Chilean Patagonia. It lives up to its name-it´s chilly! It is also incredibly beautiful with wild scenery (and weather!) and lots of wildlife.

We flew down from Santiago on Sunday 26th to Punta Arenas, the largest Chilean town in Patagonia. Mor beautiful views of the Andes. It was from here that we visited the Magellanic penguins at the Seno Otway reserve. They were amazing! I very nearly took one home with me. Most of the reserve is not open to the public but there is a series of walkways that take you up to the sea where the penguins climb out and make their way to their holes. It is nesting time so they all have eggs to look after. They march past really close by after a good show of not-so-gracefully exiting the sea. Very cute! We also saw some rheas close by (ñandu in Spanish), plpus plenty of birds, sheep and hares!

The following day we headed north to Puerto Natales, the gateway to the famous Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. It is an enormous massif which rises out of the Patagonian steppe, with snow-capped peaks and a distinctive set of "towers" (torres) with numerous azure lakes dotted about. A lot of people spend 5 days trekking a circuit and camping each night, but we weren´t really kitted out for this or that keen (winds exceeding 50 mph and below freezing temperatures at night-eek!). We opted to spend one night in a refugio (expensive dorm beds) and complete the main trek in a day to the towers, followed by a boat trip across one of the lakes the next day.

The Park is about 2 hours by bus from the town we were in, so we set off bright and early at 7 am on Thursday, checked into our refugio at 11 and set out on our walk shortly after. We were kitted out in full waterproof gear, armed with sandwiches, bananas, peanuts and chocolate. The first 2 hours were pretty tough with steady up hill walking. We were lucky with the weather to start, with the sun out and not too windy (apart from one part of the trail which took us along a tiny path half way up a scree slope on the bare mountain-scary! check out the photo). We stopped for lunch at another refugio to warm up before continuing on a pleasant trail through the forest. The final part of the trek was up to the viewing point of the towers. The guide book had mentioned a 45 minute walk up boulders; this did not prepare us for the thigh-crunching, hour-long clamber up huge boulders in the snow! It was freezing! And so so tiring. But we made it, and the view was incredible. Even in the snow! The wind up there had to be felt to be believed. I could barely lift my camera up, let alone hold it steady. Anyone who has been to Edinburgh, imagine the worst winds in those narrow streets, times it by 10 and you´ve got an idea..

The wind drove us back down shortly after, with an equally thigh aching descent, and we started the trek back to our refugio. Once we´d got lower down, the snow stopped and we had a pleasant, if slightly slower, walk back. Thankfully it was mostly downhill. Unfortunately our luck with the weather lasted until the last half an hour, when the heavens opened and we had to trudge through horizontal sleet and gale force winds. Not fun! Thankfully the refugio had hot showers. We made it back at half past 8, had dinner and got an early night in preparation for our trip the following day.

We woke up to the sound of rain. It seemingly hadn´t stopped since our walk back the previous evening and was showing no signs of letting up. We bravely set off on the bus towards the lake, but the winds were so strong the water was actually being blown off the lake and we couldn´t face the thought of an hour on a catamaran in that weather! Also, the point of the trip was the views of the massif, of which there were none. Sooo... we scuttled off to the visitors centre and spent a pleasant hour and a half watching a video about pumas and talking to the park ranger. We then caught the bus back to Puerto Natales as the weather wasn´t showing any signs of improving. It was a shame we missed the boat trip, but we´d had a fantastic trek the day before and were glad to get back to our comfy hostel!

Next, we´re crossing the border to El Calafate in Argentinian Patagonia. Let´s hope we leave the rain behind!