And the winner is...well I guess based on the title of this post you can guess that we are about to say Chile. Chile wins for having the single coolest thing that we've done so far on our trip (the W circuit in Torres Del Paine) and the most beautiful place we've ever been (also Torres Del Paine).
We arrived in Punta Arenas after 24 hours of traveling from Sydney and crashed pretty hard when we got to our hostel. When we slept from 10pm until 7am the next morning we figured we had successfully adjusted to the ten hour time difference. We ate breakfast at the hostel, which like most Latin American breakfasts we've had consisted of sweets, sweets and more sweets. We relaxed a little bit and then walked to catch the bus. It was raining a little bit and Gina got a soaking when a truck drove through a puddle right next to her. We bought some empanadas for lunch and walked to the bus. Someone came up to me, pointed at my Giants beanie and said "Gigantes?". "Si", I replied and quickly learned that him and his girlfriend were from Davis and that I wouldn't have to continue the conversation in my poor Spanish.
The three hour bus ride was uneventful and when we arrived at the bus station a light snow had begun to fall. By the time I had asked the information desk how to get to our hostel and gotten a map the rate of snowfall had increased. Gina suggested taking a cab, which I dismissed since it was only six blocks. By the time we exited the bus station, small snowball size clumps of snow were falling from the sky. It was a little disorienting and I got out the paper map that they had given us to try to get back on track, which promptly got hit by several giant snowball flakes and disintegrated. Eventually we found our way, but were soaked by the time we got to our hostel, Erratic Rock.
We checked into our room, which was advertised as a "mini double". It was about 4' by 7' with one twin bed. Very cozy. The hostel was cool and had every popular movie from 1988-2000 on VHS. We ran some errands to get ready for our trek, and had a great meal at Cafe Keiken. We went to bed at ten, expecting to sleep though the night since in our minds we had conquered the time change. Wrong! We were both up and wide awake at 2AM.
The next day we spent most of the day getting ready for our trek and went to an orientation talk about the trek at the bar next to our hostel, which had some good advice like bring plastic bags to keep stuff dry and some questionable advice like get your feet wet right away so that you don't worry about it while hiking. We also ran into our friends from the bus the day before (Pete and Christina) and had a couple of beers with them and talked about the trek and our travels.
We experienced a similar frustration early that morning when we were again wide awake around 2AM. We didn't have quite as much time to wait as we were scheduled for a 6:30 breakfast and a 7:30 bus ride. The bus ride was beautiful as we entered the park and when we got to the entrance station we got some great views of the Torres. The bus continued on a little bit farther and dropped us off at the edge of the lake where we took a catamaran across the lake, talked more with Pete and Christina, got more amazing views and experienced Torres Del Paine's legendary winds which were close to 50 mph that day.
Rainbow over the lake
On the other side of the lake our plan was to meet up with our friends Jake and Alicia. We were hopeful they would be there, but had some reason for doubt as while we had been complaining about hiking six blocks in the snowstorm, they had trekked through the mountains for three days in that same snowstorm. We were excited (and quite proud of them) when we saw them waiting for us on the dock.
The first two days of the trek consisted of hiking up to Glacier Grey and then back down to Paine Grande where we had started. It was stunningly beautiful with the glacier on one side and the 10,000 foot peaks on the other. It also helped that the storm was gone and we had crystal clear days. We had a great time catching up with Jake and Alicia, who we hadn't seen since they got engaged in January, and enjoyed hearing about their wedding plans for next January in NYC.
The peaks are emerging!
Glacier Grey and Lago Grey
Checking out the Glacier Grey viewpoint
Moon setting as the sun starts to touch the peaks
Sunrise on the glacier
Although it made us feel a little bit soft, we also enjoyed staying in the refugios at night, which were very nice and served hot, delicious three course dinners. To celebrate Easter I had stashed a couple bottles of wine in the bushes when we got off the boat and when we returned the next days it created a high stakes Easter egg hunt to find the wine, which we successfully managed to do. We also had a big bag of chocolate eggs that we gave out to fellow treking buddies and the staff at the refugio. Thanks to the hiking during the day and a couple glasses of wine at night we finally conquered the time change for good.
Enjoying some wine by the Lago Grey
Enjoying the huge spread at Refugio Paine Grande
View from Paine Grande
The next morning we bid farewell to Jake and Alicia and set off towards the French Valley, which we had heard was the prettiest part of the trek. It managed to exceed our lofty expectations with all of the hanging glaciers, waterfalls and 360 degree views of the mountains.
On the way to the French Valley
Heading up the French Valley above the fog layer
Peaks surrounding the French Valley
Looking down the valley
More French Valley peaks
Huge ice and snow fall on a mountain in the valley
The fog has lifted-heading back down the valley
When we arrived at the final mirador we saw our friends Pete and Christina, and they appeared to be having a nice little moment on the rocks below. When we walked over to say hi they told us that they had just gotten engaged! As a man who has also popped the question in the mountains with a great view, I have a lot of respect for Pete's proposal game. It also gave us a reason to celebrate that night in the refugio with several boxes of some of Chile's finest wine.
Because we had a long hike the next day, we woke up early, took some Advil to attempt to offset the effects that drinking Chile's finest boxed wine tends to have the next morning and were on the trail before sunrise. Our destination that day was Mirador Las Torres, which is the signature point of Torres Del Paine. It was a long hike, with a very steep ascent, but the view from the mirador was as good as we've ever seen.
Sunrise-It was easy to catch a sunrise since the sun didn't come up until after 8
Lago Nordenskjol
On the way to Mirador Las Torres
The trek back down took its toll as we both took some pretty good falls. I fell in a creek and snapped my hiking pole and Gina slipped on some rocks and left some of the skin from her hand on the mountain. We enjoyed one more night in a refugio and hiked out the next morning to catch the bus back to Puerto Natales.
Down the valley from Mirador Las Torres
We stayed one more night at Erratic Rock and upgraded from "mini double" to "double that actually fits two normal sized people". We met up with Pete and Christina and went out for pizza and beer and then, feeling another dinner was necessary after five days of hiking, went out for Mexican food and beer.
The next morning we woke up early and caught the bus over to the Argentinian side of Pategonia where we'll be for the next week before we head to Buenos Aires.
Hope all of you are doing well and thanks for reading the blog!
Caio!
B and G
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