Torres del Paine / Punta Arenas

Southern Patagonia is a very cold place! The weather seems to change every ten minutes from freezing wind, to rain, to sunshine and back to wind again. The wind from the south is particularly vicious and no amount of thermal underwear or Peruvian woolly hats seems able to keep it out.

We arrived at the Torres del Paine national park, checked into our ridiculously overpriced hostel (fiscal rape is the new term we like to use, we have been raped quite a bit in Chile) and set off on our merry way to the base of the torres (towers). I had mistakenly thought that it would be an easy dander across rolling hills in the sunshine, oh how wrong I was.

We began a stiff climb upwards, which never really got any easier. Half way up our first hill the spring in our step was quickly extinguished when a fierce snow storm began. The Torres that we had been admiring just minutes earlier disappeared behind a thick dark cloud. Oh dear, we hadn't been reckoning on not being able to see them – that's what we were here for!
On we ploughed, through the strong wind which whipped through our woolly hats, and the snow which smacked into our faces until we couldn't talk because our mouths were so numb. Around us the trees bent from the wind and the pathways we were following quickly became slushy and impossible to walk quickly on.

Our trek took us through snowy forests which reminded me of Narnia, across rapid icy rivers and down muddy banks. After 4 hours of this – Al galloping ahead like a hardy mountain goat and I trying to keep up with his pace with the odd call of “what's the bloody hurry?!” - and a little grumbling from me (actually a lot of grumbling from me) we reached the foot of the mountain we had to ascend before we were at the base of the Torres. It looked impossible, it had snowed so hard that we couldn't even see the track ahead of us and in places the path was marked out by rivlets and waterfalls which we had to climb up. After pulling ourselves up the mountain side in the snow for an hour and a half we finally made it to the base.
The clouds cleared slightly and we had quite a good view of the magnificent 3000ft granite towers above us. A small pond sat picturesquely below the towers – we later found out that this 'pond' was in fact a 2km long lake – it just looked small in comparison.

The way down was even more fun, I slid down on my bum (was wearing waterproof trousers which came in very handy for this) and Al clung onto trees and rocks along the way. At one point he decided to rest on a signpost which promptly came away in his hands causing a landslide and a huge boulder to crash down the mountainside and a booming sound to echo through the mountain range. We stood in shock for a minute or two, if anyone had been in the way they would certainly have died, but thankfully no one was there and no one saw. As our own mortality became all too clear to us we decided to get out of there as soon as possible and rushed, slipping and sliding on the ice to the safety of the forest.

Back at the hostel we warmed our freezing fingers and dried our boots on the fire. We were sharing a dorm with two Australians and an American, all really nice and it was fun. The Aussies had been traveling for two years and were coming to the end of their travels. We figured that the extortionate cost of the dorm (C$24,500 pp inc. bedsheets which are extra – to give you a comparison our average stay in other places has been around C$5,000 pp) was due to the great view that we had of the Torres. The clouds suddenly cleared and Alex took this great picture.


Why did we bother climbing all the way there to see them when we could have stayed in the warmth and looked out of the window! We spent a freeeezing night in the hostel, they make you pay extra for bed sheets (seriously!) which are only an inch or two thick, in an unheated dorm at zero degrees celcius outside. But hey, it was either that or camp outside and we didn't fancy that too much.

The next day we joined our tour bus which was to take us around the rest of the park in the comfort of a heated van. Unfortunately we had very little time on our hands and so this was the most time-economical way of doing things.
It was great though, we didn't spend much time in the minibus at all and went on walks to see waterfalls and mountains and the lakes of the park – Lago Pehoe, Lago Torres, Lago Azul and Lago Grey and of course the glacier at Lago Grey and the icebergs that come from it - freeeezing! And very windy! It was very strange to see icebergs in the middle of a park and we ran over in anticipation. The wind was very strong here and we struggled to hold onto our cameras as we took photos.










There are also lots of condors in the park, they are such amazing birds and we watched a group of ten of them gliding in circles searching for food.

We also saw this llama carcass which had been eaten by a puma:


On the way home we came across two hitchhikers, standing next to their overturned car. They had skidded on the road, lost control and flipped their 4x4 over and come out of it relatively unscathed.


We suffered a sad loss on the way home. I misplaced my red Peruvian alpaca hat at a restaurant... I'm extremely saddened by this loss as it has come a long way with us and has kept my head very warm on numerous cold occasions. If anyone reading this happens to go to a cafe at a cave near Puerto Natales where there is a big statue of a bear, please return it to me :.-(

That night we stayed in another freezing hostel in Puerto Natales, they don't believe in central heating here so both Al and I are sniffing away like crazy. Puerto Natalies is a nice little touristy town, strangely everyone here looks the same – it's a bit creepy actually... especially all the women, they are all small, with pale skin, dark long hair, dark eyes and small noses and mouths... it really is a bit odd – I thought that maybe 20 years ago or so there was a man in town who seduced a lot of women and had a lot of love children? Probably not, but everyone here is probably related in one way or another.

So we moved on and caught the 7am bus the next morning... in the rain with our rucksacks again... to Punta Arenas on the Straights of Magellan. Here is me in the rain, sans red woolly hat - sniff sniff. A very historically interesting area. The city is three hours south of Puerto Natales and even colder! We stayed in a great, clean, homely little backpackers hostel here called Hostal Independencia run by a really friendly guy and at a great price (although the room was a little cold as usual). We spent the day in the natural history museum which was extremely interesting. They had decided to stuff every bird and animal in the area so we were treated to an exciting aray of stuffed puma, rat, fox, hare and even... most distastefully... vulture and condor. Really gave me the heeby jeebies, especially as they were really badly stuffed and a bit mouldy. Anyway, there were interesting sections on the first settlers from Europe to the area, the early sea-farers including Magellan, Drake, Shackleton and Cavendish and the local tribes people in the area. The natives used to run around naked (in this weather!) and paint their bodies in strange stripes, it looked really freaky and we bought a few postcards to hang on our wall when we get home – just to scare us a bit every now and then.

Later we visited the local penguin colony. I was particularly excited about this having been a big fan of the movie March of the Penguins.

The colony contained 10,000 Magellanic penguins however most of them were out swimming but we still got a good view of a group of them. They are very funny creatures and it was awesome to see them swimming and waddling about in the wild.


Punta Arenas was a great town and we would have liked to explore the area more but our onward travels beckoned and the next day we flew to Santiago on the strangest flight ever... we had bought a ticket to Santiago on the internet, however once we boarded we found out that the plane was also making stops at two other cities along the way! So our plane journey was a bit like a bus journey, we took off and touched down three times in total and different people came on and off the plane. we sadly suffered another tragic loss - Al's new fishing rod, we left it at the hostal by mistake. Al was very sad, esp as he hadn't even caught something with it... we decided to leave the fishing until we're next in Scotland.
Anyway back to the plane journey - funnily enough we actually had one of our best meals in Chile on that plane, this may sound strange to you since it is widely known that aeroplane food is nothing to get excited about... however it is if you have had to put up with the terrible Chilian cuisine for three weeks. Apart from a couple of exceptions which I mentioned in the blog the food in Chile is absolutely dire. I would say that it's on a par with Bolivia. For a country that has probably the longest stretch of coastline in the world you would think that they know a thing or two about cooking fish... well we had better fish in Bolivia which has only one lake and NO coastline, than in the WHOLE of Chile (bar Santiago where it seems all the good fish goes to). The wine was good, I'll give that to them, but when you get to a city at the end of a long day's driving and there is only a hot dog/pizza place open you wonder what is going on here. I'm ashamed to admit that we actually resorted to McDonald's and Pizza Hut on a couple of occasions... it was that bad, and this has been the only country in which we've done this.
Many other travelers we spoke to complained about being fiscally raped, it wasn't just us, people really felt that Chile was an overpriced country – budget accommodation was also an issue with most 'hostals' being stuck in a 70s time warp, complete with bathrooms that make you feel dirtier when you exit than when you enter. On our tour in the Torres del Paine park we met an American girl who was married to a Chilian and living in Valparaiso. We discussed the situation in Chile and brought up the very valid question – where does all the money go? The people here are certainly poor despite the amounts we spend in their hotels/restaurants, so it is a mystery to us. She told us that there are about 70 of rich families who own all the land and big businesses in Chile and that basically all the money goes to them and the ordinary people on the street have no chance at setting up any kind of competition. It all sounded rather corrupt to us and helped to explain things a bit better e.g. high prices, monopolisation and poor standard of living despite high prices. Chile is a geographically amazing country and we saw so many amazing things here, however I wouldn't rate it as a country that I want to revisit anytime soon. Al on the other hand really loved it and wants to come back... so... each to their own I say.

Anyway Santiago to Auckland... the adventures continue. And to make matters more exciting we're rebooking our flights so that we return early March after visiting Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand – woooooo!!!!