Guanaco, Nandu and Condors at Torre Del Paine
Trip Start
Jan 26, 2000
1
4
30
Trip End
Jun 14, 2000
Torre Del Paine,
Chile
Tuesday, February 1, 2000
We decided to get up at the ungodly hour of 6am next morning and hike up to the Torres in the dark to see the sunrise (I found myself doing ridiculous things like this a lot over the next few weeks).
It`s hard to put it in to words but the sunrise was out of this world. The early morning sun shining on the red rock of the Torres making them change to every shade of orange and red in the colour spectrum.
The next two days were fairly uneventful, trekking through beautiful mountain valleys we managed to to spot plenty of wildlife. The biggies being Andean condors (probably the ugliest member of the vulture family with a wind span of over 2.5m), eagles, herds of guanaco (a bit like a llama) and nandu (like the Australian emu).
Day 4 started with rain which turned into sleet and snow further up the valley. Most of the day was through beach forest so we didn't get too wet or miss too many views. Once we`d pitched our tents out came the sun. Our camp was close to a glacier so we decided to explore. Andrew decided it`d be good to go for a walk on the glacier, so not wanting to be outdone I decided to follow.
It was quite an experience and we managed to make it out to the middle and back without falling down any crevasses!
Day 5 was the day we`d all been dreading, over the very steep and windy John Garner pass. It turned out to not be as steep or windy was we`d expected and the view of the Grey Glacier once we made it over the top, all 20 miles of it, were to say the least absolutely stupendous. We camped at a spot close to the head of the glacier where we could continually hear the cracking noise of ice breaking off. The colour of the ice in the glacial lake was like no colour I`d ever seen, it was a crisp blue, something like the colour you get in a very dark blue sky. While we were sat there we were lucky enough to see a block of ice 20m on each side break off from underneath the glacier and rise about 15 metres out of the water before bobbling and settling down so only about the top 3 metres were showing.
Days 6 to 8 were notable for their superb views back onto the Grey Glacier and a walk up the picturesque Valley Frances. This took us passed overhanging glaciers and eventually to a high rounded valley head with towering cliffs at either side and a view back down the valley to the flat steppes of eastern Patagonia scrub land.
One of the most impressive things about this valley was the noise, it was never quiet. The wind, the rivers and the noise of ice blocks falling from the overhanging glaciers.
We met a lot of people on the trek, including 3 nice American girls who work for the Peace Corp. in Paraguay. They all live in small agricultural villages in the middle of nowhere teaching people the basics of hygiene etc. Hopefully a visit to them later in the trip should be an excellent experience away from the popular tourist routes.
One of the other girls on the trek was 30 the day we returned. Naturally that called for a double end of trek/birthday celebration party.
