Al and Sam's Adventure: January 2014

Patagonia is certainly as wild and expansive as we'd imagined it to be...and that's just having experienced one very small but popular part of it - the Torres del Paine national park (recently voted the eight wonder of the world).
We've spent the last 10 days trekking around the Circuit - otherwise known as the 'O' - because of it's shape - incorporating the smaller and much more popular 'W' trek.
We arrived late in the evening into Punta Arenas airport (near the southern tip of Chile), and after lots of uncertainty, managed to get on one of the final buses up to Puerto Natales, 2 1/2 hours away. The difference from Santiago was stark: <10C vs. 30+C, and very windy too. The views from the bus were of mile after mile of wind swept plains, with only a very occasional sign of inhabitation. That was when we weren't watching the distinctly average action movie on the TV.

Day 1:
A night's sleep was followed by a frantic morning trying to sort everything we needed before heading into the park. This was significantly hampered by the fact that it was a Sunday - and so everything was shut - or only open very restricted hours. The town felt like a desolate outpost - lots of closed shops, cold, rain and lots of wind - but we just about managed to get everything we needed, grab a bite of lunch and then run (literally, with our huge packs) to get the bus. We did manage to leave some of our stuff in Puerto Natales, but with food for 10 days and all our warm clothes, we certainly weren't travelling light...
The view from the 2 1/2 hour bus journey to the park was similar to the previous one, except that as we got closer, the stunning peaks of Torres del Paine slowly grew in stature:

Having received our briefing on the park rules (pretty strict - but then considerable parts of the park have been impacted by different forest fires over the last few years - so it's easy to understand why), we were on our way, with a short c.90min walk to the first Refugio (mountain hut). This was one of the larger ones on the front side of the loop - feeling a little like Picadilly circus - with two huts that must have slept over 100 people, plus a hotel and ecocamp nearby - and somewhat out of place in the wilderness.
For the first (but probably not last) time on our trip we suffered from an admin error, and had to pay an additional 19% tax for not bringing our tourist cards with us - although thankfully this was the only Refugio on the trip that enforced the rules, so could have been worse.
Soup and rolls on our camp stove and an early night followed to prepare us for the days to come...

Day 2:
Despite a distinctly average and small breakfast in the Refugio (particularly for Sam), we were quickly loaded up and on our way. Our route immediately took us away from the crowds - heading around the 'back' of the mountain range to Camp Seron - so much so that we barely saw a soul all day (until we reached camp). Spirits remained high for the whole day, speeding through the miles of pretty meadow, despite the wind that did it's best to blow Sam away, and a few spits of rain.
We reached camp shortly after lunch and having pitched our tent, decided our legs hadn't done enough work for the day and that it was necessary to go for a run back across the beautiful meadows we'd walked through. So feeling considerably lighter without our bags, off we went (the trekkers we passed who were still on their way into camp thought we were mad!). It was a beautiful place to go for a run.
This campsite also had some great birds guarding the entrance:

This was also the first day we fell into our full (rather decadent) dinner time routine - starting with cocktail hour (a couple of swigs of pre-made pisco sour from our hip flasks, with some nuts), followed by pasta (with a variety of basic fillings/ sauces/ accompaniments) and finished off with coffee/tea and some dark ecuadorian chocolate!
The low point of the day came just before midnight when Alistair was awoken from a deep sleep by the sound of little footsteps and then a scrabbling in our rucksacks that were in the tent porch. Turning the headtorch on revelealed a rat about 1ft away from his head! What's more, whilst in the process of chasing the rat away and hanging our food from a nearby tree, we were dive bombed by lots of mosquitos (who got countless munches of Alistair, as we discovered in full the next morning!).

Day 3:
About 5 hours of walking through more meadows and woods took us up a small ridge from which Camp Dickson, our next stop was visible down below. Again we arrived early and set up camp in the sunshine before brewing up some tea and sharing a slice of homemade Christmas cake (which has been the staple afternoon snack of choice since we left and is still going!!). Camp Dickson has a very small Refugio hut where you can get meals so we treated ourselves to some dinner which was surprisingly good for the wilderness location (cup a soup, escalope and rice with tinned green beans, tinned strawberries). Round this side of the circuit the only way to bring supplies in is to carry them or on horseback.

Day 4:
The first day with any real ascent was a cold walk through some woods with whistling glacial winds. With ~6 hours estimated on the map it was to be a mid length day, but we managed it in 5 and rounded the final corner to see glacier Puma and experience our first really strong winds. A little farther on we found the very basic camp site nestled in some trees at about 550m altitude. The trees were needed, as by that point it had started to blizzard, but only a few flakes were making it through the thick canopy. Not sure anyone mentioned it might snow here so we were feeling a little under dressed for the weather. As we had arrived early and it was bitterly cold we decided a hill sprint session was the best way to warm ourselves up, and that it did!

The wind was so cold we spent the next while building a dry stone wall around the base of the tent to keep the draught out:

This was a really chilly night! One of those ones that make it hard to get out of the sleeping bag in the morning.

Day 5:
Early start, we were up at 6 to get going for what the map said was a 9.5 hr trek over the John Gardner pass at 1200m ish. We were the first out of a quiet camp which meant we had the trail to ourselves. The first section was a bit of a jungle gym as we climbed through a very boggy forest. Being only in trainers we didn't want to get our feet wet so spent the first hour or so balancing from root to root and swinging from branches which was good for taking your mind off the tonne weight on your back and was made all the more difficult by the fresh covering of snow hiding the boggy bits.

Eventually we left the forest for a rocky slope and our first stunning views:

Very quickly we found ourselves in deep snow, which was great fun as we were laying fresh tracks quite ridiculously in trainers and summer walking trousers:

The necessary river crossings were a little tricky as the tops had frozen and were covered in parts in snow and extremely slippery ice. We survived those and found ourselves after a couple of hours, at the pass. We'd been told this was a windy inhospitable place but we had glorious skys and only light winds meaning our views in both directions were fantastic and as we were the early birds we had the place to ourselves. This was also our first sight of the enormous glacier Grey and all it's features:

The way down the other side was rocky for a time and then woods. A few gorge crossings were required where the park officials had erected some helpful ladders (yes, we really had to go up that - mothers please look away now!):

Whilst the way up had been captivating, three hours into the way down having had numerous other increasingly close encounters with the glacier, and finding lots of day trippers from the other direction on the trail, our strength and to some degree morale, started to fade, but we propped it up with frequent Fracs (cheap Chiliean biscuit) and countless games of eye spy and the like. After a mere 8.5 hours carrying what felt like at least half a tonne each we made it to Refugio Grey, our half way mark and our only real bed and roof on the circuit. We had a great dinner (where Sam managed to negotiate lactose free alternatives to the advertised menu in Spanish!) with some American chaps who we're trekking the W and were great fun. We then bumped into these same chaps at some point each of the following days so it was a shame to say goodbye in the end! Wanting to do our best to support the local economy we also has a bottle of the Castillo del Diablo we had learnt about on our wine tour the previous week. Refugio Grey is the start of the more popular W trek so from here onwards we saw a couple of orders of magnitude increase in the number of people we bumped into.

This day had been truly epic with beautiful views and those only doing the W miss out on the pass. We'd urge anyone who ever visits to do the full circuit.

Day 6:
Ouch, our legs hurt and we started to experience the gale force winds we'd heard so much about (as evidenced by the look on Sam's face and her fraggle impression):

Lucky for us this day was pretty uneventful (other than more gale force winds) and allowed us to resupply provisions from the tiny kiosk where the boat lands for those on day trips. On the way we did get some nice views of clouds (George - we thought you'd enjoy this one) and broken off pieces of glacier which were a deep aquamarine:

And then later in the day some stunning views of the brightly coloured flora, emerald lakes and the snow capped mountains:

By the time we reached Campamento Italiano it was blowing a gale - which increased further into the evening. Having picked a nice looking spot to pitch our tent, we decided later to move as the two huge trees right next to us were being wrenched up from the roots every time the gusts hit!

Day 7:
A quick trip up the Valley Frances (leaving our bags in the campsite at the bottom - a great feeling!) - right in the heart of the park - gave us our first close up view of the famed towers:

A short walk down the side of the lake in the afternoon led us to our next campsite, close to a lovely pebbly beach on what had become a boiling hot afternoon:

From our sheltered bay, we got an amazing view of spindrift being whipped up by winds coming down the valleys:

And passed a couple of hours soaking in the sun:

whilst writing crosswords:

Earlier in the afternoon we had pitched our tent on a lovely platform, in the baking sun. However, at about 6pm, like somebody had flicked a switch, the wind changed direction and turned the lovely tranquil, sun baked campsite into a wild, windy place. So windy in fact that our tent was flattened and Sam had to lie on it while we found an alternative spot. With limited options, we counterintuitively choose one that was very close to the lake (and so closest to the winds), but somebody had started to build a small shelter around the pitch, which, after further re-inforcements, (which might not look like much, but were pretty effective) kept our tent well protected from the hurricane which whilstled by over our heads:

Day 8:

We'd been told by some folks coming the other way the day before that the free camp site we were headed to was closed, so we weren't entirely sure what this day would hold. The first half was an easy walk at low level around the lakes with more lovely coloured waters, but pretty soon we had rounded a corner and started the ascent up the next valley which meant more glacial gale force winds. It's incredible how you can go from a t-shirt to 4 layers in less than an hour here.

We reached the only Refugio in the valley at lunch time where they let us know the free camp site at the top was open meaning we had another 1.5 hr climb. We decided to hide from the winds in the Refugio to eat our lunch. As by this point we were freezing we asked if we could buy some soup, where we were told it would cost 10,000CLPs for two which would have been the equivalent of £12 for two cup a soups. The mizers in us took over and we settled for our planned 3 day old rolls! When we reached the free camp site at the top of the valley it was bitterly cold again. So followed an evening of wearing everything we owned and then huddling in sleeping bags. We came up this high as we were told it was only 1 hr from a view point where it was possible to watch sunrise on the famous towers, so with a 4 o'clock start needed, an early night was had by all.

Day 9:
Alistair's alarm had failed to go off, but luckily Sam woke up at 4.20 so we were still on schedule to hit the top for sunrise. As we started climbing we caught up with two other British couples we'd met over camp stoves the day before. We were following little reflective stickers on rocks and barely visible poles so at one point we lost sight of the trail. One of the Brits behind us pointed to one up on the left so we started to follow it which led to a steep scramble up a scree slope. We eventually made the ridge and sought shelter from the wind and snow to watch the sunrise (by now we were 6 Brits and a lovely Swiss chap we'd met a few days previously).
Unfortunately there was only a sliver of clear sky just above the horizon...

...and the peaks were shrouded in cloud...

...meaning we missed out on the postcard photo of the peaks being lit by sunrise - I guess you can't have everything!

A quick descent back to our campsite and a couple more hours in bed meant a lazy second start to the day for the short walk back down to Refugio Torres, for our final night, where we enjoyed entertaining dinner conversation with a German couple.

Day 10:
A relaxed start to the day followed by the short walk back to the bus stop, still gave us time for a couple of hours sunbathing (as much as you can do at this latitude, despite it being a lovely day) before our bus out of the park back to the comforts of civilisation. Our sunbathing also gave us our first sighting of guanacos since we entered the park (check out the facial expression!):

So, all in all, a very enjoyable 10 days, and we left with sore legs and some great memories!

Having gravitated towards the countryside and smaller UK towns and villages over the last few years, we don't really think of ourselves as city people. However, for Santiago we are willing to make an exception.
Santiago is truly:

vibrant

ˈvʌɪbr(ə)nt/

adjective

full of energy and life.

"a vibrant cosmopolitan city"

synonyms:

spirited, lively, full of life, full of spirit, high-spirited, energetic, sprightly, vigorous, vital,full of vim and vigour, animated, sparkling, coruscating, effervescent, vivacious,dynamic, flamboyant, electrifying, dazzling, stimulating, exciting, dashing, passionate,fiery, determined; More

...and felt a world apart from Quito.
Our highlights from Santiago included:

- Great culture - we enjoyed a free photo exhibition with amazing pics of the Torres del Paine - whetting our appetite for the next stage of our trip; we found a free folk concert in one of the cities plazas - including impromptu 'hanky' dancing from the crowd and a great band (with another doing more traditional numbers); we got tickets to an international jazz festival in one of the parks - which started off a little mediocre (fine background music but not enough to enthral either of us) but got better with each act - the third and final being truly excellent; and free funky art galleries...

- Fabulous food & drink - we enjoyed several pisco sours, the interesting national cocktail made from pisco (sugar spirit) and lemon; excellent seafood, particularly at a restaurant called Liguria which we found on our first night and was so good we went back to its sister restaurant on our final night; and great meat dishes - particularly the Churracso (a sublime local fast food dish of steak chunks cooked with onion and egg on top of fries - this description certainly doesn't do it justice!)
- Good wine - we toured two very different wineries in the outskirts of Santiago - Concha y Toro (the 3rd largest winery in the world, and one you will probably all have heard of or at least have drunk at some point) and Vina Acquitania (a tiny winery producing c.15k cases a year). Both tours were great in their own ways - and while we enjoyed the wines, neither of us were blown away by them - something which we're hoping New Zealand will make up for!!!

Castillero del Diablo

- Friendly people - including a security guard who, having spotted us looking round a small photo gallery managed to communicate to us - despite our very poor Spanish and his non-existent English that there was an excellent gallery of Torres del Paine pics a few hundred meters away; various waiters who humoured our poor attempts at Spanish; and a bus driver in the outskirts of Santiago who took pity on us for not having the travel card we should have had and let us on the bus for free!
- And a good overall vibe - feeling safe to walk around in most areas day and night (and we certainly covered a fair distance every day, walking from one place to the next); having lots of parks, plazas and other open spaces full of life (we enjoyed a couple of early morning runs - to start to counter the excesses of our week in the Galapagos) and having a clean, efficient and cheap tube network (75p for a 1 hour journey!)
So it is with regret we find ourselves on a flight out of Santiago - but excited to be on our way to Patagonia - and the Torres del Paine, recently voted the eighth wonder of the world.