Torres Del Paine

We left the hostel nervously at 7.30am on Day 1 and caught the bus to Laguna Armarga, on the edge of the national park, where we paid our fees, and got back on the bus for the extra half-hour drive to the catamaran. Although at was pretty overcast, we caught a glimpse of the Torres (the ´Towers)on the way and were quite excited. We waited an hour for the catamaran to take us the final half an hour to the start of the ´W´circuit, but it was worth it, as we got a cup of tea and a biscuit for free. Rich was a bit annoyed as he thought we couldn´t go outside on the boat, and refused the tea, until he realised that we COULD go out on the roof. We took loads of pictures of the mountains looming up in the distance, across the a really blue, blue lake.








We got to Refugio Paine Grande, which looked more like a hotel, but unfortunately, it then took us about half an hour to locate the clearly-sign-posted trail leading 3 and a half hours to Lago Grey. Oh dear, not a good start! But we made it eventually, and it was well worth the hours of climbing. We walked an hour further to a free campsite on the edge of the glacier, where we camped next to a couple from Portslade! They were doing the 7 day complete circuit, which goes around the back side of the park and is really remote. Although it sounded lovely, I was very pleased we weren´t doing the same.









The next day we hiked back down to our starting point and around by a lake until we reached our next campsite by a rushing river, which was underneath a glacier. We ate more rice (it was 5 days of rice!) and had an early night.



The next day was my favourite, as we had a 3-hour hike up into Valle Del Frances, to a lookout..without our bags! Still, it was mainly uphill so it was just as well. We shared the lookout at the top with some friendly Italians and we found we were sitting in a huge ampitheatre of looming mountains and glaciers, which was spectacular.









We had a slippery climb down, packed up our bags and hikes a couple of hours to the next campsite, on the edge of a lake. This campsite had a refugio, so we were surrounded by clean peple who would be sleeping in beds that evening, and some of whom clearly resented campers using valuable hot water for the first shower of three days. However, Rich wasn´t affected by this tension, having decided that he wouldn´t be showering for the full 5 days!

They drank red wine, whilst we drank ´sprim´ as an accompaniment to our rice that evening, to keep some vitamins going in.





The next day was a big one and we hiked up the third leg of the ´W´, towards our final campsite, at the base of the ´Towers´. It was pretty steeply uphill, but was more massive, and beautiful that we thought, with a beautiful river in the bottom.

We made it to our destination, after finding the designated short cut, by 3pm and were hungry enough to cook our dinner straight away, with a double ration of rice! Yum!

We were in bed early, so that we were well rested by 4am when we got up and dressed in the dark to do the last hour ´boulder scamble´ to the view point, which was really a killer at that time of day. After following the advice from someone in Puerto Natales, we took our stove and some tea and coffee and biscuits, and were able to keep warm with a spot of breakfast. We didn´t get the classic, ´red towers´ sunrise moment because of the clouds, but we got something equally atmospheric; the Towers wreathed in clouds, at the foot of which was a beautiful glacial lake.

We also saw an fox, which followed us all the way down the mountain, and got a bit close for comfort in the end.



We packed our things and began the luxury of a downhill hike, past all the people just beginning, or on a day trip. This was the part of the park most busy with people, but we were feeling pretty tired, and gald to be on the way down.

We then finished with an hour´s walk out of the park and back to Laguna Armarga to catch the bus back to Puerto Natales, where we treated ourselves to Pizza and beer, and went to bed exhausted!