A walk in the park, Torres del Paine.

We flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas where we ate fine hamburgesas and walked to the sea to throw a stone in the Straights of Magallan. We had seen our first steaming volcano out the window of the plane as we flew south above the Andes. We then took a bus for a few hours north and finally arrived in Puerto Natales. Our home for the next few days, we settled in a hostel and scouted out the local bakery. Our plan was to head to Parque National Torres del Paine on Tuesday morning. Brid & I to walk what is know as the circuit, ( a 7 day circumnavigation of the towers in the park) and Joe & James, having jumped through many hoops of bureaucracy to climb Torre Norte. So with the teams decided we filled up on local treats and did a large grocery shop in town. Us girls needed to carry all our food for the 7 days as well as our tent and sleeping equipment and raincoats, hats, suncream, fuel for the stove and three quaters of a kilo of cake! Needless to say our bags were on the heavy side and we only had one outfit of clothes each. So we took a bus with Joe & James to the park entrance and wished them the best on their climb. The hardest part of our journey had arrived. We needed to put our bags on our backs and start walking!

So, day one we walked 16.5km to Puesto Seron and I ended the day by being sick and Brid had to eat dinner alone. Day two we walked 19km to a camp site by Lago Dickson having turned the corner around to the north of the park with a wonderful view accross Lago Paine. We wandered along the flood plain of the river in very hot sun with very little shade. Once we had set up camp we closely examined Brid´s feet to discover that blisters were appearing. She was suffering and we had many days of walking left to go! A chat with porters that were walking with a tour group informed us that bad weather was heading our way. We decided to rest ourselves and stay by the lake for the following day and sit out the storm. Over the next four days we walked another 42km through old burnt and new regenerating forests, though a high mountain pass and down to the edge of Glaciar Grey; 27km long and 4km wide. Huge chunks of ice fall from the end of the glaciar and float down the river. The deep blue icebergs give a vivid colour to the grey glacial melt water of the river. I crept out of the tent at night to get a wonderful view of the stars, with no light pollution from anywhere. We were also lucky enough to here the tap, tap, tap, of a woodpecker and to spot it at work, pecking for it´s dinner.

We spent an extra day lounging about at the camp site beside Lago Pehoe and spent our evening practising our spanish on locals and tasting pisco sours. We enjoyed a boat journey along Lago Pehoe before catching a bus back to Puerto Natales for pizza. We had just pampered ourselves back to full health and washed off seven days of dirt when Joe & James returned triumphant from climbing Torre Norte.