Torres del Paine, Chile |
50° 57' 58"s
072° 52' 05"w |
After the Falkland Islands, we caught our flight to Punta Arenas at the
southern tip of Chile. We landed in the early evening and found a bus
waiting outside to go to Puerto Natales -- exactly where we needed to be.
That's where all the busses for Torres del Paine National Park left from.
The bus was full. We called other bus companies and had one of them
stop by the airport to pick us up. We were lucky that it was available.
We arrived in Puerto Natales at about 11:30p and were greeted by some
locals who walked us to an available hostel -- now THAT'S service! The
hostel keeper spoke no English. I told her we were on our way to Torres
and she got her English-speaking sister on the phone to tell us how
unprepared we were. Well, we're adventuresome....
We got to Torres del Paine the next morning. The expensive hotel was full.
The hostel-keeper's sister warned us that the nearby refugio would probably
be full, too, so we would probably have to hike a couple of miles to the
next refugio. Or camp. I wasn't prepared to do either; we tried the nearby
refugio anyway and they had plenty of room. Whew! We ate some lunch and
set off on our first hike.
A refugio is a building with several bunk rooms, a community bathroom, and
a dining hall. Our room had 3 bunk beds in it. We had to rent sleeping
bags to use as bedsheets. The building had very few lights, and the ones
it had were quite dim.
Wow! That was a very difficult hike. I was wondering why everyone in the
park seemed to be in their 20s and 30s -- this place is not for the
out-of-shape. My lingering sinus infection didn't help me at all. Thank
GOODNESS the first refugio had room, else I would have died trying to
make it to the second one with both my backpacks. Quite the awesome
views, though. I was feeling too sick to make it all the way, so I turned
back about an hour before my counterparts made it to the Torres summit.
They said I did the right thing, the last hour was grueling.
The next day we tried a different, flatter hike. We didn't make it all the
way to the end because we started too late. We crossed several streams and
walked along the edge of a glacial lake for most of the trail. We refilled
our water bottles directly and safely from the streams. We made it back to
our refugio in time for dinner.
Torres del Paine was a beautiful place. They have a trail called "The
Circuit" that loops around the whole park and takes the average person
8 days to complete. There are refugios all along the way. Someday it might
be fun to go back there and do The Circuit!
The next day I would ride the bus around the park before leaving for home.
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