Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So we left Australia behind us on the 17th of October and flew to Santiago. After a 24 hour flight we arrived about four hours after we left which we still don't really understand. It took us a couple of days to get over the jet lag, not helped by a hangover on the second day. We headed south on a very long bus journey to Bariloche which is just over the border in Argentina. We were expecting the weather to be a bit cold but weren't expecting the heavy snow that we had. A bit of a shock to the system after Australia. Bariloche is in the lake district and has some pretty spectacular scenery. We hired a car to see some of the surrounding countryside and luckily had our first day of great weather. We shared the car with a Malaysian guy we had met at the hostel, he was very excited by the snow as he hadn't seen it often before. It's not often you see a man in his fifties running around giggling and throwing snow balls at passers by. The rest of the weather when we were there was pretty bad but luckily Bariloche has lots of chocolate shops and pubs so we managed to find some indoor entertainment.
We headed back to Chile and spent one night in Puerto Montt where the rain continued to pour down. I realised I didn't have enough warm clothes so bought a knitted wooly jumper. It is really warm but I don't think they gave the sheep a bath before they shaved it as it smells slightly sheepy. We then headed over to the island of chiloe which is famous for all things wooden and especially its old wooden churches. We stayed in a really nice hostel made largely of wood (obviously). It was in a kind of building called a palafito which is a house built on stilts out into the sea. We went around a few of the older churches, many of which are UNESCO heritage listed. They are always designed a bit like boats as the best carpenters were always boat builders so they stuck with what they knew and used the same techniques and shapes on the churches. We also ate a really good steak on Chiloe in a parilla restaurant. A parilla is a kind of bbq where the meat is cooked really slowly over embers. We think they thought we were from the lonely planet as they gave us extra special attention, with the manager even coming over and asking us how things were.
After Chiloe we spent a few days in Puerto Varas where we did some kayaking. Then we headed back to Puerto Montt where we were catching our boat to Patagonia in the far south. The boat is mainly a cargo ferry but it has a deck for passengers and runs between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales. It travels through lots of channels and fjords on its way south so some of the scenery was spectacular. The coast along there is almost completely uninhabited, we only passed one town in four days. Almost the only sign of life we saw was a big pod of dolphins that swam past the boat on the second day. We also sailed past a huge glacier called Pio XI and we saw icebergs calving off it into the sea. Fortunately they are all fairly small so there was no chance of any Titanic type scenario. Surprisingly we weren't bored at all despite being stuck on the boat for four days. We managed to keep ourselves entertained with looking at the scenery, drinking cheap wine and playing a lot of pointless card games.
We planned to do a 5 day walk in Torres Del Paine National Park so we only spent one day in Puerto Natales getting organised and buying supplies. We caught a bus to the national park then a catamaran across Lago Pehoe to the beginning of the 'W' trek (so called because on a map it is in the rough shape of a W). One of the hostels in Puerto Natales has a daily talk on doing the walk to prepare people for it, which we went along to it. An American guy who lives here does the talk and he told us that the park "isn't just windy, it's winnn-deeee". After listening to him we were prepared for the worst and had a lot of warm and waterproof clothes with us and a ridiculous amount of cereal bars. Unfortunately I have discovered that my new sheepy jumper isn't much use in windy conditions as it is hand knitted so the wind just blows through the holes. I think it might be more of a sitting beside a log fire with a hot toddie sort of jumper. Anyway after getting off the catamaran we set straight off up the of the W. This section took us towards Glacier Grey which is part of the Patagonian Ice Field. This is a huge field of ice (the largest outside Antartica) which has hundreds of glaciers branching off it. At one point the path climbed pretty high and we had incredible views of Glacier Grey and two neighbouring glaciers and behind them ice as far as you can see. We couldn't sit and admire it too long as the wind was nearly knocking us off our feet and as you can imagine it was a pretty cold wind. We pushed on through the wind and rain and spent the night in Refugio Grey which is right beside the terminal face of the glacier. Luckily they had a big wood fire keeping the place warm. A lot of people we passed on the walk were camping, but living up to our 'flashpacker' reputation we were staying in refugios which are bunk houses in the national park. They are obviously more expensive than camping but you don't have to carry lots of heavy equipment around and you don't have to worry about your tent blowing away during the night. The next morning we walked a bit further up until we were right up beside the glacier and a few huge icebergs that had cracked off it before retracing our steps down the . After a couple of hours the sun came out and we had even better views across the ice field. The weather was getting better and better and by the time we arrived at Refugio Paine Grande where we were spending the night the sky was almost completely clear and the wind had stopped, which apparently is unheard of in the park. The next day we set off up the middle section or the ^ if you like. This was meant to be the most scenic part of the walk and luckily the skies were still clear. The scenery didn't dissapoint, this section is through Valle Francais and there are huge mountains on three sides of you with lots of rocky spires and a string of unbelievably blue lakes behind you. Even if you don't like walking I can guarantee you would like this walk, you can hear the rumble of avalanches on the valley sides above you and every time you look up there are pairs of condors gliding around on the thermals, it certainly beats the West Highland Way. The next day we walked up the / to the base of the Torres which the park is famous for. It was a bit cloudier and started to snow, which made it a really nice peaceful atmosphere. The scenery had changed quite a lot and was now rolling hills and little lakes which was quite a contrast from the dramatic scenery of the day before. We got up at dawn the next day as apparently the torres go red when the sun rises. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy so we couldn't see them from the refugio. We climbed up to the look out anyway and luckily by the time we made it up there the clouds had cleared and we got a good view of them. By now the sun was well and truly up so they had reverted back to their normal grey colour but were spectacular none the less. The torres are three granite spires all differently shaped. They are about 1500 metres tall but as there is nothing on them to give any sort of perspective they don't look that big. It would be interesting to see somebody climbing up one to give you a sense of how big they are. Having completed the W we walked back down to the entrance to the park where we could catch the bus. After a quick celebratory beer we were off back to Puerto Natales for a good shower and a trip to the laundry.
- comments