Towers of Paine

Trip Start Jan 10, 2005
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Trip End May 21, 2005


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Flag of Chile  ,
Monday, January 24, 2005

You can see that we are now right down in the South of the Chile. We left Santiago and took a 2500 mile flight (5 and a half hours, same as coast to coast US!!) to Punto Arenas which is the Southernmost city in Chile - it really feels like the end of the world here! Most of the buildings are made of wood and have metal sheeting on the outside to hold back the incessant 90mph winds which blast across Patagonia. Being one of the world´s last great wildernesses this is a place where nature rules and people just try and get along whilst negiotiating the elements. We are here in Summer but in the space of an hour you can get blown across the street, rained on and then burnt by the sun in 10 minutes (not much ozone here so my nose is now just ribbons of peeling skin - nice!).

We took a 5 hour boat ride to see one of the world´s most remote Magellan Penguin colony´s. 01. Cemetery, Punta Arenas
01. Cemetery, Punta Arenas
 I´d never thought that much about Penguins but close up they are really interesting - they keep the same wife/husband all their lives and go fishing for their kids until they can swim - bit like us really.

We have just come back from a 4 day trek in Chile´s main national park the Torres Del Paines. Pain(e) was endured and I couldn´t make it into my bunk bed the night after a greulling 8 hour trek up to the granite Torres (towers) that you can see in the picture (actually Dan you couldn't get up to your bunk coz you were pissed on 4 bottles of beer and you fell going up the ladder - S).

In the Park Seema scampered up the morraine a little like a mountain goat and managed to haul herself up boulders 3 times her size (came down mostly on her arse on the way back though!). We also spent a day ice hiking on a glacier which involved a bit of climbing with ice axes. I don´t know if you´ve seen Touching the Void but I felt like a proper mountaineer with my harness, axes and crampons - until both my shoes came off and I was sliding around on the ice wall with just my socks on!

Today we left Chile and slipped into Argentina. We´re heading North to the ´Lake District´and will update after a 5 day mountain bike tour.
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