CHILEAN PATAGONIA

Puerto Natales.

On March 24th the collection of stamps in our passports grew by one more. This time, it was Chilean Patagonia that welcomed us with its furious winds and deceitful sunshine. We discovered that the town of Puerto Natales (where we arrived hitch-hiking from Argentina) was a charming little port town, mostly surviving on incoming tourism, as it is a gate town for all of those wishing to experience the Torres del Paine National Park. It was quite a relief to find it strikingly contrasting to its depressing Argentine neighbor - Rio Turbio, a dieing mining town, where we had to spend the night before crossing into Chile. More importantly, there were lots of hostels and campings in Puerto Natales, and we needed to have a place for at least 2-3 days, while getting ready for a week in the mountains.

A real kitchen!

A family guest house Jasmar2 provided just what we need, a backyard with plenty of grass to set up our tent and a real industrial kitchen to cook our meals. As it turns out, on a trip like this, you end up with periods of time when you just have to wait and stay put in one place for a while. Since you are kind of removed from your normal world, and your normal habits, you end up rediscovering simple joys of life like cooking, reading, writing, talking or simply day dreaming to fill up your days. I am sure this gets boring after a while, but I have not gotten to that point yet.

Torres del Paine and Lake Peohe.

On Monday the 28^th, we were off to the park on a 7:30 am bus. 3 hours later, having paid a generous entrance fee ($33 USD) at the ranger station we were off to do the famous “W” trail, and may be explore some less touristy hikes. At that same station, the weather report was promising, predicting partly cloudy/sometimes rainy weather with moderate winds and tolerable temperatures. The first day, as promised, was cloudy at times, and sunny just when we needed to see things. We somehow managed to hike up to the “Torres” mountains and enjoy their monumental beauty during the 2 hours that the sky was clear that day. They say that this 5,3 hour hike is the toughest part of the “W”, but after our adventures in the Argentine mountains we did not feel that it was that difficult at all. Nevertheless, that night we decided to stay at a camp site only about an hour away from the “Torres”, so that we could get some rest and prepare for the 2d leg of the trail we were going to do the following day.

Valle Frances.

That night, it began to rain….In the morning, woken up by the noise of the raindrops on the roof of our tent, we wrapped up and set off to the next camp site. The rain did not stop, but it took on a new form of snow. The mountains that were green with vegetation the night before were completely white, when we began walking that morning. It was kind of exciting to walk in the snow, so we started off with some good energy and positive spirits. Well, shortly after, the snow intensified and turned into rain once again…. 9 hours later it was still raining and we were still walking…The camp was just around the next tree, and the next, and the next, until we could not see any longer and had to walk with a flashlight through those Lenga tree woods. By 9:30 pm, wet, exhausted and frustrated, we reached our destination.  If not for the help of the Patagonian Mountain Gods, and the perfect distraction of the “Suite Francaise” audiobook, that John Kachtik left with me, when he visited, I would have not made it that day. On top of all of the climate inconveniences, my hiking boots turned out to be not exactly what my ankles liked. The last 2 hours I had to walk with shoe laces untied, which in turn gave me some nice blood blisters on both feet.  

Snow, more snow...

That night, at some point when it was already dark, we finally arrived to the campsite to stay there for 2 days waiting for the rain to stop. Well…it never stopped. A number of our new camp-friends that we made were x-ing their “W” plan and returning back to Puerto Natales. We, instead of giving up, decided to squeeze our way into the park ranger’s house, which had already been shot down for the season. Emi, a self proclaimed McGyver, in 2 seconds opened the window, and as we were about to take our backpacks inside, we heard someone chopping wood behind the house…. It turned out that the park services sent a volunteer to watch over that ranger station….Since breaking into the house was not an option any longer, we had to befriend the new ranger to get ourselves inside and out of the rain. Quique ended up being as friendly as one could be, and invited us to have mate, let us dry our clothes and boots, and even gave us a super comfortable mattress to sleep on that night. It was the first time in a month that we slept on a real mattress….It felt like heaven, almost, if not for the unexpected visitors, who chewed up a million little wholes in our tent. As we found out later, mice were a plague in all camp grounds in Torres del Paine, and there was no way to protect our belongings from them. The strangest thing is that they did not care for anything that had food of smelt like food. Those mice were addicted to plastic and ate anything from tents to water bags. Eventually, we just gave up and just ignored the damage, hoping to do some repair projects when we got back to civilization.

Lenga Trees.

During the next few days, despite the weather that never got better, we decided to get our money worth and stick with the “W” trail. We went up to all of the main observation points and enjoyed what we could. The best hike was to the “Britanico” refuge, which is the middle part of the “W”. The trail was covered with knee-deep snow and we had to follow puma tracks (we are convinced it was a puma) to find our way to the top. It was fun and exciting to be in the snow, however, wet boots made us get back down and mobilize towards the next campsite pretty quickly.

Special deals for Russians!

Our time at the Torres del Paine National Park of Chile was quite an experience. I would do it again, but I’d make sure I went during the dry season…. In reality, there is no such thing as dry season in that part to Chile. Chilean Ands is a natural barrier for the precipitation brought from the Pacific Ocean. All the rain and snow gets dumped on the Chilean territory, which makes Argentine’s hiking trails much more attractive. I thought we just had bad luck with the weather in Chile, but apparently we got to experience those wet mountains just how they are most of the time.

By April 4^th, we were back in Puerto Natales, happy to be warm and dry, and preparing for our next adventure. This time it was going to be a luxury (by our standards) 3 day trip through the Chilean Fjords taking us to a town of Puerto Montt in Northern Patagonia.