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Published: April 5th 2007
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Puerto Natales
Cold, wet but awfully nice, honest. Now Team BenDan was out on their own in the big bad World. After a fairly gruelling 16 hours of travel on planes through Santiago we arrived in Punta Arenas, Chile. We received a typical Patagonian welcome with blustering winds and rain. After a couple of buses and about 3 hours we were north in Puerto Natales, wet and cold.
We decided to stay at a place called Casa de Cecilia which was recommended to us by Ed and Sophia who were down here before they arrived in Bolivia. This place is awesome and anyone who wants a quiet, friendly, clean and comfy place to stay in Puerto Natales should try it out. They helped us organise our impending trip into Torres del Paine National Park.
For those who don´t know much about Patagonia Torres del Paine NP is an amusement park of natural wonders and amazing views with glaciers, towers and everything else in between. We planned to hike the ´W´ which is a 5 day hike around the highlights of the park. While spending a couple of days preparing and buying supplies we were a little scared by stories from returning trekkers of terrible weather conditions
Torres del Paine
Our first glimpse of the park. and no good views.
But by the morning of our departure we had brilliant blue sky and got to see the Torres in full sun! There were too many highlights to list them all in a blog so we will let the pictures (keep checking for new pics on the old blogs) do most of the talking but here is a summary of our time in the park.
Day 1 we trekked to Glacier Grey which looked massive and spectacular. But I managed (Ben) to seriously hurt my leg halfway up to the Glacier Grey campsite. By the time we got there I could only just walk. I decided not to be a nancy and took painkillers the next morning and limped on. It was cool camping with bits of glacier breaking off and drifting by over night.
By day 2 my leg was starting to feel a little better and we camped in a protected site called Italiano. The wind picked up to near 100 km/h (the rangers felt it was strong even for here) for a rough night. While walking up to a lookout the next morning we were thrown over onto the ground by
the wind. One of our friends fell and cut her eye open on a rock! Great views all round.
Got pretty good at cooking up culinary feasts with next to nothing and packing up our cool tent in the wind.
Day 3 After the trek up to the spectacular but freezing cold and windy look out we had to head to the next campsite. First of course we had to consume more food to continue the lightening of our packs. We ate very well on our trip compared to some people who only ate rice for every meal the entire time.
Anyway the walk to the next campsite wasn´t that long but it was very tiring. It was probably the worst wind that we experienced the whole time in the park. At one stage we were walking along a beach and the wind gust were so strong you had to hold on to trees to avoid being injured. We were also saturated to the bone due to the water being thrown up from the lake. It is just really fatiguing walking against and even with that kind of wind because even if your legs are tired and
don´t want to move you move because the wind is so strong you can´t help it.
Campamento Los Cuernos was alright, we managed to find a protected spot. The only problem was that despite the fact that you pay for the site they lock you out of the toilets between 11pm and 7am. Those traveling their might think about this!
Day 4 Probably the biggest and hardest day, being stubborn was useful today. We started early because we had at least 7 hours or so of walking according to the guides. It was a long day of steady (mostly) uphill walking, we just kept going up and up. We had some great views and it was so peaceful along the first section because we started out so early. It started to get very tiring until we met up with the track to Campamento Torres which helped to boost our spirits, not long now.
We stopped at a campsite (Chileno) for lunch. Many people didn´t know this campsite was closed and we expecting to camp there so were rather disappointed when they had to walk for another hour or so up the hill.
We finally made it
Hiking to Italiano - Day 2
Dan rugged up in the wind. after another challenging hour to campamneto Torres and the base of the Torres lookout. The campsite was lovely in amongst the cool nosthfagos trees. You felt like you were in Lord of the Rings or something. After much deliberation we decided to make the 45 minute journey up to the lookout despite being stuffed.
It looked like rain but we weren´t perturbed, we climbed over rocks scuffled up edges and climbed more rocks following the orange dots waiting until they would no longer appear and we were at the lookout.
We made it (after stopping quite a bit because as I said we were stuffed)! The view? We were so lucky we got to see the Torres. There wasn´t sun and there was cloud but we still got to see the Torres. It was great and there is a lagoon there, you never see that in the pictures. We sat there and enjoyed the beauty with a little bird and some people we had met along the way also joined us.
We left feeling satisfied envisioning our luck continuing so we could see the sunrise.
Day 5 The alarm clock called us from our rather deep
sleep and we awoke despite the aches and pains. Looking out the tent door we were filled with anxiety as the weather was a bit iffy. In the end we decided it was too rainy and we were too tired to climb up there if we weren´t going to get a view. So we had breakfast, packed up camp in the rain and started to head out of the park.
The trip back was neverending and along the way we went crazy with tiredness and pain. We were delirious, eventually we found the minibus area. At the hostel we had a hamburger and chips. It was yummy!!!
Next stop a bus back to Puerto Natales, back to Casa Cecilia for a shower and a steak.
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Stephen Paul
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Shower and Steak?
Hey I know you two! It seems everyone I met at Casa Cecilia has a travelblog. Steak and Burger....What about the killer stew you guys concocted from local ingredients?! Im the guy with the stolen wallter... I saw you two as well on the plane back to Santiago, did you sightsee there or continue to some other place? Hope all is well, cheers!