The bus arrived late at night into Puerto Natales in Chile, so we checked into our hostel, Erratic Rock (yes we know the name can be twisted to mean other things) and with hungry eyes we searched for the best pizza place in town... Mesito Grande. It really did turn out to be the best pizza we had ever had and subsequently turned out to be our dinner spot for the few nights we spent in Puerto Natales!

Going from speaking Portugese to Spanish had been a struggle once we had reached Argentina, but boy were we not prepared for Chile! Apart from chewing up the ends of words and vowels, they also spoke at 100 miles an hour so even the most simplest things like "What would you like?" seemed far off to us!

The hostel we stayed at was the best spot in town for organising the trekking into the Torres del Paine National Park- the main reason people come to Natales and Chilean Patagonia, and the most beautiful national park in the region.   The next day we were informed of what the best route would be for us within our time restraints and what we needed to take with us. Natuarally we were going to camp, so we hired trekking bags, a tent, mats, a stove and cooking utensils. We then went on a hunt for various types of dried fruit, crackers and 5-minute meals of risotto or rice for dinners- Gourmet of course (!)
Dinner that night was at Mesito Grande again and the rest of the night was spent packing and allocating resources, reminiscent to Rakhee of the old Duke of Edinburgh days.

All set and ready to go we were picked up by the coach early the next morning to take us into the park. We left behind our big back packs and our make-up bags and had only the basics with us... The route we had planned for the fours days and three nights was part of the "W" shaped circuit, a popular and slightly easier circuit than the hardcore "circle" circuit, which meant that we had to get a catamaran to another side of the park to start our trek.  The weather was lovely that day and entering the park was a spectacle itself as mountains in view were just stunning.
On the Coach into the park we got talking to three French people (Pauline,Pascal and Maelise) staying at the same hostel as us and who were planning on doing the same route as us, so we started walking the first part of our trek together to the first base camp at Lago Grey, where there was the infamous Glacier Grey. The average time for this walk was meant to be about 2 and a half hours, however an hour and a half in we didnt seem to be getting any closer and the troubles began...

Marisha's knee had started hurting and so the French lot carried on ahead and we stopped to bandage the knee up...unfortunately this had no effect on the knee and the pain was increasing with every step. Turning back was not an option as we were determined to do the trek and even then there would have been no transport for a long time to take us back to Natales. We took the rest of the trail easy as alot of it was slightly uphill, and went slowly as to avoid doing any permanent damage... The trail seemed to go on forever and the day rolled on slowly, hope fading fast. 6 and a half hours later (!!!) we arrived at the camp at Grey, 4 hours later than it should have taken us, tired, hungry, and determination shattered by the slow haul of the trail. The pain by this point had become unbearable and hopes for Marisha to carry on the trekking or the ice hike on the glacier the following day were also fading.
That night was our first night of camping, so we set up our tent (YES by ourselves) and cooked a rice meal from a sachet and drank some Gato Negro red wine out of a carton....hmmm classy! The night was bitter cold so we went into the refugio common area to warm up by the stove fire and drink some nice hot tea.

The next morning Rakhee got ready to go on the ice-hike on Glacier Grey, however it became apparent that Marisha was not going to be able to due to the knee so she stayed at the refugio camp site whilst Rakhee braved it on the ice...

Rakhee: Sooooo off i went with the Frenchy's and a German couple to the glacier. We hopped on a speed boat which took us to a larger boat where we first got up close and personal with the glacier.  The glacier was smaller than the Perito Moreno glacier in El Calafate, but nevertheless it was still beautiful and a wonderful array of white, blue and grey colours.  On arrival at the site, we scrambled up boulders and rocks until we reached the actual start of the glacier. Here we were fitted with harnesses and crampons and briefed on the technicalities of using the crampons and ice-hikes (poles).

It was a strange concept walking on the glacier but such an amazing experience.  We saw rivers and waterfalls within the glacier, arches and holes, and amazing shades of blue.

The highlight of the day was an ice cave the guides had found whilst walking on the glacier a couple of days earlier.  We made our way quite far into the glacier and there was a small entering at the front of the cave.  Already we could see the reflection of the structure and the bright colour from the inside.  The actual walls of the cave were as smooth as glass and an electric shade of blue and of course freezing to touch. It was difficult to walk in the cave as the ground was very hard and smooth and it made it nearly impossible for the crampons to grip the ice, not to mention the narrow tunnels leading off from the main cave where it was only possible to crawl. We also did some ice climbing off a wall within the glacier that was 15-20 feet high.  It required some great strength and a lot of technique with the crampons and ice-hikes.

We were lucky enough that day to see the spectacle of the ice breaking.  In actual fact, that day we saw about 30-40 feet from the front of the glacier break off completely and cause an ice cemetery further down the lake. The noise from the breaking of the ice was loud enough to vibrate through your bones and the masses of ice falling off the glacier was slightly unnerving as we stood watching from afar. The sad fact is that in the last 50 years the glacier has been retracting at a larger rate than it did previously due to global warming.  That day the masses of ice made it difficult for the boat to come and pick us up from the glacier and it took almost an hour to dodge the floating icebergs on the way back to the campsite.

The most impressive thing was how the guides navigated over the ice. When in the centre of the ice, it is very difficult to see how far in you are and which way you have just come from as it is just a mass of white and grey ice, but the guides knew exactly where to go and how to get back to the start of the glacier.

Marisha: After tearfully (yes I cried, I?m a girl, it?s what we do!) waving goodbye to the others, I headed off to the refugio to stay in the warmth for the day.  I was in so much pain and even at that point I knew I would probably not be able to continue with the rest of the hike.   I can honestly say the day could have been a lot worse though, since when it started I was absolutely gutted at not being able to do the ice hike ? something I had been looking forward to doing ever since we entered Patagonia.  Pauline had been kind enough to lend me her mp3 player so I passed an hour so investigating her musical taste, which aroused the interest of the refugio staff.  We plugged her mp3 player into the main speakers and they danced around a bit to entertain me whilst they went about the task of cleaning the refugio and preparing lunch.  Only two of the guys spoke English but they were all so lovely to me, I couldn?t have asked for better carers!  They continually made me cups of tea, chatted to me, made me some lunch (which you are normally supposed to pay for), fed me chocolate and even covered me over with  a sleeping bag when I fell asleep mid-afternoon.  One of the park rangers stopped by and even gave me an ice pack to help reduce the swelling in my knee!  By late afternoon I had also gotten them to arrange for me to get a boat back to where I could pick up a coach back to Natales the next day.  In this way, the day actually passed pretty quickly, and soon Rakhee and the Frenchy?s were back wilth all their tales of the day. 

Reunited, that night we once again cooked up a different flavoured rice from a sachet and enjoyed another carton of Gato Negro whilst mingling with our new friends and working out a route for the last two days of the trek.

Rakhee: The next morning we packed up camp quickly and started our trek up to the other side of the park where the 'Torres' stood mighty proud. The 'Torres'are the three 'towers' of rock which give the name to the national park.  By sunrise they are said to look like they are burning as they turn various shades of red on a good day.  We walked back to catch a catamaran across the lake, then got two transfer coaches within the park until we reached the other side of the park where we started a 2 hour hike UPHILL to the next campsite.  The 2 hour hike took closer to 4 hours due to the steepness of the mountain and the constant struggle with gravity, as well as the weight of the 2 person tent i was carrying by myself! The last part of that route was a narrow gravel/rock path along the top of a cliff with a drop of at least a 1000 feet to the right.  The wind was blowing hard and made the whole walk unstable as we held onto our backpacks and tried not to look down...  

When we arrived at the refugio campsite the wind was still howling like crazy and it made putting our tents up a big mission. The night was spent nursing aching joints and trying to cook whilst the wind kept putting the stove flames out. We had all decided that the 2 hour hike up to the Torres would be a must at sunrise as we had already missed out on seeing the French Valley (a stunning valley completely surrounded by mountains)...

Unfotunately when we woke up at 4.30 AM, the heavens had opened earlier and the rain had been pelting down for more than 2 hours before! I woke up with a leaking tent and could feel the wind driving the rain into the small holes in the sides of the tent. It was freezing and I had no Marisha to keep me warm! It was blindingly obvious that we were not going to venture out in the pitch black at that time to get to the torres view point so we waited until a more decent hour to wake up and work out what we would do on our last day in the park....

Unfortunately it wasnt our day as it was cloudy and wet and cold and it dawned on us that going up to see the towers would be more like walking into hell, so we sadly packed up our soaking wet tents and made our way back down to the pick-up point to catch our transfer back to the town where we fought for showers and dined at our favourite pizza place for the last time.

Marisha: Meanwhile, I was living the high life as I caught the same boat that Rakhee had caught to do her ice hike, which is actually part of a two hour day trip tour to see Grey Glacier (it cost enough!!) which returns you to the coach stop at the end.  Lucky old me, as if not being able to walk on the glacier wasn?t bad enough, I got two full hours right up against the glacier in the boat just to rub my nose in it!  To make matters worse, the boat seemed to have been hired out for a corporate bonding day and was full of old chilean businessmen and their wives, so I stood out like a sore thumb!  Though the glacier was beautiful, I just wasn?t in the mood and my only cheer came from a free glass of Pisco Sour (the national drink) which arrived with a piece of broken glacier in it to chill it!  Hours later I reached the coach, and then transferred to another coach where I ran into Rakhee and the Frenchy?s on their way back round the park.  After that it was a long ride back to Natales, but once again the staff at Erratic Rock took complete care of me, carrying my bags, making me tea and generally checking that I wasn?t in too much pain.  They suggested I see a doctor anywhere but Natales (apparently the hospitals in Africa are better than the one in Natales!), so I resolved to see one back in Sao Paulo once we flew back to Brazil, since we would be moving around too much in the remaining few days in Patagonia for me to have any repeat appointments.  I passed my days in the hostel chatting to the people that were coming and going from the park, eating far too many cookies and watching Pulp Fiction (my first viewing and I loved it!) and Sideways (also hilarious).  The pain started to ease a bit once I was able to rest my knee, but I was still unable to really walk and put any weight on it.  Thank God my backpack has wheels, or I don?t know what I would have done!!!  Aside from missing the rest of Torres, the strangest thing was being without Rakhee for a full 24 hours or so!  We have spent every waking moment together for the past few months and I all of a sudden found myself without my partner in crime ? definitely a strange feeling!

On reflection it was a great few days in the park, a real hard few days of walking and trekking, but Rakhee had missed out on the chance to see the French Valley and the Torres properley and Marisha had missed out on only a little more than that, so we both plan to come back one day and do the full 'W' circuit without the aches and pains!!  We left early the next morning to get a coach to Punta Arenas airport, where we caught a flight to ?apparently? the most southern city in the world, Ushuaia...