Today we made the dubious decision to visit Torres del Paine as a daytrip from El Calfate. Orginially when we planned this trip we wanted to stay for 5 days and hike the W- the classic trek within the park. Then, just as we were leaving Lima for Chile, we checked the news to find that the park was on fire and closed until the end of January. So, we sadly scratched it from our list. Then, we found out that the park had partially re-opened, but information on exactly which parts were open and which weren´t was scarce. In the end we decided that we couldn´t come so close and not at least take a peak. The only things was- El Calafate is not ¨so close.¨ It was a 5 hour bus ride plus a border crossing- EACH WAY.

The bus picked us up at our hostel at 5:30am. At 11am about, we got our first peak of the towers. One glimpse was enough to erase all doubt from my mind- we had done well to come. The day was gorgeous- not a cloud in the sky. Even our guide was impressed. We spent 4 hours in the park, driving to all of the classic lookout points. We learned that rainfall lakes are a brilliant blue and glacial lakes are a milky turquoise (thanks to the minerals deposited by the glaciers). We saw waterfalls and countless mountains. We saw guanacos everywhere (cousin of llamas) and even some ñandus (look like small emus). Every view seemed more beautiful than the last. This was actually the first place on our trip where I felt that my camera was totally inadequate. The pictures that appeared time and again on my screen looked like crayon drawings of Picasso paintings next to the scenery I was actually seeing. I was also struck that the land and the views were just too big for a picture. It was a 360 degree sensory experience that just couldn´t be captured. After awhile I mostly abonded my camera and opted instead to just soak it all in.

We also saw quite a bit of burn damage. It is very sad that these devastating fires were caused by a careless tourist and not by nature. Also, I had never been to the park before the damage, so I don´t know what it could have been. However, it seemed to me that the burns did not ruin the park. Most of the vegetation is low and shrubby, so the views seemed mostly unchanged. Also, where we were at least, there was plenty of green still surrounding the burned areas. And, most encouragingly, there was already a bit a green growing back among the charred black ground- just three weeks after the blaze.