Chilly Chile

November 1-4, 2007

After arriving in El Calafaté, Argentina we learnt a bit more about getting between places in Patagonia. The first bus of the season to head north up the western border of Argentina and the fabled Ruta 40 through the Andes wasn´t until November 9. So we had a bit of time up our sleaves and decided to head south to Chile for a few days.

So it turns out that our new most southern point reached on our travels was to be Puerto Natales, a small, quiet, fishing port town and the base for most Torres del Paine adventurers. We experienced a slow bus trip along the gravel roads with sheep grids as well as another border crossing. We´ve finally found another country (Chile) who seems to take customs and quarantine seriously.


Torres del Paine is a national park famous for trekking, climbing, camping and wind that can snap femurs and blow over public telephone boxes. The weather is extremely unpredictable and we weren´t entirely prepared for the conditions we were about to experience. We rented a tent, sleeping bags and mats and a stove, packed our thermals and two minute noodles and caught the early bus into the national park for a day of trekking and a night of camping in the Andes.

We were treated to some beautiful scenery on the drive in, guanacos running around the breathtaking mountains with rainbows stretching across the sky. Our plan was to do a day trek, about 8 hours, up to Las Torres (the three towers) which are 3 massive granite pillars that reach up about 2500m.

Since the days are long (sun gets up around 6.00 and sets around 10.00) we had plenty of daylight to achieve this feet even though we only set off after setting up camp and eating lunch at around midday.


Unfortunately the spectacle which we climbed four hours and a lot of metres to see was covered in a screen of grey cloud and snow. The snow storm was pretty constant over the hour or so it took us to scramble up the rocks to the major view point. Fi was regretting her decision to send home her warm wet weather jacket which got her through the English winter. She was left with eight layers, the outer most being a spray jacket only just adequate for these conditions. Davo was in his Oringi calving jacket so we both looked a bit out of place compared to most other trekkers decked out in all ´the gear´ from The North Face or Kathmandu and the likes.

Despite not seeing the towers up close, it was still a great hike and we had plenty of fun scrambling down the rockes eating chocolate with our hands in our pockets trying to bring back the warmth. We were even offering other trekkers up to $100,000 pesos 100 pound for a pair of gloves. Some how we don´t think the experience of trekking in the Andes in southern Patagonia would be the same if we didn´t get cold and snowed on.

We appreciated the hot soup and two minute noodles before settling in our tent for the night.


The following day was almost perfectly clear. This was partially heart-breaking but also great because we got to at least see the three towers from a distance and we had arranged to do a mini bus tour around other parts of the park since we were strapped for time. We were treated to some brilliant snow covered mountains, waterfalls, glaciers and lakes with floating icebergs. We saw more condors circling the valleys, Magellan or Upland geese who seem to always be paired up, male (the beautiful white and black colour) and female (ugly plain browns and greys).


It was a nice short taste of Chile. Speaking of tastes, their beer was nice, called Austral. The following day we were back on the bus up the same rocky road back to Argentina.