Tuesday 11th December.
Another 2 hour drive north to the Torres del Paine National Park. We are trekking the "W" for the next four days - as it´s a roughly W-shaped walk, starting with the right hand side bit. Then we´ve a couple of add-on days at the end doing some extra stuff.
It´s blowing a gale and raining on and off - so not too bad then, says Eduardo, at least you can see the mountains in front of us. After three hours we get to first night refugio and reserve ourselves the best beds (floor level - upper bunks to be avoided where possible). Then it´s an hour through the forest and another hour up over boulders. The towers, four unlikely shaped (due to being new apparently) spires have been in front of us for a while, but it´s only when you climb up over the last boulder that the jaw-dropping bit happens, as it turns out we´ve only been seeing the top of them and suddenly they are there, huge, falling away into a vast valley with a green lake at the bottom.
We hang around a bit too long taking too many photos, and by the time we leave the rain is chasing us down the hillside. Spend the evening with the first wine box I´ve had possibly since I was a student, watching the wind and rain lash the refugio (which it goes on to do all night) and the campers enjoying their authentic Patagonian experience of putting tents up in it.
Another 2 hour drive north to the Torres del Paine National Park. We are trekking the "W" for the next four days - as it´s a roughly W-shaped walk, starting with the right hand side bit. Then we´ve a couple of add-on days at the end doing some extra stuff.
It´s blowing a gale and raining on and off - so not too bad then, says Eduardo, at least you can see the mountains in front of us. After three hours we get to first night refugio and reserve ourselves the best beds (floor level - upper bunks to be avoided where possible). Then it´s an hour through the forest and another hour up over boulders. The towers, four unlikely shaped (due to being new apparently) spires have been in front of us for a while, but it´s only when you climb up over the last boulder that the jaw-dropping bit happens, as it turns out we´ve only been seeing the top of them and suddenly they are there, huge, falling away into a vast valley with a green lake at the bottom.
We hang around a bit too long taking too many photos, and by the time we leave the rain is chasing us down the hillside. Spend the evening with the first wine box I´ve had possibly since I was a student, watching the wind and rain lash the refugio (which it goes on to do all night) and the campers enjoying their authentic Patagonian experience of putting tents up in it.
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