Hola
Scott: Chad and I have decided to double team our travel log entries so if you get emails from both sites you don´t need to read both of our entries although in fairness to him he has done most of the writing.
Chad: They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. But in the case of the scenary in Torres Del Paine National Park, two words sum up my experience better then any picture could. 'Holy Sh$t!'.
So for the last 6 days, Scott and I have been backpacking through the national park. When I say Backpacking, I mean backpacking with tent, stove, and all of our food, as opposed to just traveling. So off we went on what is called 'The W'. It is sometimes nicknamed 'the Hola Trail' as you pass so many people that you are constantly saying 'Hola'.
Scott: The best way to describe the park is that you start with a huge chuck of granite and over time it erodes into a variety of different shapes (i.e. mountains, towers, etc). The rock can be black in spots and then tan in other or both at various points on the same mountain). There are 3 many valleys that were created during this process that we walked through (i.e. that is why it is called the W) and each one was dramatically different from the last one. Just think rock towers in one, one with mountains on all sides, and one with a glacier (like the one that I saw in Argentina) and mountains).
Chad: Day One took us up into the valley to see the 'Torres Del Paine', or 'Towers of Paine'. These are granite towers created over 12 million years ago. Not that you can tell by the pictures, but they're about 1000 meters high...3000 feet. The first day the tops were covered by the clouds. Word is that during the sun rise, they turn a spectacular shade of red. Which leads us to Day 2.
Day 2. Wake up at 4am to hike up to the mirador (viewpoint) to watch the sunrise. Today is a beautifully clear day as opposed to the cloudy day one. The sunrises (as normal) and we can see some of the red, but only touching the top of the towers. Must be the wrong time of year or something. Still beautiful though. Scott and I got another wonderful, look at us we're watching the sunrise and freezing pictures. I believe we have one from Egypt, one from Hawaii, and now one from Chile. The rest of the day was spent hiking. Supposedly we hiked around 23km to the next campsite (about 17 miles). The views along the hike were breathtaking. The turquoise of the glacial lakes. The mountains with their jagged snow-covered peaks. Of course, me being out of shape, I was limping into the campsite by the end.
Day 3: We day hiked up the valley. The skies were overcast, but we still had great views of the mountains. Some of which were covered by glaciers. We hiked up the side of one of them for even better views. I nicknamed some of the mountains. There was the ethereal mountain, since no matter what light it was in, it always looked like it was a picture in soft focus. Just somehow glowing a bit. There was the Cloud Covered Mountain, since the top was always covered by the clouds. We saw the glacier calf...pieces break off. The valley ranks as one of the most beautiful spots I've ever been to...this is saying a lot.
Day 4. Hiked a bunch more kilometers to our next spot. We left the valley behind, and hiked along beautiful turquoise lakes. Once we rounded the bend, the wind picked up. When I say the wind picked up, I mean the wind nearly knocked me over on multiple occasions. At one point as I hiked up over a hill, I stopped my thoughts in mid-sentence to exclaim 'holy sh$t' as I now had a view of a glacier that is about 27km long and 4km wide. Pretty dang big. Unfortunately, by the end of the hike, my knee was really aching and I was very happy to finally make it to the campsite.
Day 5: Today had the worst weather of the trip. A cold light rain most of the day. We day hiked up to try and get a better view of the glacier. I was in pain because of my knee so we probably didn't hike as much as we could have and supposedly the trail was closed due to a rockslide but that hadn´t stopped other hikers.
Day 6: Hopped on a boat that took us by the glacier. It's amazing how blue they can get. Basically the pressure over time pushes out all of the Oxygen and the ice turns a deep rich blue color. Today the weather was crystal clear in one direction and overcast in the other. On the bus ride out of the park, I think we took at least 50-100 more pictures.
Overall, the trip was amazing. If you ever have over a week and want to see an amazing spot, come down here! That is a must! You can see the park without having to backpack too.
Scott: this is definitely true. We saw people on the trail from the age of about 6 to the age of 70. This place is definitely very popular so don´t come here expecting to get a escape into the wilderness and away from people feeling. However the scenery more than makes up for all the people. It is a definitely a must see spot and you can do the hike any way you would like…backpacking, walking from one hotel to the other, or just doing day hikes from one of many hotels. So you really have no excuse not to visit here (other than it is really far away). Oh and to prove it…we saw people carrying fur purses and carrying a small backpack with a sleeping pad attached along in addition to a shopping bag of all things.
Speaking of a long ways from everything…I have had 2 small world experiences in the last 2 days. Number 1…Chad are playing cards in the dining area at the campground yesterday and a woman comes up to us and says my name. I look at her not really recognizing her but it turns out that it is a friend of a friend from Portland that I went out with once or twice about 8 years ago (Suz it was Carole´s friend Karen). Number 2 we check into the hostel tonight and there is this other guy that looks familiar. After talking about it for a couple of minutes we realize that we went out to dinner in Antigua, Guatemala the 2nd day of my trip. Pretty cool to run into someone down here after all that time because trust me…we are a long way from Guatemala now.
Chad: Let's see...other fun things to note.
Well, I had one small tragedy on the airplane. My backpack arrived, unfortunately not in one piece. It was missing the hip belt. You can't backpack without a hip belt, so I had to rent a backpack :( Very sad.
I'm sure there is more to write, but I can't think of it at the moment. Scott is going to add some thoughts of his own...so I'll let him do that.
Scott: We are off tomorrow to fly down to Ushuaia in Terra del Fuego where we hope to do some more hiking and backpacking (weather and Chad´s knee willing). Other possible activities include seeing penguins or taking a boat trip around the Magellan Strait.
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