Torres del Paine

Being the prepared travellers we are we arrived two days early into Puerto Natales, had a quick look around what seemed to be a ghost town (well it was Sunday) and started to strum a few new tunes in our luxury hostel. The day after would have been cycle-around-the-coast day but the weather turned as it often does in Patagonia so we spent almost the entire day indoors. The one exception was when we went to buy trekking supplies from the supermarket and got followed back by fighting squads of stray dogs!

Next morning, just as the sun was coming up, we hopped onto a bus for an icy-cold drive to the park, whilst the both of us tried to fall back into our warm sleepy slumber...lucky we'd brought the earplugs as the bus was filled with shouting Israelis!

Getting to the park at 11am things had clearly become a lot more organized since Martin's brother had done the hike, giving us plenty of time to reach our camp. Now I'm not saying we're competitive, but we definitely like a challenge. In this instant it was provided by the times quoted on the map, times which we were able to cut in half by just walking quickly! Well OK we got a little overexcited so we jogged some of the downhills on occasion...but even so 54min instead of 2 hours for the first leg is quite commendable!

So after a walk along a narrow path above the river valley we dropped down to our refugio where we made a quick stop for lunch (well peanuts and chocolate) and Martin for his siesta! The cloud was looking like it might clear so we decided to make the hike up to the torres. 80mins (not two hours) later we were admiring a clouded view of the Torres del Paine.

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With a lot of time to spare though and a little patience it did finally clear up for a amazing view of the three Torres and the glacially-cut lake infront. We were certainly having some of the best weather the park had experienced for a few weeks!

Another map beating march back down the trail (two hours in 61 minutes) and we were back at the refugio, acting about half our age with Pringles and trying to figure out why we hadn't been told to bring sleeping bags when we booked - well full board normally includes bedding doesn't it?! Hmm.

Food that night was bread for starters, steak, mash, chopped tomatoes and peppers for main - both of which were pretty alright, but then rounded-off my the most over-whipped-so-no-actual-substance-to-it angel delight I've ever slurped! Lovely. We were lucky enough to sit down next to two Aussies who we'd walked past early that day whilst chatting about how great our walking times were - apparently this amounts to showing-off and they didn't let us forget it!

That night sleepover quality sleeping-bags were provided for a rediculous GBP3.50 a night (on top of the GBP40 we were already paying!) and it was cold. Undeterred though, next morning after an beautiful sunrise, eating breakfast and receiving our packed lunch, the sun was shining brightly once again so we decided to hot-foot it round the back of the torres to the hot springs and the path that was only meant for climbers...pah!

After taking a closer look at stems of ice which seemed to have grown out of the ground overnight, supporting the small piece of rock above them, we took our turning. The moment we tried though to turn from the main tourist route though, a ranger stood in our way telling us we could absolutely not go any further. And then it happened - for the first time Martin and I argued coherently and clearly amazingly well in Spanish with no need to confer in English - and we had it - 2-1/2 hours to go to the next refugio but absolutely no going up the climbing route (sure, sure).

Its amazing how fast you can move when the time pressure is on - we were past the camp after 40 minutes and on up to the steep stream to reach the "climber's route". The stream certainly slowed us a bit though - heading directly up the steep mountainside. Pressing on we completed not only that, but also a narrow walk slowly climbing the contours of the mountain until we came into view of the other side of the Torres and even got the chance to do some impromptu bum-sledging! And to imagine Mr Ranger was going to deny us this!

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Martin - STEER!! So maybe Señor Ranger did have a point after-all. Maybe the reason for not going up there was so that your hiking companion did not crash into a rock whilst bum-sledging and mountain rescue did not have to be called! We were both relieved things didn't turn out quite that bad, though leaving ourselves a matter of just over an hour to get back made the return journey a real rush before the mountain rescue was called for real - well that's what the ranger had threatened anyway! When we dropped-in to tell him we had returned he blatantly knew where we had been - probably because we were a little over enthusiastic about how beautiful the village was...and did we mention the snow?!

The rest of the day we walked along between mountains and lakes and cleverly lengthening our route by about an hour by missing the path! Once again we were really paying attention! Starving as we were that night, Martin was particularly delighted by the Tuna Bake put before him. Not to worry though - I had a system of working my way around each of the people working there asking for "un poco mas pan, por favor"...so we'd get our carbs if nothing else! And then just as we finished eating, Chris let on that he had a whole stack of surplus chocolate bars which we could help ourselves to! Not much persuasion was needed!

That night I'd began to feel that I might have overdone it with the speed we'd been walking and by the next morning I knew a lot more about it! With it becoming harder to bend my knees on either side I managed to scrounge some Ibuprofen from an English couple we knew which I took at tactical moments during the hike.

That day the challenge was to get up Valle Francés, however I was a lot less worried about that than coming down - which I was certainly a lot more adept at on my arse than on my feet! The valley itself was beautiful, with a noisy river in the bottom and a mountain piled high enough with snow to cause constant mini-avalanches...a good excuse to stop and rest now and again! After a stop for lunch admiring the avalanches, the two of us walked a little further to what looked like the best viewpoint for quite a while, grabbed a photo and then Martin headed on up, trying to beat the Aussies to the peak whilst I made my way back down...but as the photo shows still looking good on it haha!

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The remainder of the day we walked alongside mirror-lakes and other beautiful vistas until we came to a very different Refugio for the night - practically a hotel and a free pisco sour at the bar on checking-in! So whilst the moon went down over the lake we sipped our pisco sours and admired the Cloudagh's and Maria's very brave socks-with-sandals footwear choice. De la moda. Alas my ploy to get more free piscos from the barlady by telling her I'd spoken to her boss and he said it was buy-one-get-one-free night didn't work, but on the bright side it was good Spanish practice!

Later that evening a Dutch man came up to me in a very embarrassed manner, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if he could have a quiet word. Naturally our whole table had gone quiet to listen when I blurted out "oh no those would be Martin's socks"! It turned out that the stench coming from Martin's socks was enough to prevent everyone in the room from sleeping! Impressive feat...hahaha. So poor Martin had to trot off to the room, remove his socks and then sniff mine to make sure they weren't smelling as well!! If only they'd been stinking like his it'd have made my day!

Next morning, probably still full of Pisco, we began our hike to the *** glacier - about a four hour walk. At the beginning I was feeling fine and flexible and enjoying the lake vistas complete with huge chunks of floating ice, however by about 2/3rds the way there though the story was changing - I was really feeling the pain and stiffness of the previous days and there were some pretty sheer rock faces to get ourselves down which are amazingly dangerous when you have the grace of movement of a octogenarian crossed with Gollum. To our credit though we were still completing the route in the suggested time...hardcore. Well hardcore enough to be elated to finally sit down and have lunch when we reached the glacier. En route back I bumped into the Kiwi guy we'd met in our hostel in Puerto Natales - he'd hiked the whole back route and was raving about it the whole way...maybe next time! That night was a much quieter event without the gang - who'd all decided to mission it back from the hostel at the glacier before the boat the next morning - nutters! We enjoyed our lie-in!

Arriving back in Puerto Natales, amazingly the place wasn't actually completely dead like the days before. It seems the locals have muck-up day at the start of their school term - hoards of children were running about covered in flour and cake! Inspired by some kind of life in what was previously a ghost town we headed for an awesome steak dinner with the gang and then on to check out the nightlife. Amazingly stuff was happening...well in one bar at least which was playing a very eclectic mix of music. Time once again for a spot of blow-the-cards-off-the-glass, plenty of banter and some crazy dancing.