PATAGONIAAAAAAA

It is only fitting that my experience of a lifetime was capped off by the trip of a lifetime. For those who don’t know, I spent the last 8 days in Southern Chile doing a 5 day backpacking trip through the Torres Del Paine National Parque in Patagonia. The scenery was gorgeous, the company was fantastic (but I already knew they were awesome travel buddies) and the overall experience was unforgettable. We trekked over 100 kilometers (around 60 miles) in the 5 days and even though we were dead tired and sore each day, it was well worth it and I would do it again in a heart beat. There are some places I have been in South America that have been really cool, but if I don’t know that I will ever return, Patagonia however, is a place that I know I will see again. So here goes the day by day play by play similar to my other blogs, so if you were bored reading those, you probably will want to close out this tab right about now.

Our flight left on Friday at 3:00 pm so we finally got the luxury of sleeping in and not having to take the LAN bus at 5:00 am like we have done each of our other times going to the Santiago airport. Therefore in typical Chilean fashion we went to an asado until 5:00am, which was perfect, because that is precisely when gabe left for his earlier flight. After getting on the bus and watching ned say goodbye, we were on our way. A smooth flight south to Punta Arenas (the furthest southern city in Chile) was capped off with a slightly choppy landing due to the wind; something we would soon learn was a constant in Patagonia. We went to the bus desk to ask about the buses to Puerto Natales, our first stop on the way to the park, however, we soon found out that all the buses were full…shit. Thanks to annas quick thinking we decided to take a cab for the three hours instead of putting us behind schedule and messing up our plans. It was expensive (about 50 dollars a person) but we got really lucky and our taxi driver was also a tour guide. He let us stop and take pictures of the sheep, flamingoes, and the gorgeous sunset, and explained everything and anything we wanted to know about the area. What a great taxi driver, and what a way to see most of the twelfth region. We made it to our hostel around 11:00 that night, met up with gabe, and then crashed because we had a 7:30 bus to the park the next morning.

Day two was an early one, and the whole crowd caught some Z’s on the bus heading to the park. Around 10:00 we made it into the park. Luckily for us Gabe made a great call on using our Chilean IDs to get the admission price reduced from 30 dollars to 8. Such a deal. We had to switch buses and it was for good reason, because about 10 minutes later we had to cross a bridge that was only about 6 inches wider on each side than the new little bus was. Very funny watching the driver manage that one. We made it to the trailhead and by 11:00 we were on the trail. But before we could start hiking we ran into some of our German friends that we had met up in northern Chile. Crazy coincidence, one of many we encountered along the trail. We also met up with Gordi, a guy from the advanced program who was doing the W as well. After a solid couple of hours on the trail we make it to our first refugio, Refugio Chileno. Refugio means shelter, but these places were far from just shelters. With hot showers and three meals a day I was definitely doing some luxury backpacking, but hey, it was well worth it. We ate lunch and dropped off our packs before starting our side hike up to the Torres del Paine lookout post. It’s a good thing we were able to ditch the packs because this hike was very steep and somewhat slippery at times. But the views at the top were absolutely amazing. As we reached the crest of the hill we found an emerald glacier pond at the bottom and the torres rising above. What a sight. We hung out there for a while, exchanged a couple of friendly snowballs in one of the better snowball fights of my life, and gabe was even able to find a granite “Lay-z-boy” that was actually rather comfortable. We managed to leave just in time though, because within minutes of our descent, the winds came, the clouds moved in and you could no longer see the torres. An overall understatement of the week is that we got lucky with the weather. Usually the weather changes by the hour and rain snow sleet hail winds are very common. We were knocking on wood all the way along and luckily for us it never rained and only was cloudy for a bit of the week. We made it back to the refugio a little early so we just hung out and chatted with the other trekkers. At one point a man looked right at me and anna, snapped his fingers and yelled “hey guy”. We were somewhat taken aback and tried to respond, only to realize that he was actually talking to his buddy directly behind us. Oops. That night we ate a great dinner and met Gaston our Argentinean friend who was doing the trek in the same way we were. For the next three days he would be our closest companion. He also had an awesome job, as we came to learn. He is the athletic director for a school in Buenos Aires and he was giving a speech in Punta Arenas. The school he was speaking at not only paid him to come, but also paid for his transportation and a 4 day trek through Torres del Paine. What a bause. Everyone was dead tired so we went to bed around 9:30, even though the sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half. Welcome to the bottom of the world 10 days from the longest day of the year.

The following day we were up early again, eager to get back on the trail because we had quite the long day ahead of us. As we were trekking along gabe noticed a guanaco, a local animal similar to a llama, in the distance. We kept walking and noticed that he hadn’t moved. He was just hanging out next to the trail and we eventually got to about 15 to 20 feet from him before he turned around and trotted off. Very cool, I don’t know that I have ever been that close to a wild game animal of that size in my life. The on-trail encounters continue, this time we ran in to the Argentinean girls and exchanged stories of the trail for a little bit. (Direct quote from the notebook “now we know why Ned was sprinting along the trail all day). About an hour later we made it to refugio Cuernos and once again ate lunch and dropped our packs. The refugio had lost their power, therefore there was a little mix up regarding who was supposed to stay that night, but luckily in typical trusting Chilean style everything worked out very smoothly. Shiela, gabes mom who was also trekking with us, decided to hang out there instead of going up valle frances, so she kept watch on the bags while we made the trek. With the wind blowing like crazy, we crossed a raging river, walked along the beach, and booked it up the mountain to make it to the mirador. After a long and strenuous hike even without packs, a woman stops us and tells us that we are really close. Our moral was lifted but only for a second because we realized she in fact had no idea what she was talking about and we were still a couple hours out. But after a while we finally made it to the look out and let me tell you vale la pena. It was definitely worth it, as we got a gorgeous 360 degree view. We met up with another friend from the trail, this guy from spain and shared the views and some stories with him. As we came back down we saw an avalanche take place on glacier frances. Absolutely awesome. Our water bottles were empty, but fear not we stopped by a river and drank straight from the glacier. The water was pure and never tasted so good. We then had to hustle a bit in order to make it back for dinner, but we did, exhausted but satisfied, and amazed by what we had seen. Unfortunately me and gabe each took a digger, but we came up none the worse and everyone made it back in one piece. In total that day we hiked over 33 kilometers (roughly 20 miles) but every single step led to another spectacular view. The wind that night was wild, and unfortunately it kept me up for a while. But as I fell asleep a huge smile crept across my face. I was in complete awe of where I was.

After a long and tough day 2 we decided to sleep in as day 3 was significantly easier. Another hearty breakfast and we were back on the trail, once again having to cross the river, this time with our packs. Fun, fun, fun. We had already seen that part of the trail yesterday during our hike so we didn’t take too much time to stop and look around, instead we just hiked on through to campamiento italiano. After crossing a crazy wooden suspension bridge, we found out that Shielas hip belt broke. Neds quick thinking immediately came up with a plan to fix it and we were back on the trail. The entire second part of the trail that day was full on wind. At one point it started to rain than the wind blew the rain upward instead of downward. A couple of minutes later a gust came so strong that it blew Anna over, and me and ned had to grab on to each other and crouch down in order to keep our footing. After about 4 hours of hiking we make it to our next spot, refugio Paine Grande. This was definitely not a refugio as it came with wifi, satellite tv and a full bar. Once again the crew went out for a day hike this time to the lookout spot at lake Pehoe. Anna takes us up a rock face thinking it’s the lookout, and it sure did have a great view, but we realized that it wasn’t so Ned “Usain Bolt” Lutz led us back down the jagged rock face and back onto the trail. It was here he also earned the nicknames Larry Longlegs and Sir Strides-a-lot. When we got to the lookout point it was well worth the hike. Another gorgeous view of the rock formations and a crystal clear lake in the foreground. I know I have said it before, but it was amazing. Back to the refugio for dinner, and some down time talking with Gaston. We talked a lot about politics and social issues, you know typical conversation topics while backpacking in Southern Chile. That night we taught him how to play hearts and he quickly caught on. Another fun, but early night.

It was only fitting that the skies were grey when we woke up the next day. We were on our way to Lake and Glacier Grey. The hike was once again nice, this time we had a very wooded trail that took us up a valley and then over a couple hills. We made it to the first look out spot and were unfortunately almost blown off the mountain because of the wind, but fear not, everyone made it and the pictures look pretty funny as well. Our next refugio finally felt like we were camping. It was this little spot along the lake with a very hodge podge lodge type feeling. The rooms were packed with little bunk beds, the wood burning stove was crackling and everything had a very lodgy type feel to it. To our surprise we found out that Anna had indeed paid for full board that night and to our delight we once again ate like kings at the refugio. Another drop of the packs and we were up to the close look out point to check out the glacier. The glacier was awesome, impressive and I couldn’t believe that these mountains of ice even existed. After the lookout we climbed down to the shore of the lake and each got to touch an iceberg. That night we came back, watched the sunset, met some german folks that reminded me of Thurston Howell III and his wife, and listened to anna and gabes fantastic letters. It was a great way to end the W as well as our time in Chile.

Day 5 we woke up early and hiked out in order to get the catamaran back to the entrance of the park and bus out to Puerto Natales. Those five days were gone in a blink of an eye, but the photos and the memories will remain forever. That day we just hung out in Natales, nursed our sore legs and enjoyed a delicious pizza dinner at the local favorite called Mesita Grande. It was a really cool restaurant and everyone sat at this giant table that stretched across the whole place.

The following day we were again on a bus, this time to Punta Arenas. We got in, checked out our hostal and then took a van to see a penguin colony. Very fun afternoon, minus the howling winds, but those little guys were awfully cute. I know now why they refer to it as the penguin suit. We came home, grabbed a delicious meal and then said our goodbyes to Gabe and Shiela. We made it back to the hostel and realized that everyone else was Israeli. For the first time in 5 months a language other than Spanish or English dominated the room and it felt somewhat odd. But they were pretty nice so we chatted it up for a while and then went to bed.

Day 7 we had nothing to do so we walked around the city, tried to get into the Austral Brewery, and hung out in the sky bar at the casino for a while. Only problem was that all these places were closed. But it was a fun and relaxing day. We went back to the hostel watched some Christmas movies on tv in Spanish and ended up buying the hostel workers cards off him so we had something to do. At 10:00pm we took the taxi to the airport to wait for our 3:30 am flight. We met up with some other gringos in the airport and chatted it up with them before getting on the plane and passing out. We finally made it back to Santiago, said goodbye to Ned which was really weird, and came back to Vina. What a trip, I cant believe its over.

He visto en norte grande, el norte chico, las regiones central, y ahora el sur. Que impresionante la diferencia entre todo Chile. Nunca podria olvidar mi experiencia en todos los lugares, pero hay algo especial en Patagonia. Quizas sea el dicho del chaufer. En Patagonia puedes oir el silencio.