Since the last entry I went to Puerto Natales, Chile, on a bus, across the Patagonian plains. This is probably the most desolate area I have ever seen. It is worse than driving across Kansas 3 times with a Fran Drescher recording stuck on repeat. We made the best of it by making fun of the tourists that actually thought it was worth taking 500 pictures of. One girl literally took pictures for the whole 6 hour ride. There were maybe three things worth taking pictures of, and those were the llamas, sheep, and mini ostriches. So we finally get to Puerto Natales after 2 more stamps in the passport, and our hostel is overbooked. Great. We get put in the¨annex¨ which is really just the hostel accountants house. She later robbed me, but we will get to that later. You may think that wouldn´t be a bad thing but this place didn´t have the heat on or any furniture other than our beds. The beds were wood frames with a 5 inch thick piece of that shitty old yellow foam that is available in sheets from a hardware store. I was so tired that I just crawled into the crap bed under 5 blankets to keep the Patagonian cold off of me.
The next day we went to the hostels lecture on doing the W. The W is the trail that weaves throughout Torres Del Paine National Park in the shape of an upside down M. We were pretty excited after the talk, other than the guy giving the lecture trying to be too cool for school. Some high points from the talk to focus on were:
- "You should be wearing running shoes, not waterproof shoes.....oh me?....I wear boots because I´m stubborn"
- "Don´t step over rocks, walk through the creeks"
- "If you´re not miserable then you´re not having fun."
- "You could die"
- "I don´t wanna ruin anyones extreme vacation, but Patagonia is NOT extreme"
So pretty much the guy thought he was a badass. I didn´t think patagonia was supposed to be extreme anyway. I just came to see some icebergs, penguins, and to take some good pictures. This guy just wanted you to think he was more extreme than anything ever. So after the talk we go and rent a tent, some trekking poles, a cooking kit (consisted of a bunsen burner from someones chemistry class and a pot), some sleeping bags and some mats. My poles didn´t match and it was difficult to get them the same length the entire hike. No big deal. We figured out how to do the tent on the second try without any instructions. Then came shopping for food. We made some pretty rookie mistakes here and paid for them later. Oh well, shit happens. We went back and got our packs packed up with the camping shit and food for 5 days and one change of clothes. I guess the packs were about 12-14 kg each, which is pretty heavy. All of the other clothing and stuff from our packs got stuffed into a huge sack that was left at the hostel while we were in the park. I finished packing 2 hours before Lauren and crawled back into my ice bunk for an attempt at sleeping one last night in a bed.
Day 1.The hike (or trek if you are "extreme"). We arrived at the park on a bus with a bunch of other unexpecting tourists and took a catamaran across a glacial lake to the place where we would start the hike. We get the bags situated with some nuts and dried fruit accessable so we could get on the trail for the opening leg, up to the gray glacier. This was uphill halfway and STEEP downhill the other half. It was a nice hike through a small canyon to start and then ended up at a beautiful lake that looked like an infinity pool with edges that seemed to drop off the mountain. A few more steps and we see a giant, electric blue iceberg sitting in a cove of the lake. This is the kind of scenery I came to see. We gawk and then hike on. After what seemed like forever, we got to the viewpoint of the gray glacier and the access point to the Patagonian Ice Field. This was such an amazing view that I forgot about the bruises that were starting to form on my hips from the pack and tossed my backpack down and started snapping pics at 100 pics per second. Lauren was pretty miserable at this point from the heavy pack, so according to the lecture guy, we were doing just fine! We started heading down the downhill part to where we would camp at the foot of the glacier on the shore of the lake. The campsite never seemed to come with all the breaks we were taking so Lauren could rest her back! We finally arrived and the site was worth every step. Little mini icebergs kept floating by and we could see the glacier extending up into the patagonian ice field. We pitched the tent, made dinner and headed to bed at the earliest hour since we got to South America. The beautiful weather on day 1 was enough to spoil us because it rained like crazy all night.
Day 2.
We wake up to the worst rainstorm we would see the whole hike and decide to stay in the tent till it subsided enough to take the tent down and re-pack. That happened really late in the morning so we had to burn it up on the trail, in horrible weather. When you are snuggled up next to a block of ice the size of nebraska, it tends to affect the weather in mostly shitty ways. We started back the way we had come the day before which was the \ part of the W. Some of the wind at the viewpoint for the glacier was knocking people down. It took me by the pack and spun me around once or twice and threw me into some bushes. No big deal. We made it back to the place we took the catamaran to the day before and saw the most amazing rainbow sprawled across the lake immediately in front of us. Snapped a few hundred more pictures. We then continued down the trail to the bottom of the middle part of the W. This was only 2 more hours and 11km more. Due to the rain it was super muddy. Lauren slipped off a rock and got her shoes soaked so she took to walking through the ankle deep mud and streams. She was now miserable again, so we were doing it right according to the guy at the hostel. Because of our late start we made it to the campamento really late and were lucky to find a spot next to some of the israelis. It was FREEZING cold so Lauren curled up in her sleeping bag and I sat out in the dark making dinner on the bunsen burner. I was glad to end day 2.
Day 3.
Pretty easy day, we just went up the middle of the W and back down. It was called Valle Frances and had some really nice views. It was straight up the whole way but the weather was sunny again. Luckily we didn´t have to bring our packs with us for the view since we would be going back to the campsite before moving on to the other side of the W. We got our packs and tent and headed on to the next campsite. Along this path were some of the best views I saw. There were huge granite towers shooting up above us and bright turquoise lakes below us. The wind was actually so strong that it was blowing the water out of the lake in huge sheets. We watched for a while but couldn´t get any good pictures. The waterfall above the campsite was really tall, but the wind would blow hard up the mountain and completely stop the water from falling for a few seconds. That need we had planned on eating at the refugio and we did and drank some much needed beers and met a Dutch kid that is my age, 23. He was doing the 9 day circuit but was about as unprepared for it at we were. He´s a pilot for KLM Airlines and flies 747s. He´s still traveling with us until tomorrow and then we´re gonna meet up in two weeks in Valparaiso, Chile, to hang out at the beach before Lauren and I do Macchu Picchu. Anyways we headed to bed after a little walk through pitch black wilderness to find our tent. I happened to look up and see the most impressive night sky I may ever see with my own eyes. Patagonia has to be one of the least light polluted places in the world and it just happened to be clear for one night on the trail. We all stared in amazement for quite a while. The stars seemed huge and you could actually see the wavy white blurs behind the stars that I guess make up the galaxy.
Day 4.
Thank god, more good weather. This day was the longest part of the hike and took us to within 45 minutes of the end of the trail. 1 hour into our 21km hike, I slid off a rock and completely soaked my shoes. since I had no blisters so far, I decided to do the rest in my flip flops. It was´nt as bad as you may think since I have some of the Chaco flip flops with quite a bit of arch support and vibram soles. Either way, the extreme trekkers on the trail and at the campsite were pretty impressed. We hiked this part with Florentyn, the Dutch one, and an Austrian girl and another guy from Belgium. We were a pretty ragtag group but we were all sick of the hiking part and ended being the first ones at the camp! The only casualty that day, other than the temporary demise of my shoes, was my Appalachian hat. A sudden glacial wind hit me like a wall at the top of the canyon and ripped my hood off my head and my hat out from under it. It flew forever and is now a part of the Patagonian scenery. Luckily I lost my hat near the end of the trek and wouldn´t need it much more anyway. I was upset for the rest of the day because its the hat that I bought to wear to the Michigan game two years ago. At least I still had my App sweatpants to wear around the camp at night. After losing the hat, I had another hour and a half left so we kicked it into high gear in order to be the first at camp. While taking a break during this leg, a couple passed us and Lauren thought she had taken a spanish class with the girl. We all didn´t believe it and wrote off the idea as crazy. Well we got to camp and set up tent and while sitting around with the crew we had met on the trail, this couple walked up. To everyones dismay, Lauren and the girl did have spanish together in the fall. This is pretty amazing considering we´re within spitting distance of Antarctica and we haven´t met any other Americans in this part of chile, not to mention, we´re five days deep into the woods. So they recognize eachother and out of complete coincidence the four americans in the group of 50 people at camp, all graduated from ASU in December 2009. Hows that for crazy? This night we decided to eat our last pasta dinner. We had saved macaroni for last and we were both looking forward to it. I cooked it up on the bunson burner and as soon as I opened the cheese packet, I knew something was horribly wrong. The smell was beyond toxic. I threw it in anyway and thought maybe there would be some sort of chemical reaction with the noodles that would make it smell and taste amazing. Wrong again. I ate one noodle and gave the rest away. Everyone wanted to try a bite and after tasting it only one person was brave enough to eat the whole pot. The morrocan uber hippy killed it in a few heaping bites. Time for bed.
Last Day.
We slept like shit all night because it got really cold and rained really hard. Around 3 or 4 AM I noticed the rain had quit so I poked my head out of the tent and noticed that it hadn´t really quit but actually had turned to a full on patagonian blizzard. I had nearly been sunburned and walked in flip flops and shorts the day before, now my -17ยบ sleeping bag was leaving me with frozen toes. I decided not to worry about it and went on with the plan to wake up at 5 am and hike up to the top of the mountain, where the view of the towers were best at sunrise. A 1 hr vertical hike in the dark through new snow was quite the experience. Us, Florentyn, and some old guys were the first to arrive. It was clear for around 3 minutes before the sun came and then it turned to clouds and more blizzard. After everyone else from camp arrived we had fun talking shit about the weather and admiring the experience and then we all descended very quickly. After gathering everything from camp and eating a little more oatmeal, we hauled ass down the mountain for 3 hours to end at the last stop, where the bus would pick us up. The motivation to leave was uncontrollable. We arrived at Hosteria Las Torres, the last stop, laid the tent out to dry, and went inside to eat meat and drink beer while we waited for the bus. Another amazing experience had come to an end and we were headed back to civilization for the first time in a week.
In all, Torres Del Paine was an impressive place. I liked the blue glaciers and the icebergs in the lake the best. Next time I come back I will either have a porter to carry my bag or I´ll rent a tent each night at the refugios to cut down on carry weight.
After the trek we had already booked a room back in El Calafate to chill out and recover. We ended up having a few too many celebratory beers with Kristoff, Florentyn, an English guy, and the Austrian girl that night and Florentyn convinced us to stay in Puerto Natales for another day and then go to Calafate the next day with him. We didn´t need our arms twisted too hard but we had already asked for the bus tickets for the day before. Well the accountant/bus booker/ thief never confirmed our bus purchase with us and it was now like 1Am. No note on the door or anything and we had wanted to leave at 7Am so we figured we didn´t have tickets. We sleep in and wake up to the accountant bitch screaming about how she couldn´t find us the night before with our bus tickets and how we had to pay for them even though we missed the bus. I argued pretty heavily in spanish and cussed in English and eventually got Lauren to go to the bus station to see if we could switch our tickets for the next day. Nope. I gave Accountant Thief the money to get her to shut up and go back to her freezing ass cold cave of a house. The guy that ran the hostel was on our side but said he was a separate entity from the old hag so he gave us a fifty percent discount on our rooms and let us stay an extra night to recoup our losses from the hag womans theivery. Glad to leave the town of Puerto Natales.
Before Torres del Paine, we went to the Perito Moreno glacier in Glacier National Park, Argentina. This place was so amazing that I literally sat in the rain, watching it for 4 hours. It is one of the only advancing glaciers in the world. Its a huge mass of blue ice that ends at a turquise lake full of icebergs. Every twnenty minutes or so, the front of the 200 ft wall of ice will send out a barrage of cracks louder than a machine gun, and the face will fall into the water, sending a title wave through the lake and giving birth to another iceberg to float around in the turquoise lagoon. This was blowing my mind every few minutes so I took about 400 pictures while walking around the viewing area with my jaw completely dropped. I can´t explain it any ther way than that so you´ll just have to wait for the pictures, which should be up by the time I leave Bariloche.
Until then, I hope the tar heels lose tonight, like my blue devils, so I don´t have to hear from the fans for another year about how great they are. Go to hell Carolina, RIP Duke 2008/9 Season.
OMG!! Glad I wasn't there! Sounds pretty incredible though! Carolina is tied right now! I, too, hope they lose!
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