The End of The World As We Know It and I Feel Cold

• Walshy_88's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Ushuaia

Trip Start Oct 13, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Jan 10, 2008 Next
Entry

  Ushuaia, Argentina
Friday, December 7, 2007

Entering the final stage of our descent of the continent, we left El Calafate at 5am, crossing the long Argentina-Chile border once again, returning to Chile and Parque Nacional Torres del Paine.

Due to Chile´s restrictions on fresh food brought across the border, once over, we had to drive a couple of hours past the National Park to Puerto Natales to stock up on supplies for the next 5 days we were spending in Torres del Paine.

With the truck full of food, we then drove back up into the Park,  the centrepiece of which is the Cordillera del Paine, a group of sharply rising granite peaks dipped in snow.

After the debacle in El Chalten, we spent time carefully pitching tents in sheltered pockets of the campsite, on the banks of a lake, the foreground of our spectacular view of the Towers.

With four full days to explore the park, we decided to complete the famous ´W´ hiking circuit in separate parts, beginning with a long and physically challenging but popular hike up Valle Ascensio to the lookout with the money shot of the towers. Unfortunately, although we spent 2 hours resting at the top, the weather was overcast and our potentially perfect view remained slightly obscured.

Backing up a little sore on the second day, we caught a vastly overpriced 30 minute ferry ($35 return) across Lake Pehoe to the start of a long hike along the lake and then up into Valle Frances. Unfortunately, this 11 hour long (suggested) hike needed to be completed in 8 hours to catch the return ferry and avoid a pricey stay in the hosteria at the lakeside and coughing up for another bargain priced ferry ride the next day.

We made up little time along the flat but muddy lakeside section, so we powered on up the steep and unstable Valle Frances ´path´, as the rain pattered on the leaves high above, collecting and occasionally breaking through in a brief but forceful splatter on our heads as we scrambled for our rain jackets to no avail.

After Tony, Rob, and Chris (some with injuries, some navigation problems) fell behind, I continued up to Campamento Britanico, an example of the name creating too high expectations. The deserted ´camp´ consisted of a ripped tarp across some logs with some stones for seats. After crouching under the tarp, dodging the rain falling through the rips for 10 minutes eating some lunch, I continued on up to the lookout, wary of the time, particularly if I had to descend the treacherous valley after the weather had set in.

After just 10 minutes, the trees disappeared and the towers suddenly appeared in the distance beyond the clearing. Continuing on past what was supposed to be the mirador (discovered on my ultimate return), the path then followed a fast flowing river directly up the mountain towards the towers. This path then gradually disappeared as the ascent turned into something of a rock-climbing exercise, with little obvious direction aside from the river and the chunks of granite ahead, the literal point of this increasingly tiring exercise.

The feeling after climbing to the top of the rocks, looking out over the lakes in the distance, snow-capped mountains on all sides, standing at the foot of the huge towers piercing the thick clouds surrounding their sharp peaks, with snow flying into my numbing face from the sky, could only be described as exhilirating, exultant and extremely fucking cold....

This chilled feeling transformed into a one of immense muscle fatigue, moving back down the mountain, as I considered the 8 km remaining along the lake, bringing to about 60km the total hiking distance covered in the last two days.

A morning of horse-riding to hurt the remaining parts of my body that were not hurt the previous two days seemed a delightful idea when I agreed to and paid for it five days ago.
That my feelings on the subject had changed since then is a substantial understatement.

Our final day in the Park began with a short walk to a waterfall, which we were almost blown into with ridiculously powerful winds allowing us to lean back on 45 degree angles.
The rest of the day involved very little physical exertion, as we prepared to make the final journey south before finally turning around and heading back towards some hint of warmth.

A night of free camping split up the long drive back into Argentina and towards the end of the world, and an abandoned slaughterhouse fit the bill nicely as we swept away broken glass and old bones from the concrete floors, boarded up broken windows and lay down our sleeping mats for an interesting night across from the ocean.

Finally, after a descent of about 8000km, we drove into Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world (except for the one just below it in Chile which is a small naval base that nobody goes to), a little perturbed by the snow falling on the trees of the forest hugging the road into the town.

Fortunately, the wind is not quite as bad further into Patagonia, but the summer weather here is worse than any Australian winter.

Our first day was spent in a boat along the Beagle Channel, spotting flights of cormarents and pods of sea lions.

On the second day, we hiked on dangerously muddy paths along the lakes and oceans of Tierra del Fuego National Park, and walked along the last 4km of the Pan-American Hiaghway to its anti-climactic end, 17848km from its humble and no doubt equally cold beginning in Alaska.

Tomorrow, we leave early on the way to Buenos Aires, about 3000km north into the relative warmth and hopefully relatively windless Central Argentinan Coast.

Print this entry Share Ushuaia hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry