torres del paine
Leaving Punta Arenas behind, we headed up to Puerto Natales, a grim little town with its back strangely turned upon a beautiful lake. It was very much a service town that existed for what was in the area rather than for itself, the launching pad for treks into the (relatively) nearby Torres Del Paine National Park. Sally headed off on the first day for a glacier-snooping boat ride while we organised our next trek, a two-day hike into the park. This would be a but a mere taster of the nine-day trek for which we would return in just over a week’s time.
Although our arrival in the park the next day was greeted by bright blue skies, kissed here and there by the odd skimming ball of cloud, we were delivered a rather brutal welcome by the notorious Patagonian winds. The reputation of this relentless, eviscerating wind preceded it, but it is not until you hit the trail, leaning into it with a full backpack, your eyes streaming with tears and barely able to put one foot in front of the other (even with walking poles) that you begin to understand just what a force it is. It’s very coy in photographs, but an unmistakeable presence in the scoured flesh.
torres del paine
Yet as the ranger who cheerfully pointed us onto our path remarked, if you weren’t here for the full, windy experience you shouldn’t really be in Patagonia. As the day progressed, and the distant Mordoresque towers to which Sally had pointed and expressed her relief at not having to reach loomed ever larger, it dawned that perhaps that is exactly where she was being led. And of course it was, but travelling across fairly flat terrain we were making reasonable headway, despite the entire journey requiring us to fight against that vicious headwind.
A small hill to which a few brave trees somehow cluched provided a welcome lunch shelter, before we dropped over the other side and away from the winding river, towards the amazingly turquoise lakes. The sun was still out and the glacial melt had an astonishing glow, a stunning scene that helped you forget your aches and pains.
the turquoise lakes of torres del paine
The wind dropped a little in the evening, allowing us to set up our tent. After a good camp-stove feed we turned in for the night, only to be woken again and again by the constantly howling wind, now returned with extra fury. Emerging in the morning we discovered it had been so strong that a pole on Sally’s new low-profile tent had been severely bent.
We set off early the next morning for the Valle de Frances, striking out for the narrow cleft carved between the soaring mountains that loom either side like dour sentinels. The trail skirted around a few more jaw-dropping lakes, the wind whipping up swirling spouts of water that travelled far beyond their wave-lapped edges. We finally rounded the final peak and plunged into the valley, a steep groove behind the main rocky towers that give Torres Del Paine its name.
a trekking we will go
As we climbed higher we gained more of a sense of the true grandeur of this landscape, witnessing the slow crumble of ancient glaciers into the river that courses down the steep ravine. From the very top we could see countless miles, gazing out across the distant lowlands across which we had trekked the previous day and beyond to the mountainous, snow-capped ranges to the south.
torres del paine
We would have loved to linger, but needed to get back to our campsite in time to catch the catamaran that was to bounce its way across the lake to meet up with our bus back to town. It was a teasing little taster of a part of the world like no other and we were eagerly anticipating out imminent return, albeit with a new respect for all mother nature could throw our way with seeming ease.
