Torres del Paine - there are no words.

I just got back from 4 days hiking in Torres del Paine national park. I am tired, a bit sick, and just amazed that I get to see places this beautiful in the world! I am very lucky. I also think that if I could just hike like that for another week or so I would have buns of steel!!! :) Sadly, I have to move on from here...

But first I will tell you about the park. I took a flight from Peurto Montt on the 20th so that I could make it to the park by the 21st, in time to meet a friend of mine who I was going to do the hike with - Mauricio. I met Mauricio when I visited my boss Kelly in Conception, he is a PhD student there and was taking a holiday to the park at the same time as me so we went together. This worked out very well cause he had a tent and cooking gear so I arrived at the park with my gear and food for both of us. I had planned on eating a lot (cause I eat a lot even when I am not hiking 6 hours a day!) and I planned for Mauricio to eat more than me, which didnt actually happen so I had more than enough food :) But better too much than too little!

To get to the starting point of the "W circuit" I took a catamaran across Lago Grey - we had a nice sunny day (definitely not a given in this area of the world) and we saw basically the whole area of the park from the boat, and although I didnt know it at the time, I would soon be walking along and up many of the valleys and hills I could see from the boat! Mauricio knew some people who work in the park so we had free camping the first night, away from the crowds, so I ditched my gear and we headed on a quick (6 hour) hike to see Grey glacier. The weather was good, cloudy but with patches of sun that would come out and light up the whole mountain and the lake. The water there was perfectly green but wasnt clear, instead it was opaque so the whole lake seemed one dimentional. I dont know why the lakes are like this - Paul?? Do you know?? :) The glacier was impressive, especially since we were only seeing the tongue of it, and it comes right down the valley and ends in the lake so along the shore and in the bays are trapped iceburgs that have broken off the main glacier. We spent about 45 minutes eating trail mix and enjoying the view before heading back to camp for a satisfying meal of rice and tuna - trail staples.



Day two had us hiking with our gear to the Valley Francaise - there are two campsites in the valley and typically you would camp at one of these and walk up the whole valley that day after leaving your gear. But both campsites were closed for sanitation reasons (its late in the season so I guess they had just had all the visitors they could managed) so we left our bags at the bottom, hiked up the valley for about an hour, before heading back down. They valley has another glacier coming through between two mountain peaks and the edges of the valley are covered in very hardy, but definitely wind swept, trees. Most of the climb was scrambling over loose rocks and boulders - definitely happy that we werent carrying the packs! Once we were back down, we had another 2 hour walk to the next campsite. It was along the lake, which was beautiful, but also exposed to the crazy winds that the park is famous for - I was trying to decide if the extra weight of the pack was an advantage, or if the extra surface area that it provided made it easier for the wind to knock me over...I think they balanced out and I was still being blown around! But you could hear the gusts coming across the lake and through the trees so I learned to keep my feet close to the ground when I heard one coming. The camp site that night was pretty crowded since everyone had to come there, but we found a spot and met up with some of the other people that I met in the hostel in town before leaving for the park so we had a good night.

The next day was supposed to be a 4 hour hike to the last campsite, but it took more like 51/2 hours with breaks. It was nice and sunny, which we were happy about, until about 3 in the afternoon when I was begging for some shade. With the winds, you cant really wear a hat, so I had a bandana to keep my hair out of my face and no shade for my face so the sun was really strong. But at least we werent wet and cold which is what happened to the hikers the week before. Just as we were getting close to the end of the hike, with a cold river waiting for our hot feet, I slipped and fell down onto my knee on a little slope. It would have been just a minor event, except that my hiking pants, which were about 4 years old, decided that they couldnt stand me anymore and ripped a huge hole in the butt! And when I fell, I also ripped a hole in the knee, so they were definitely done for - they went in the garbage that night. Fortunately, the pockets on the back were quite big and prevented Mauricio, who was behind me, from getting a full view of my underwear! :)

That night the campsite was really nice - lots of grass, pick of sites, and horses grazing around. When we got back to town, we saw in the newspaper that a woman had gotten trampled in her tent by a horse that same night we were there! Mauricio and I both remember hearing the horses getting excited and running around but we didnt know that someone had gotten hurt because of it. Thinking about it now, it doesnt seem like a good idea to have horses loose around the campsite, but at the time it seemed picturesque.

The last hike was a day hike up to the Torres (towers) viewpoint - this hike was 4 hours up, but only about 3 to get back down cause it is mostly uphill on the way there. Lots of people go to the lookout to see the sun rise over the Torres, but if you know me at all you'll guess that I did not get up at 2 am to hike up the hill :) Seeing them at noon was nice enough for me! And they were completely ________ - I cant think of the right word to describe them. They are litterally vertical spikes of rock that shoot stright up into the air! Its like the ground was punched from underneith and formed these towers. There is a green lagoon at the base of the which just adds to the sureality of the scene. If you have vacation time coming up, come to Patagonia. I have never seen anything like it.





So now I am back in town - laundry day.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention my other adventure!
TRAVEL TIP: Do not use your own bedding at the hostels.
Why? Because if the hostel has bedbugs, and you use, say, your sleeping bag liner in their bed, then your sleeping bag liner will get bedbugs, and when you go camping and use your liner in your sleeping bag, you will get bugs everywhere and have your arms covered in itchy, swollen bites, and want to chew your arms off to releave the irritation! Now, everything I own is in the laundry and I am wearing a skirt in the cold. Enough said.

I´m off to Argentina tomorrow - more hiking and adventures I´m sure!

A