Tuesday 27th November
An early pick up (6.55) from the shiny clean Patagonia Queen Hotel. Our driver for the day- Damien- loaded our bags onto the minibus and we toured El Calafate picking up Aussies, Canadians, French and Japanese. All seem to have different attitudes to personal space and hygiene...
Damien issued us all with goodie bags containing a flask of water, snacks, a pillow and the obligatory customs declaration form.
Our roadtrip took us over vast areas of very flat Argentine Steppe bordered only by distant mountain ranges. As well as sparse dead grass and scrubby bushes there were occasional tussocks with bright orange or red flowers.
We saw numerous small herds of Guanaco - a llama like quadruped - and the occasional sprinting Rhea . It is hostile country- skeletons of animals hang on the roadside fence, their bones bleaching in the sun, where they have failed to clear the jump over the wire to access better grazing.
Our fellow travellers snort, rustle, fidget and play with their goodie bags, from time to time rising unsteadily to press their smartphones to the window for yet another wilderness shot!
We pass occasional shrines presumably of travellers who have died in RTAs. We are allowed a quick comfort break in a very tired and weathered service area which displays road signs relating to skiing, which seems a little incongruous as the plains stretch to the horizons! We continue with sightings of crazy rheas darting about, and even a Rhea surrounded by ten 12 inch tall chicks! There are also horses with foals, the odd sheep with lambs, wobbly legged baby guanacos - it’s spring time in Patagonia! We also spot condors, caracaras, flamingos and geese where there is water, a few cows, and even a Patagonian grey fox.
After 3 hrs the Torres del Paine mountain range appeared in the distance rising up from the edge of the Steppe, bathed in sunshine - a breathtaking sight!
The border drew near and we queued in and out of the Argentinian customs, and then again, in and out of Chilean customs - whose scanning machine successfully detected illegal apples in several bags, but not ours (we’ve been caught out before, and so ate ours on the bus! )
We changed buses at the border and headed on into Chile towards Las Torres.
The road was pot-holed in many places and just a gravel track in parts. This lead to a somewhat bumpy ride, although speed seemed unaffected!
As we drove the views of Torres del Paine became more and more breath taking. It’s another magnificent range of tall jagged peaks that rise high above the otherwise flat steppe land. They were formed when magma extruded up from the earths’s core to form a peak just under the surface of the earth. Then, over the years, the surrounding softer rocks were eroded away, leaving the spectacular towers.
After stopping for ‘photografie’ of the Torres and some obliging guanaco, we drove on to the the Hotel Las Torres.
Here we received the warmest of welcomes. The hotel is stunning. A large atrium with a glass ceiling and wooden beams encompass the hotel reception, the bar / lounge area and a central raised dais area with a large table with a circular map where we headed to listen to our tour guide advisor - Valentina. A quick resume of places and routes was really helpful - as was some advice about the hotel and it’s all-inclusive service. We had wristbands applied and decided to have lunch, then take an afternoon hiking tour to the nearby lake. Lunch was a rapid affair of excellent bean soup and salmon before we dashed off to put on our boots once again and meet the guide in the lobby.
Christina and Rodrigo were very knowledgeable guides and cheerfully guided us on a short hike across the Steppe from the front of the hotel, and down to the beautiful turquoise blue Lago Nordenskjold, named after its Norwegian discoverer in 1895. We identified anemones, fire bushes, ladies slipper orchids - beautiful low growing butter yellow trumpets dappled wth scarlet spots, and lots of spiny green tussocks known locally as 'mother in laws pillow’! There were plenty of Argentinian hares, southern lapwing and upland geese. A Southern Crested Caracara drifted over us before settling in the scrub.
Our guides suggested we stop for a break and produced chocolate bars and coffee, as well as mixing up a brew of mate tea and instructing the group in the etiquette of mate tea drinking, the cup always passing to the right, the straw never being removed from the cup and not to say ‘thank you’ until you had finished drinking - or you would find yourself missing out on the next round! Amongst our ground were a young honeymoon couple, a single Chinese lady, a Glaswegian from London wearing the most low slung pair of shorts imaginable. How he actually managed to walk was a mystery! The final couple was from Brisbane, Australia. She a solicitor and he a bricklayer who met at their local trail running club. As he explained - the longest word he knew before they met was ‘wheelbarrow’!
We finished with a gentle ascent to the hotel and we retired to the bar to imbibe our first 'Pisco Sour' of the tour. Excellent! We relished relaxing for an hour on the cosy leather sofas in the stylish lounge of rustic beams and extensive glazing. This gave a panoramic view of the mountain behind the hotel, and as we watched, another southern crested caracara stalked across the lawn ten feet from the room, and being mobbed by southern lapwings to distract it from preying on their chicks.
We were tempted by the bar snacks menu, and , this being an all-inclusive package, we ordered two platters - Bill’s a selection charcuterie with olives, mine a fish platter with salmon and tuna kebabs, fish chowder and a miniature fish pie.
After this, suddenly it was early evening and time for a bath and dinner. Of course we were too full to do justice to the delicious menu and after watching the mountain tops glow red in the setting sun, we were soon falling into bed, ready for another early start tomorrow.