Pain in Paine
Trip Start
Sep 20, 2008
1
29
Trip End
Sep 2009
Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The hostel people booked us onto a 7am bus to the park for the next day, and we were off into the wilderness! The road itself was a stunning drive alongside lakes and more mountains, for 2 hours or so, til we arrived at the park entrance for transfer to our first base camp.
We selected an impressive spot at the bottom of a massive mountain towering right over our 'door' (we dont really have anything so sophisticated), got the tent set up and the kettle on for some soup. During this time we quickly became aware of the changeble weather here. While putting the tent up we were fighting against some seriously strong winds, followed by the all familiar patter of rain, followed by brilliant sunshine (forcing us to take off all the hats/gloves/coats etc we had put on during the wind/rain), and then just as everything was sorted we noticed some small white specks landing on the tent - snow!! Unfortunately (though probably luckily as well) it never really amounted to more than a few spots.
During lunch we watched as badly done tents got blown around and prayed that with our the weight of our bags we would find ours in the same place and position as we had left it.
We took our chances and, having already been advised that the walk to Las Torres (meant to be one of the highlights of the park) was at the end of a 4 hour trek (and then another 3 home again!), left that for tomorrow and found a gentler start to practise walking again(!), and to make the most of the afternoon. Started walking along a road, with the mountain we were camping next to in clear view the whole way. As we climbed higher and higher the road turned into mud paths and we began following streams leading through colourful autumn trees. Of course, the further the path went up, the more the views expanded over the park, some gigantic bright blue and green lagoons came into view. The scenery was enough to take away the little breath that the wind left you.
We ended up walking through a number of woods, finally deciding to head back again after about 2 hours, before the sun started going down. The best bit of this walk is that the campsite at the end of this path - and therefore this entire route - is technically closed for the winter at the moment, and so we were completely on our own with nature. So much so in fact, that just after we turned around, about 30 horses entered the field running past us, all well fed and clearly owned by the park, but essentially set free around these fields. Quite an impressive sight - especially when you remember our backdrop. The walk got even more impressive as the skies cleared, and our mountain was joined by 2 massive towers with more rocks etc, so we sat down to enjoy our Bariloche chocolate and enjoy the spectacle!
On our way home - while posing for more pics of 'our' mountain, we met with a young brazilian senorha, and decided the plan for tomorrow would be to get up really ridiculously early in the morning, and head for the famous Torres!
Imagining that sunrise over our mountain might be really spectacular - yet not knowing when sunrise was - we got up at 5.30, and headed out of the tent into the freezing morning to find everything still very much pitch black. Neither of us had slept well - the cold was extreme, and even the arctic style sleeping bags didnt seem to be that much help! But we were up already, so got some breakfast and went to meet Vanessa. Finally set off around 8am, slightly cloudy, very fresh morning, but we were too excited to be feeling the full extent of the cold by this stage - or our bodies were soo numb by this point we couldn't feel anything... We walked over wobbly suspension bridges, across bubbily streams, before the inevitable 'up' started, soon joined by the first drops of rain.
In good, old, autumn rain fashion, it showed no signs that it wanted to stop, but it was still early, and as we had found yesterday, the weather can change pretty quickly here. As we walked on hopefully, along the sides of massive hills, with the river below, we could only imagine the scenery we were missing as we buried our heads deeper into our hoods (and hats, scarfs, coats, jackets, other jackets, gloves.... you get the picture) and fought harder against the winds. Finally we came to another campsite where we had hoped to pick up a coffee or even a mate (the drink as opposed to a companion), but the entire building was locked and chained with no signs of anyone apart from more soggy tourists. Another 2 hours later, trudging through woodland, and admiring the increasing waterfalls on the other side of the valley, we arrived at the next 'camp'. But this was a camp in the loosest sense of the word, a hut, a toilet - without a sink - and a nice cosy rangers office (strictly private and out of bounds to us toursits - lucky bastard!!!). We hid in the hut trying to recover a little energy and morale by eating pringles - we had packed the cooking equipment and of course pasta, but had forgotten the water to cook the pasta in. I'm quite sure we were carrying more than sufficient water in our clothes, but somehow we weren't that desperate. We did use the fire to heat our hands a little however!
The way back was much the same - long, wet, windy and cold. The rain had caused all the little streams we had hopped across without problems on the way up, to become raging torrents of chocolate coloured water, and we were left with no option but to wade through a couple - at least we couldn't have got any wetter! At one stage the crossing was completely covered, with the water falling over the edge of the rockface just downstream making it too dangerous to wade. Some people in front of us had managed to find a tree branch, lay it across the river and managed to climb over. We were incredibly lucky to be making it at the same time as them - since even as we were crossing the makeshift bridge, the water was rising over the ends, in another 15-30mins or so the branch could be completely submerged as well!! We took photos of a before and after on the river - staggering the difference!
Arrived back to the camp hugely disheartened not to mention soaking wet, freezing cold, and tired! Ordered chips and sausages and a large nescafe (Colombian coffee doesn't seem to have reached anywhere in Chile, and we cant wait to get back to some real stuff!) to cheer us up a little, but with the rain still going and the clothes having no chance of drying by tomorrow for another trek, we made the difficult decision to head back home tomorrow morning.
Got up early, early again! Still dark again. Had to pack the tent up while it had stopped raining, but the boots were still soaked as were our only trousers. So this involved Ali running around in just his boxers and freezing boots hanging things to dry in the wind!! Pretty sight first thing in the morning as you can imagine! The sun finally started coming up turning our mountain a pretty pink colour. Finally looked like being a good day, but our decision had been made.
Met back with Vanessa the Brazilian, and caught the bus back to the entrance to the park, to catch another bus back to Puerto Natales. The second bus takes a slight detour around the park to drop and collect more people, stopping for lunch at Lago Pehoe, where you can catch a (very expensive) ferry across to more trekking options. We didnt have lots of money for the ferry, but there was another hike from here to a viewing point of more of the parks towers - Los Cuernos.
The weather was finally clear(ish), the walk was easy (ish) - at least til the top of the first hill. Here you are more out in the open, and the wind took advantage of that, and you get blown half way back down! Around 30mins of walking horizontally, faces almost in the ground against the wind, we started to hear another roaring sound over the gusts. Soon a huge waterfall came into view, with rainbow colours rising from the spray. Approaching the rail, I nearly got blown off the mountain, so I held on tight to the rails for a quick photo shoot, then continued on with the trail. So far we had been walking along wide gritty roads, with a magnificent view already of 'Los Cuernos'. After the waterfall the trail became a little more rugged and I found myself walking through huge shrubs, all decked out in autumn colours, splashing through more puddles getting even wetter! Every 10mins or so the clouds cleared a little more from the top of the towers and it was time for another photo shoot! Having passed black beaches with mountains rising over the lakes, more bushes and trees and hills we finally arrived at the viewing point. Another massive lake, with the reflection of the mountians, even more wind, but stunning views all round. Shame we didnt have any chocolate left to enjoy here as well! Defintitely worth the battle.
Eventually we were back on the bus heading out of the park. But we had one more surprise in store. As we are passing more green lagoons, the bus stopped - there are hundreds of chilean condors flying overhead and landing on the hillside right next to us. Looking just as impressively gigantic as the Peruvian ones, but by the time we got out they had landed already, so didnt really get any pics.
Overall, even given our relatively limited time here, we decided it was worthy of its title as most spectacular national park of South America, and definitely a place we would both love to return to - at least some day when they can guarentee no rain!! We stayed a few more days in Puerto Natales enjoying their views over their own lakes and then organised passages to our next port of call.....
Hope everyone is cool, hasta luego!
