Day 5 : up early to make the journey back to the Paine Grande refuge and the catamaran ferry that transfers you to the bus stop. Typically for the last day, it was a beautiful day, a little cloudy but warm and pretty wind-free. You simply retrace your steps and so nothing new to see, although the brighter skies were certainly an improvement on the day before. Whilst on the coach to the edge of the park we passed two coaches lying on their sides by the road. It t...

Day 4 : although still very windy, it was a lot drier the next morning. With most of the others heading back today, we and the Swiss/German contingent headed up the final stretch to the Grey Glacier. The first 11km to the last refuge, Refugio Grey, is renowned for being a struggle against the wind in the best of conditions. It was tough, but at least we could see the views and the rain stopped soon after setting off. Once again however a huge part of this valley...

Day 3 : little sleep, during the night the wind and rain picked up to incredible levels. It really did feel like the roof of the hostel was going to blow off, god only knows how the poor people camping felt. So, on what is supposed to be the best day in terms of scenery, and also the longest day in terms of distance (28.1km), we set out in our finest rainwear amid a howling gale and driving rain. Perfect. On the plus side, our finest rainwear consisted of matchi...

Day 2 : one of the shorter days of the hike and so we were in no hurry to get up. After a disappointingly light breakfast we headed off on the 13km trek to the Refugio Los Cuernos, home for the second night. The day was clear and bright but with a healthy breeze once we'd left the first valley. We contemplated hiking with Dani and Irene but as seasoned hikers their pace left us in their dust. Small world part 2, we again bumped into Martin, the guy on whose birt...

Time to don the hiking boots again, this time for the 5 day "W Trek" in the Torres del Paine national park. Unfortunately this has nothing to do with the chain of luxury hotels of the same name, rather the rough shape of the route followed. After yet another rude early awakening, a coach took us and many other fools the couple of hours or so to the park entrance. After shelling out the entrance fee, watching an instructional video about park rules and signing an...