Torres del Paine

Trip Start Jun 13, 2006
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Trip End Jun 12, 2007


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Sunday, February 4, 2007

Alex: After our brief stop in Punta Arenas we headed to Puerto Natales to hit the Torres del Paine. We had been unsure when we were planning our trip whether to come here or not, we had heard that the park is incredible but the only thing we had heard about was the fantastic multi-day treks you can do, which, to be honest, we are too lazy to do! Anyway, we were assured by someone it was possible and worth it just to go it for a day so we thought - what the heck!

We arrived into town and the hostel was fantastic, they had us sorted within minutes, a
bit too quickly really, we had ended up booking a bed for the night within the park and it was only a little later that we realise it was US$50 each for a bunk in a 6 bed dorm - we canceled it pretty swiftly! Just a day trip for us!

There is the option to go on an organised tour into the park and see most of it in a day but you spend most of you time on a bus and we do enough of that anyway so we decided to do a day hike instead up to the Mirador del Torres so we only saw a limited amount of the park but - Wow! We bumped into some Swedish girls we had met in Puerto Madryn on the bus who were doing the same hike as us so we decided to stick together. We have been doing quite well with running into people in the last week or so, in Ushuaia we bumped into 2
guys we met on the Salt Flats tour in Bolivia, in Puerto Natales we met Hila who worked at the animal sanctuary with me, and as well as meeting the Swedish girls we also bumped into two people we met in Ushuaia while we were hiking - I think this area is a backpacker filter!

The hike up to the Mirador del Torres took about 7 hours there and back and the landscape was so varied in that time. Torres Del Paine 01
Torres Del Paine 01
 The beginning was fairly bleak almost moorland but you could see for miles around, such a big landscape. About an hour in we turned into a forest filled valley with the most beautiful stream running along the bottom plus there were the
snow-capped mountains and cliffs on all sides - just spectacular. The last 30 mins of the hike was basically a mad scramble over rocks and boulders to reach the miridor but it was entirely worth it. The Torres are massive granite towers above a blue green lake, it was just breath taking. We were very luck with the weather as often they are covered in cloud but the skies cleared just as we reached the top so we got to see them in all their splendor. We ate our picnic while enjoying the view and just as we were about to freeze decided it was best to head back down.

We got back with a little too much time to wait for our bus but better than being late I suppose. Some other people were also hanging around waiting so we passed the time chatting to them and finishing off our supplies (they sell cadbury's chocolate here).

Back to Argentina tomorrow!

Dean: US$50 for a dorm bed - who are they trying to kid!
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lobitopatagon
lobitopatagon on Apr 17, 2008 at 01:38AM

TORRES DEL PAINE
TE ESCRIBO EN LENGUA CASTELLANA PARA QUE POCO SE ENTEREN, LAS FOTOS DEL PAINE, EN SU MAYORIA FUERON TOMADAS DESDE TERRITORIO ARGENTINO, DEL LADO CHILENO ES MAS BOSCOZO Y NO TAN ÁRIDO.UN ARGENTINO, PATAGÓNCO Y PERONISTA REVOLUCIONARIO.LA VERDAD NOS HARÁ LIBRE, CARIÑOSAMENTE LOBITOPAGATONICOAUSTRAL

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