Day 5-7 Torres del Paine

After my last entry, I flew into Puntarenas and caught a bus to Puerto Natales. By the time I got there, it was late and I only had a few short hours to organize my trip to the Torres del Paine National Park. I ran around frantically searching for a map, renting camping gear, buying bus tickets, and buying food from the very limited selection at the only open grocery store (I had to be very creative).

Because of the short time that I have on this trip, I had decided to hike the W circuit (4-5 days) instead of the full circuit (12 days). The W consists of three 8+ hours hiking up into the mountains, seperatated by two 4-6 hours hikes across the mountains. The major attractions, besides the already beautiful scenery, are the Torres del Paine, Cuernos del Paine, and Grey Glacier.

I was so excited the night before I left, I could barely sleep. The two-hour drive the the park entrance was surprisingly unimpressive. A lot of desert. There were a handful of wild lamas though. Then, all of the sudden, we were approaching this huge, beautiful purple mountain-range. It was a perfect, sunny day. For the first three-and-a-half hours, I was unstoppable. I was making great time and could not make myself stop for a break. I tried to break for lunch, but I only took about three bites of my leftover pizza before I decided to eat lunch when I got to the top. There was plenty of fresh river water along the trail.

But about an hour before the summit the steep trail turned into a steep field of boulders. The scrambling took its toll on my already weak knee, and by the time I reached the top my knee was on fire. The Torres, huge pillars of mountain extending from a milky aqua lake into the clouds, were so breathtaking though that I temporarily forgot about my pain. I spent about an hour just looking at them and the strange shapes the clouds took around them and snapping photos.

It was a very slow descent. A nice german boy, Benjamin, took pity on me and walked the last two hours with me. When I got back, I made a hotdog pizza--pita bread, packets of tomato sauce, processed parmesan cheese, and cut up hotdogs. It was surprisingly tasty (I was famished) and treated myself to a couple of oreos. Then I crawled into my bivvy sack and went to sleep before it got dark (about 9:30).

A note about the bivvy sack: This was the first time I had ever used one. After several renditions, I finally got it to stand. Though stand is really an overstatement. This was an old school bivvy sack that didn´t even have room to sit up, let alone stand. I´m still not entirely sure that it was put up right. It took a lot of wiggling to get in my sleeping bag and an impressive show of acrobatics to get dressed the next morning and out of the bivvy sack. Only after I sommersaulted out of it, did I realize that there was a second zipper down the side! =)

Anyway, I convinced myself that rest was all my knee needed, packed up camp, and headed on day two. I did not get very far before I realized that I was not going to make it, at least not without risking the remainder of my trip. It wasn´t worth the sacrifice, especially when the other sights could be viewed from the bus. So I hiked the hour-and-a-half back to the entrance and caught a bus to the shorter day hikes. I was very disappointed! I did a short hike to the lookout of the Cuernos (horns) of Paine. Although I´m sure it was nothing compared to being at the base, they were still pretty impressive.