The Blaus - South America and Europe

7 de Febrero, Torres del Paine, Chile

Our last night in Ushuaia we went to an amazing resturaunt called Kuar. It is a bit outside of town, and is built overlooking the Channel. It is also a brewery, and the seating is built like an ampitheater, with the stage being the windows looking out over the channel. We went in time for sunset, at about 10:00 PM, and sat on the seats which were built like a greek theater out of stone, and were warmed from beneath. It was an amazing sight watching the sunset with the mountains in the background from such a cool spot, we really enjoyed our last night in Ushuaia.

The next day we hopped on the bus to Puerto Natales, Chile, the border crossings between Argentina and Chile are very tedious, and when we got off the bus to go through customs, they rifled through all the bags on the bus, and confiscated our apples. We were not sure if we should be mad that they took our food, or happy we didn´t get fined, but we were definitely hungry later on. The next morning we took another short bus trip from Puerto Natales into Torres del Paine National Park to start a 5 day 4 night backpacking trip through the park. The park is the at the southern tip of the Chilean Andes, and filled with huge rock towers (Los Torres) that jet out of the patagonian landscape. The park is absolutley stunning. It is composed of huge mountains, glacial lakes, glaciers, waterfalls, rivers, and wildlife. Everyday as we hiked from place to place on the W circuit through the park we saw something completely different and totally amazing.

The first day we went to the mirador (look out) for Los Torres, which after a 3 hour hike, the last hour scrambling up rocks, you arrive at a lookout right over a beautiful lake with the 3 huge Torres jetting out above it. It was a breathtaking sight, and it felt like an intimate look at these huge towers. It was raining most of the way during the hike, and the Torres were only partially visibile, but once we got to the top the clouds cleared, and we got great views of the huge rock formations and their reflection on the lake. It is hard to describe their size, but they are about 10,000 feet hight all standing right next to eachother. It was a great way to start the journey with the most famous view of the park.

On the second day we had a very long hike from the camp site, up to the Valle Frances where there is another great view of a different set of large mountains called Los Cuernos. The hike up to the lookout was about 6 hours from our previous campsite, and involved one large river crossing that required us to remove our shoes and wade in up to our waists while hanging on to a rope as the river rushed past us out of the moutnains. Since the water is freshly melted glacier water, it was incredibly cold, and we had some fun just watching other people cross after we did, we couldn´t feel our feet for an hour afterwards anyway so we were forced to take a break there. We eventually made it up to a spot that felt like we were in Gods ampitheatre. From our viewpoint we were totally surrounded by these enormous sheer rock cliffs on all sides, and a huge waterfall was coming off of one of them that formed the river we followed up to the peak. It was another spectacular view. After we took some time to enjoy it, we headed back down and out to the next site to sleep. That was our most physically challenging day, it was 11 hours and 28 kilometers through some fairly technical terrain.

The next morning we woke and hiked up towards Glacier Grey. The entire time thus far the weather had been mostly hot, with light rain here and there. Once we turned the corner towards the glacier, the wind started howling and the temperature dropped 15 degrees. The site of the glacier was probably the highlight for both of us. It was the first glacier of it´s kind that we had ever seen. We had a peaceful, zen-like moment staring at the glacier from a distance. It is just enormous sitting on a lake, and you can see when you climb above it that it goes for miles and miles beyond where we could hike to. As we got closer, we could see the deep blue and purple hues in the glacier itself, and all the different jagged edges and shapes that it creates as it melts and breaks off. We continued to hike up to a spot overlooking the entire glacier where we sat and ate lunch with no one else in sight for an hour. It was a truly magical experience with a phenomonal backdrop. We could hear absolutely nothing except for the occasional sound of a chunck of ice cracking and breaking off into the lake, and that sounded like distant thunder rumbling. We stayed one more night directly in view of the glacier before we headed back to Puerto Natales the next day.

All in all, we covered almost 85k in 4 full days of hiking. Both of us were exhausted at the end of the excursion, and our feet sore and blistered. We got back to Puerto Natales in the afternoon, took a hot shower, and then went to a resturaunt where we had a good bottle of Chilean Cabernet and a huge steak, while we watched the Super Bowl. We felt like we deserved a little pampering, especially after such rigorous exercise that helped shed the extra weight we have both picked up eating steak and drinking wine over the past month in Argentina.

The next morning we jumped on a bus to El Calafate, Argentina where we are waiting to go see another glacier tomorrow. Torres del Paine was such an amazing experience, that it is hard to do it justice in words. We took over 200 pictures while in the park, and hope to put some up here soon. We were blown away by the all the different things we were able to see in the park, every day was a completely different adventure, and we saw something new and amazing every time we turned a corner or climbed to a peak. We suggest that anyone that likes backpacking make a point of going there sometime in their lives, it is incredible.

posted by The Blaus @ 4:54 PM