The outside is simple, unadorned mostly, and we soon learn why. Winds in Patagonia can become 80 kilometer an hour gales in moments. The ever persistent austral beech grows low in these parts, as does all vegetation. When the winds kick up, all windows and doors are shut and we stare out in wonder as the wind gods claim their property.
The next couple of days we spend here
are a little hard to explain. Sure, it was pretty simple. We ate breakfast and got on the bus, after the bus driver checks reports regarding wind risks – there are literally places you have to reconsider visiting due to wind. Busses have been blown over at times. Recent times, we are told. Last week, in fact. We drive to different locations where we explore, often walking only short distances. We’re all retirees, so some of us can walk farther than others. And, sometimes, we do a nice hike, those of us up to it. We see Grey Lake, created by a melting glacier. In fact, pretty much all of the water here is chalky, a hallmark of glacier water, a ground stone emulsion of sorts. We see waterfalls. We see guanacos. We see condors flying in the distance. We see beech trees – many damaged by the fire in the park the year before. We are blown by Patagonia winds. We see the mountains, the Torres Del Paine, the striking fingers of the towers reaching to the sky.
I can list what we saw. But I cannot convey the enormity and the beauty of what we
saw. I’ll post pictures, but you won’t feel the wind and you won’t really know why I didn’t climb further up that hill to get a better shot. You won’t know how high mountains can rise from the earth until you disappear in its presence, reduced to a speck in someone else’s photo. You won’t know how loud quiet can be until you wake up in a hotel at dawn where all staff and guests are barely breathing, looking out windows, running outside with cameras, awed by the sight of the Torres del Paine on fire from the morning sun.
I’m trying, but there are simply no words for an experience of nature of this level.
If I were living another life, one where I did not travel very far very often, and if I could only take one trip outside of the country of my birth, I hope I would go to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, Chile.
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