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Published: March 1st 2007
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Trekking in Torres Del Paine
I´m on a bus heading to Chile with a throbbing head and a throbbing thumb. They hand out customs forms asking us to declare any organic matter, eggs, vegetables, meat, grains etc as apparently it is illegal to bring food from Argentina. Yes actually i do have some... like a whole backpack full which i spent my hungover day buying ready for my 5 day trek. I briefly consider lying, then bribery, then tick the right boxes and resign myself to the possible loss of my food supplies and the embarrasment of slowing everybody down as they have to open my pack and remove it all, eggs, vegetables actually everything on the list. At customs i hand the guy my form, he looks at it - then at me with a huge grin..."Australia!! Bueno. Caungaroo! "
"Que?"
"Caungaroo" he repeats this time with a little bouncing motion and hand gestures.
"Oh yeah Kangaroos! Yeah mate"
¨Bueno!" Big smile, that´s it. I get to keep my food!!
The view from the bus is beautiful, the sun is setting, lenga trees, bare from the howling patagonian wind, contort like bewitched dancers and the ice cream clouds are huge
and shaped like dreams.
When it is dark i want to sleep but feel wired. I start to talk to a Chilean rock climber across the isle from me, he has just finished ice hiking in Patagonia and as he has some spare time he is going to trek in Torres del Paine. ,
"Yeah i was going to too" I say "but I´m not sure now, i cut my thumb" I hold up my thumb mummified with band aids. He doesn´t look impressed. "That´s your excuse?"
"It´s really deep - almost to the bone" He just laughs at my pain...
It is midnight by the time the bus pulls into Puerto Natales, I have no place to go in a strange town and my tequla addled brain is refusing to stand up and take the challenge. As i step off the bus, a friendly faced dreadlocked angel hands me a flyer for his hostel, then more fliers from others, i am saved. I go with the dreadlocked guy, my backpack is very heavy as it is full of cans of food. The dreadlocked angel carries it for me exclaiming at how heavy it is. The mountain climber
comes with us too. I explain that my pack is so heavy because i bought a lot of canned food for the trek, "I´m thinking now that wasn´t such a good idea"
"you bought cans?" The mountain climber is bewildered apparently by my lack of common sense. yeah huh, i want to tell him to take a hike but that would be redundant, instead I focus on staying upright as we walk in the dark to the hostel and him and dreadlocked angel gabble away in spanish.
The next day I am on my way to a talk about the trek at another hostel which some cool girls told me about. I tell mountain boy i am going to go there because apparently you can find other people to trek with and i don´t want to trek for 5 days alone (despite my obviouse skill and expertise). he says "You can trek with me!"
"um but you´re a mountain climber and I .....I bought cans"
he says it doesn´t matter, he wants to take it slowly. I went to the talk anyway and got loads of information which made me feel empowered as i knew everything i needed to
know - I spent the rest of the day preparing my waterproof backpack, buying weightless dried food and then showed Valentino, the Chilean guy the best way to go on the map - equality reestablished - i am now the woman with the low down.
Trekking Torres was incredible, it must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. The landscape is so varied in one day trekking you will pass forests, lakes, pebble beaches, glaciers, raging rivers, and incredible mountains.
Lenga is the tree that makes up most of the vegetation and it is beautiful, like a Japanese painting. High up or where the wind is severe, it grows like a shrub or like bonsai trees, but in the valleys it grows to massive old trees and every size in between When it dies the trunk and branches form amazing shapes, boxers fighting, witches and dragons. The trees have a beautiful soft moss growing on them called "Old man´s beard" which catches the light in the dark woods. The forests are really enchanting, full of streams and great fallen trees. The carpet of the forest is bright green with clover.
The lakes are turquoise and have
waves from the wind. The streams and rivers are so pure you can drink from them. They tumble down the mountains over rocks - so pretty! The mountains are so huge, silent and still towering over everything. It is a smorgasboard of beauty. On the second day we trekked to glacier grey and ate lunch on the rocks overlooking this great frozen river of ice which curves around an island. One day we walked to a climbing camp with a shrine to the mountains and then we climbed up up up to the base of the towers where climbers make rock shelters to sleep in. I was surprised to find some young children up there with their mum as the climb was hard but one delighted me by shouting in a geeky enthusiastic American voice "Do you want to see our fossils? We´re starting a museum and I´d love to show them to you!"
"Well then, i would love to see them" I replied and the boy sure enough showed me some amazing fossils of sea creatures.
"This one´s a Mollusca from the Cretaceous Period" the boy tells me.
"Cool!!!" (you little geek!)
"Mom won´t let us take our collection
home with us!"
Mum and I exchange sympathetic looks "I´m not surprised!" I tell him looking at the big selection of rocks.... they would weigh more than cans, and what sort of idiot would think of lugging heavy stuff round the mountains!!
The towers themselves were brilliant but the whole trek was brilliant. There are pink berries called Calafate Berries growing over the mountainside and i was in heaven, picking them to eat and drinking straight out of the streams.
Valentino was really great to trek with, even if his idea of taking it slowly involved me running a lot of the way! he studied engineering for a year in Canada so his english was perfect, good as my spanish would have made for limited conversation! he taught me the words to hakuna mattata in spanish and shared his cookies and wine in exchange for my trail mix and vegetables!!!
Plus he was Chilean so he told me about the animals, the trees, the indians, history, food, language etc!
I fell down a hole at the first campsite we stayed at and sprained my ankle quite badly so for the rest of the trek i was popping pain
killers and trying to convince myself it wasn´t too bad. after the first day doing this it looked a real mess, swollen to five times normal size and purple and red bruising all over, but eventaully it stopped hurting and i think i may recover full use of it one day!!
When we got back to civilisation we went out for all you can eat Parilla or grill and ate so much i nearly couldn´t walk afterwards, but managed an hour later to get stuck into some Pisco sours to celebrate the trek!!
On my final day in Puerto Natales i met a really nice guy who makes his own jewellry from stones and fossils from Patagonia. I walked in and he started an activist rant to me for about half and hour, I sympathised with the environmental and political problems of Chile before he moved on to a conspiracy from america to turn all the children into homosexuals. I cracked up laughing but he was deadly serious. Then he invited me to lunch with his son and dog which of course i accepted and that was great fun, his son was beautiful and their puppy was called bono
after the guy from U2 because when he scratched his fleas he looked like he was playing guitar!!
Love the randomness of travelling alone. some times it is so hard, can get so lonely, but always cool surprises round the corner!!!
so amigos, until next time, keep on keeping on and share the hug love bug
xxxx
D
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anonymous
non-member comment
Hey Dale, Is it just me or are you actually drinking and going our more/trecking dancing all things that require energy than you were back in sydney....feeling ripped off here. Dads b'day was yesterday was a really fun night with me and emily both crying from laughter during a poetry reading. I love you lots!!