Trekking Torres Del Paine, Bank Account Hacked
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
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86
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Puerto Natales,
Chile
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
We pulled into the sleepy little town of Puerto Natales, also the access town for trekking amongst the 181 000 hectare large UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of Torres Del Paine National Park
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. Torres Del Paine is Chile´s showpiece and has a very popular trail network circuiting some of the world´s most awesome mountain peaks including Torres del Paine (2800m), Paine Grande (3050m) and Los Cuernos (2200m to 2600m). The trails access granite pillars, turquoise lakes, roaring rivers, creeping glaciers and dense forest, paradise for us nature loving hippies.After trying to access our bank accounts we noticed that Nadine´s St George accounts had been frozen and she couldn´t access her online accounts. This is the situation you dread when away from your home town because you are in isolated southern Chile and you need to be able to access some money. Luckily, i still had mine available and we have a stash of American dollars too. It turns out that a computer hacker had planted a virus on a computer in an Internet cafe (Cyber World in Puerto Madryn, the dungeon with the 80´s music. The computer nerds are not just playing Dungeons and Dragons down in that lair!) whereby all the information typed onto the keyboard can be recorded and then used later. In this case, the hackers were able to access and transfer money from Nadine´s secure St George banking site to some random bank account name. Apparently, these guys can´t really be traced. Luckily, St George has a special team focused on this exact situation and picked up on the dodgy money transfers almost immediately. There was two amounts transfered approximately $2000 and $4000
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. The good news is that St George bank wears the cost and has replaced the money into Nadine´s account and re-opened them without too much inconvenience for her. It is still necessary for us to use insecure Internet cafes however we did find out that you can protect your accounts by cutting and pasting your passwords in from another site such as hidden in your email account page somewhere, thus not having to type them in on the keyboard. Problem solved and we can get on with our day.Over the next few days we were to entertain our romantic thoughts of hiking up snow capped mountains surrounded by forests but first we had to get supplied and put preparations into place all in one afternoon because we were to trek the next morning. It had become evident that the weather conditions in southern Patagonia are harsh and we found the idea of hiking out amongst it without the correct gear to be quite daunting. We didn´t really know what was necessary either but knew we would pull it off somehow. We live on a surf beach in Australia for goodness sake, we were about as far out of our familiar environment as we could get.
¨Nikos 11 Adventure Hostel¨, the family run hostel we are staying in is owned by a friendly woman who speaks perfect English and was kind enough to reserve us some bus tickets to the National Park for the following day, show us maps for the walking trails and even rent us a new four man tent, two bedroll mattresses and a tiny ¨Doite¨ cooking stove and plate set that ran on Butane gas
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. There is a poofy grey poodle in the hostel that sits on the computer chair in the lounge room all day and watches the Internet on the screen. We ventured into town to stock up on hiking socks and a new sweater each. There is some branded outdoor adventure wear stores here but we had the pick of the op shop gear and decided to shop there instead. It was hard to pick between the pink ¨Tiffanys Dance School¨or ¨World´s Best Grandma¨ jumpers. The highlight of the day was definitely the photo shoot in the op shop where i tried on numerous full body, retro ski suits whilst Nadine did the paparazzi. The suits came in the shades of Mork and Mindy Red and Barbie´s Ski Lodge Hot Pink. There was also the Kath & Kim Bedazzled Beauty suit with matching balaclava and a leopard print number to bring out the wildness in you. The sales assistants were serious looking and didn´t even crack a hint of a smile while i tried on all the suits. We didn´t buy any but later wished we had. We bought two hoodies and then hit the equipment store where we hired two we all live in a yellow submarine brightly coloured, head capped raincoats. We also hired two professional walking sticks designed for trekkers after some serious New Zealander trampers (the word for trekkers in NZ) told us that we wouldn´t be able to walk with our loaded backpacks without them. They were right, those walking sticks became out best friends. Bless the trampers. Next was food supplies. We were to carry all our food for five days so we decided to shop quite simply
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. Here is what we bought, listed because being the foodies we are we thought what we ate was hilarious and because we shopped perfectly for the five days with nothing left over. We ate a small breakfast, lunch and dinner with a few breaks for snacks. Inclusions in the trolley were 2xcup of noodles mix, 4xsoup mix (we ruined the soup twice because we couldn´t read the Spanish instructions), instant mashed potato packet, 4x small salami sticks, one large salami sausage, small block of locally made cheese, chocolate, Parmesan cheese, hot chocolate powder, bolognaise sauce, tortellini shells, chorizo sausage (we didn´t eat this because it was feral), champignon flavoured just add water pasta, tuna can, chocolate, popcorn, bag of stale bread, 4x muesli bars, packet of granola muesli biscuits, papa fritas french fry chips (we gave these to a pixie boy), coffee, trail mix of almonds, raisins and peanuts (i kept a handful in my pocket and nibbled like a bird), 4xpackets two minute noodles and did i mention chocolate? We picked up a couple of cardboard boxes and one bottle of Gato Negro red Chilean wine along the way in the mini camping stores. We forgot to take a simple sponge and had trouble washing up in the freezing water. We based our warbdrobe on layering. We had singlets, t-shirts, one layer of thermal base (polypropylene style), socks, arm warmers, neck muff, beanies, gloves, Keens shoes (hiking boots would have been better), zip off trekking pants, scarves, our op shop sweaters and our sense of adventure
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. I made our pet monkey a cute, woolen, crotchless (by accident) jumpsuit and matching beanie from a pair of red, infants socks and we were ready to roll.Allow me to start by noting that we were not experienced mountain trekkers before this mission and that now we think we are. This one was a difficult one, physically demanding and more challenging than we ever could have imagined in ways we hadn´t expected. This made it all the more rewarding. Nadine is glad she didn´t know what she was in for and i seriously had no idea that the trek would be so intense. We like to try a little taste of everything during our travels, caving, rafting, hang gliding, snorkeling, volcano boarding, the ice trekking etc etc but this time we had gone straight past the appetizer and head first into the main course. So glad we did because we loved it and probably wouldn´t have attempted it had we known what was ahead. The mix of trekking, camping and hauntingly beautiful scenery combined to make an awesome journey that will remain with us always. We gained alot of strength from this experience.
It was great to be having a five day break from all the travel planning, plotting and mapping activity i do on the road.
We trekked from West to East around the main mountain peaks finishing what they call the classic 5 day ¨W¨ trek because the walking trail takes the route of the letter ¨W¨.We think we walked about 70km all up
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. A good warm up for Macchu Picchu in Peru and The Lost City trek in Colombia. There is a longer circuit here called the ¨O¨ but we were not that keen. Walking the trail the West to East way we thought it was slightly easier with the wind at your back most of the way and less uphill trekking and were able to appreciate the stars of the park, The Torres Del Paine on the last day, a reward for all our hard work trekking. The basic routine was that you get up very early each day, pack up camp, trek at a fairly rapid pace in mountainous landscape up and down and around all day then hopefully make it to a designated campsite before dark where you set up camp and cook then sleep when it gets dark and ridiculously cold at around 9pm. The campsites varied in comfort levels from paid hot water showers, mini shops and flat camp sites or even beds in buildings and meals cooked in refuges to the basic sloping ground for tents, cold or no shower situations. Being self-sufficient we were able to stay at two of the paid, better ones and two of the basic free ones and had the flexibility to choose how we wanted to do the trek. All campsites had a water source and we were able to fill our water bottles at the many streams and rivers running through the park. This water comes directly from the icebergs and was pure and clean. The weather was extremely unpredictable and temperamental especially in the first two days
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. There was intense rain showers and wind strong enough to blow you over or to break tent poles. Then almost instantly, the clouds would blow over and reveal a glorious sun. Bizarre. We used all our bits and pieces of clothing, adding or removing gear as the weather changed. From Arctic snow bunnies to shorts and singlets all within a couple of hours walk. We found the nights to be bitterly cold and we had to snug up tightly in our zero degrees strength sleeping bags like caterpillars in cocoons. The coldest parts of the trek were when winds would blow cold air straight from the glacier or sweep off the top of icy mountains. At first we felt a bit ridiculous hiking with a professional walking stick but it soon became apparent that this was an essential piece of equipment. Although the tracks are well maintained, they are not well defined paths and there is a certain amount of rough ground, rocky areas, cliff faces to climb etc and the stick keeps you and your 15-20kg pack balanced as you navigate around. It also helps you to get into a trekking pace. Some hardcore folks had two sticks to walk with, a good idea. There was a good mix of people on the trail but the standard trekking team was a couple together and most seemed experienced with all the gear and gadgets. Lots of Europeans. There was of course a large representation by the Israelis who trekked in large packs with a massive amount of food that they seemed to scoff down at every chance. We had a running commentary going on about the trekking habits for all the different couples we would encounter and cross paths with
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. There was always a friendly ¨Hola!¨or ¨Buenos Dias!¨as we passed although not many people were social at night time because everyone is just too exhausted. The trails are marked well enough so you don´t need a compass but we did get lost for 45 minutes on one occasion when we missed one arrow and the track just ran out in front of us. We were nearly blown off a hilltop when we climbed to the top to get a lookout. Luckily, we spotted some people on the correct trail and got back on track to make camp before sunset. We did a video diary everyday.This is the way we did the five days. The first day we took a bus from Puerto Natales to Pudeto and took a catamaran across the lake Pehoe to an administration hut where we paid parks fees and received a good map of the park on which we drew in the ¨W¨ with an ink pen. The landscape outside the bus was desert scrub, lakes and scattered boulders with snow capped mountains in the background. There were lots of Guanacos standing around, some with young. We had excellent views of the jagged-edged Torres from the bus as the powerful mountains loomed up ahead of us and we couldn´t help but feel a little scared of them. We started by doing an 11km hike from Lago Pehoe camp to Refugio Grey where we set up camp for the first time. The tent was awesome and kept out the wind and rain we had that night. The campsite was right on lago Grey and icebergs floated right past us
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. During this walk we were given clear views of Glacier Grey and the lake. Sublime. I would have loved to have rocked up at camp with the Barbie´s Ski Lodge hot pink coloured full body ski suit on and a cask of goon under the arm just to get a reaction from the serious trekkers. I was to live in my long johns for the next four days after. The second day we trekked 11km back to Lago Pehoe camp and had lunch. We saw a guy just as he was finishing his ¨W¨ trek, East to West. This pixie had done it in 3 days straight and walked out of the rain and icy cold winds wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt. All his rain gear had flown away in the wind and all he had was a thin jacket that said ¨Nutcracker Cast¨- the ballet, he took our picture because he admired our yellow submarine jackets. The heavens opened up and we had to use our raincoat and strap our poncho around our pack to keep it dry. We were a little nervous when we saw a couple prepping up for the next leg by putting on rain jackets with hoods, rain pants, rain gloves and shoe guards and hiring a man to hold an umbrella over them. As it turned out, our yellow submarine raincoat worked wonders. We trekked 8km to Camp Italiano, a campsite in the woods where pixies were bound to be playing. There are lots of myths and legends in southern Patagonia about duendes (pixies) who are thought to inhabit these areas. There seemed to be a number of human pixies attracted to these areas to
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. There were quite a lot of hippy type nature loving people. There was a swing bridge at the entrance of the campground that seemed like a prop from the Pirates of The Caribbean film. We started to become a little more sensitive to the colours, smells and sounds of the landscape by the end of this day and became more comfortable with the trekking and carrying the large pack on our back for long periods of time.The third day we trekked through the Valley Frances, up past Camp Britanico and then back to camp and on to Los Cuernos Camp. This walk was through forest and up rocky faces until we reached a point where we were surrounded by mountains on all sides with views down the valley to the turquoise blue lake.
The fourth day was one of the most difficult but also the one i enjoyed the most. Partly because of the landscape and partly because i played my favourites play list on the ipod as a soundtrack to the trekking. The music included classical, Irish stomping music and ambient house. This section felt a bit Lord Of The Rings-ish. We had fun making wishes and blowing on all the willow the wisp petals to carry our wishes way and make them come true. I felt like we had really settled into the trek but Nadine was ill and her Minnitt legs struggled to keep up with my chicken legs
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. Everyone has a natural walking pace and mine was quite fast. This day we walked to Camp Chileno then kept going until we reached Camp Torres, mainly uphill and taxing on the legs. This was the base camp for the Torres Del Paine lookout that I would trek to in the dark before sunrise in the morning.Unfortunately Nadine was ill so didn´t climb today. I was up and out of the tent at 5:30am in the dark to join a handful of people on the trail up to the peak of the Torres to watch them be lit with a magnificent coloured glow by the sun rising. The climb was made up of what seemed like vertical walls of rock and water that just kept going and going. When i got to the summit, it was freezing cold and i anxiously waited for the sun to warm me and show the Torres in all their glory. I climbed right to the top with just a couple of other people and listened to beautiful meditation music as the sun rose and spread the light. There was a powerful moment there. I couldn´t have had better weather or a clearer view and snapped some heavenly pictures. I stayed for about two hours until the clouds started to roll in then bounded back down the mountain feeling renewed and strong. The final trek down to the ending point was the hardest for me as my legs were starting to feel the pain and i had two blisters, we survived though.
At the end of the trek we took a mini bus shuttle van to the Laguna Amarga. The driver of the van didn´t realize that he had lost his trailer which was carrying all our backpacks. The trailer had rolled down a ditch and we had to go back and retrieve it. We went back to Puerto Natales and munched out on a giant steak, fries and onion dish and had a hot shower.
We have to wait a couple of days for a bus out of here. We are yet to see any real Chilean culture having been in touristic areas and are now heading back to Rio Gallegos all the way over the other side of Argentina so we can go North and cut back in to Chile later.
