No Paine No Gain

Having settled down in Puerto Natales, we got out a map and with the help of Carlos, the brilliant owner of the house we we staying in, planned a 2 day jaunt around the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, despite its southernly location one of Chile´s biggest attractions and a veritable mecca for hikers and mountain climbers. Due to time constraints we couldn´t take in the ´W´, a 4 to 5 day trail, or El Circuito Grande, a 10 day circuit encompassing most of the park, but instead worked out a sort of greatest hits of the place. For the first day, we utilised bus transfers within the park to see various lakes, waterfalls, always backlit by the stunning Paine Massif with the imposing Los Torres in the centre. The highlight of this was an hour and a half walk taking in the huge Lago Grey, with Glaciar Grey in the distance. Walking from the forest onto the beach our eyes were drawn to one thing.

Ice bergs.

There were ice bergs.

At the beach.

Ice bergs at the beach.

ICE BERGS AT THE BEACH.

You can understand our excitement, I´m sure. Despite the unbelievable awesomeness of this surreal place, it was a whole new level of freezing, and posing for photos in front of the lake, one was prone to be splashed by water being blown by the incredibly strong winds.

Walking through Torres del Paine, by the way, I experienced winds stronger than I´ve ever felt before. Twas a little brisk to say the least.

Following this we hopped on a bus back to the park entrance, then walked for an hour and a half until we arrived at the campsite Los Torres. Here we set up our tent, made a cup of tea and cooked some pasta. Then we went to sleep and woke up quite cold.

Starting the next morning, we hiked the trail up to the Torres base. This wasn´t too challenging, had some great views, and of course experienced every season in one day. It started off really pleasant, before raining, snowing, becoming really windy, raining some more...

Unfortunately, upon arriving at the base of Los Torres (the scary looking granite towers you´ll see if you google Torres del Paine), it was far to foggy to see them. Add to this the heavy snow, and óther than throw some snowballs around we didnt stick around long.

And so it was, back to the camp, pack up our tent, back to Puerto Natales for a victory pizza and then an early bus to Argentina the next day.