AVOIDING THE PAIN IN TORRES DEL PAINE


Apart from the stunning scenery, one of the main reasons why so many people willingly agree to spend four days on a ferry is because Puerto Natales, where the boat docks, is the main starting point for visits to the Torres del Paine National Park. The majority of the passengers were studying guide books on trekking in the park and poring over maps of the area. We, on the other hand, were reading our novels and knocking back the wine. In fairness, we would have liked to have done the four day 'W' trek which most people were planning on doing but our tight schedule meant that we didn't have time to do it justice on foot, so we reluctantly decided to do a tour of the main sights from the comfort of a minibus.


After a fair amount of admin, sorting out our plans for the next few days, we managed to get out and explore the area surrounding Puerto Natales on bikes for a couple of hours, which was great after all that time getting cabin fever on the boat. We huffed and puffed our way up to the top of a massive hill, ,which was well worth it for the view and, more importantly, for the exhilarating whizzing downhill that followed.


Next morning, after spending a night shivering in bed to avoid getting gassed by the dodgy looking heater in the corner, we were picked up bright and early by our 'guide' (who didn't speak any English and didn't actually bother even coming on any of the walks with us…) for our visit to the Torres del Paine national park. To get there, we had a two hour journey, sat next to a bonkers German woman who produced a never-ending stream of increasingly bizarre snacks from her Mary Poppins bag - culminating in something that looked like a bag of hash but turned out to be dried, shredded horsemeat. In the spirit of 'you've got to try everything once (and never again)' Duncan did, and said it tasted like pork scratchings.


We paid a quick visit to a massive cave, where a German explorer had discovered the remains of a bear-like animal called the Milodon, which looked like it had the face of a sheep. Duncan tried to take on its statue in a fight, but his chances weren't looking too good so we beat a hasty retreat. Then we headed onwards towards the Torres. Our first glimpse of them was from a fair distance away. These jaggedy mountains, which are much younger than the Andes (something like 12mn years old, compared to the Andes' 80mn) are made from granite and jut out into the sky like towers, hence the name. They really were stunning - to the extent that they are often used by the Chilean tourist board in advertising, for a country which has a lot more than its fair share of amazing scenery.


We spent the day touring around the base of the mountains, viewing them from different angles and admiring the spectacular scenery of blue/green lakes, powerful waterfalls and perfect blue skies. For Emma, the highlight was a picturesque waterfall with crystal clear water thundering over it, complete with rainbows and bright red flowers. Duncan's best bit came towards the end of the day, when we saw the almost unreal sight of a group of blue icebergs just by a beach. As we walked out along the beach, we also realised that there was a humungous glacier, flowing down from the mountains, that looked as if it had been frozen in time just as it was about to inundate the whole area where we were standing. Where the beach met the water, the ice had broken up into perfect ice cubes that were just crying out for a glass of G&T.


After that, we headed back into Puerto Natales, Duncan taking the opportunity to take his habitual bus snooze. As soon as we got back we had to head to the bus station, from where we took a three-hour journey to Punta Arenas for a brief overnight stay. From here, we had bought tickets for a bus to Ushuaia in Argentina, an 11-hour journey. The nice guy who sold us the ticket (with a beard to match Duncan's) told us the bus left at 8am, but in the morning, we figured that we should probably get there a bit earlier for such a long journey. We skipped breakfast, and as we pulled up in a taxi at 7.30 on the dot, we felt a bit foolish for being so early as there was no-one around the bus except for a couple of bus drivers. The reason, it turned out, was that everyone was already on the bus which was just about to pull out. If we missed this bus, we'd be stuck in Punta Arenas for at least another 24 hours, and risked missing our flight to Buenos Aires. The drivers tutted exasperatedly at the stupid English tourists, but we redeemed ourselves by showing the tickets to them and passing the blame on to the idiot who sold them to us. Phew… we jumped on the bus as it pulled out and we were on our way to Argentina.