Towers of Pain?

So on Friday the 11th a bus took us 2 hours away from Puerto Natales to the Torres del Paine national park. We walked a portion of the ´W trail´ - named that way because it is in the shape of a W (sort of). The scenery was stunning, and the colours are quite amazing...the sun is so low in the sky from sunrise ´till sunset (named ´exit´and ´enter´ in Spanish respectively), and everything seems to be washed in a pale yellow light. We walked a total of just over 70kms, and by the end were totally exhausted and I really don´t think my feet will ever be the same again.

It´s low season for visiting the park at the moment, high season being between November and Feb, which was wonderful because we maybe saw 6 other hikers the first 3 days, and had the whole beautiful place to ourselves, but we also got to personally experience why it is the low season...!

On day 1 we walked 18kms into a gale force wind, which pushed us around like two rag dolls, and the mattresses strapped to our bags were like sails that just helped it along. The start of day 2 was in rain and SNOW! It soon cleared up though, and the rest of the time we had calm, clear blue skies. However, this resulted in it being minus 4 degrees in our tent on the 3rd night, and we maybe slept 5 winks the whole night. Maybe only 4. After arriving at the 3rd camp on Sunday we found out that there was only one daily transfer back to the pick up point at Laguna Amarga where we would be catching our pre-organised bus at 2:30pm back to Puerto Natales, and, very unhelpfully, it was at 3 pm. So our last day was bound to be a bit crazy. We did some serious walking up the mountain to the Torres del Paine view point (4th pic), followed by some serious running down the mountain back to the camp which involved 3 casualties: Lisa (a fall in some snow), Steven (a slip in some mud), and the faithful camera (a plop, and a few seconds submersion, in a freezing cold, patagonian glacial stream). And the finale; a very hobbly, transfer-less, walk along the road to the pick-up point, 26kms later, 45 minutes late for our bus, which had a very kind bus driver, because miraculously, he was still there waiting for us! And they say that Torres del Paine means ´towers of blue-grey´, and not Towers of Pain....! Whatever!!!!!

The camera, already a replacement kindly donated by Steven´s mom after ours broke in the jungle, has proven to be very faithful indeed, because after being dried off in front of the heater in our cosy hostal room back in Puerto Natales while we lay convalesced in bed, is working like a dream.