Torres del Paine National Park

From Punta Arenas, I headed north to the smaller town of Puerto Natales – jumping off point to Torres del Paine National Park.  The town itself is very cute:  with nice shops, a small historical museum, and lots of colourful flowers everywhere.  Puerto Natales is built along a lake with gorgeous views of the mountains beyond and quite a few birds to see as well.

But enough about the town:  the Torres del Paine was the main event!  Torres del Paine National Park contains mountains, glaciers, rivers, and lakes, all with a very well-maintained trail network.  I was there for the W Trek – a trek that is shaped like… you guessed it:  a “W”.  The trek takes 4 to 5 days to complete, and we did 4 full days so I think we ended up skipping a wee bit of it, but we got most of it done.  I say “we” because I joined a group tour for it.  I didn’t want to have to deal with tents and sleeping bags and logistics so I just booked a group tour.  It was great to have local guides and have everything arranged for me, so I’m glad I did it, but I must say that the trek would have been just as easy doing it on my own.

The facilities along the trek were superb.  There are well-placed campsites all along the way, with dedicated camping for people who insist on carrying their own tents, pre-pitched tents available for hire, and even dormitory beds (and I assume private rooms too) in some of them.  Each site has a restaurant which serves breakfast and dinner, and they sell bagged lunches for your daily trek.  There are kitchen facilities which you can use if you insist on cooking yourself, and the bathrooms were largely clean with warm showers.  They rent out sleeping bags and towels, so really, if you have a reservation, you can rock up with your hiking clothes and a small backpack and you’re set.  You don’t need to worry about anything.  The whole operation of the national park is truly impressive, and I might even throw it out there:  luxurious.

It wasn’t 5-star accommodation, but compared to the Inca Trail a few years ago, the Torres del Paine was pretty luxurious!

The first day of the trek was by a long mile the most rigorous.  We left our hotel in Puerto Natales at an ungodly hour, but at least the drive was pretty:  with Andean condors flying around, lesser rheas (sort of like an emu or ostrich) roaming about, and guanacos (essentially undomesticated llamas with very pretty eyelashes) along the side of the road (alive, not roadkill).  We stopped at Mirador Lago Sarmiento (Sarmiento Lake Viewpoint) for our first views of the famous Torres del Paine.  “Torres” is Spanish for “towers”, and Paine means “blue” in a local indigenous language, the Torres del Paine roughly translates to “Blue Towers”.  They are three steep granite peaks which – despite the myriad of other beautiful sites in the national park – are the true highlight of the trek.

After 11km of trekking, much of it uphill, we made it to Mirador Las Torres (Towers Viewpoint).  The sky was absolutely clear and everything was gorgeous!

We had a bagged lunch for the day, which ended up being a vacuum sealed chicken burrito – and it was still warm despite us leaving super early that morning.  I was in burrito trekking HEAVEN!

After doing the same exact trek back, we had a campsite for the night just outside of the national park, at a place called Laguna Azul (Blue Lake).  My tent was just a few metres from the water, and the views were stunning.

We also got our first glimpses of some Chilean flamingos roaming about the shore.

Day 2 started with a few stops at two lovely viewpoints:  Mirador Cascada Paine (Blue Waterfall Viewpoint) and Mirador Nordenskjold.  We then took a ferry across one of the big lakes to reach our campsite for the night – Paine Grande – and to do a day trek to a viewpoint overlooking Lago Grey (Grey Lake) and the Grey Glacier.  The glacier ends in the lake so there were quite a few icebergs that had calved off were floating south through the lake, being pushed by the winds.

And by winds, I mean tropical storm force winds.  We only stayed at the beautiful viewpoint for a few minutes because the winds were literally tropical storm force.  But if that’s the worst weather we had on the entire four-day trek, then I’ll take it!

Day 3 started out from the Paine Grande campsite, ending at Los Cuernos campsite.  Unlike the previous day, the wind was completely still, which meant Lago Skottsberg was acting as a sort of mirror for the stunning scenery.

We also stopped at Mirador Glaciar Frances to see the hanging glacier of the French Valley.  The glacier just hangs on the side of the mountain, and bits and pieces fall off below with a thunderous roar.  These avalanches happened quite frequently here and at a bunch of other hanging glaciers that dot the park, but they were indeed more common on Day 4.

After spending New Years’ Eve at Los Cuernos campsite, I promptly made my way back to my tent and was in my sleeping bag by about 12:05am.  It was my fifth continent bringing in the new year – I just need to do it in Africa and Antarctica at some point!

Day 4 was a flatter, easier day, and while it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the first three days, it was still gorgeous.  After our trek – totalling around 60km in 4 days – we made our way by minibus back to Puerto Natales for a group dinner.  The rest of the group left very early the next morning to make the treks back to either Punta Arenas or El Calafate (Argentina) for their flights back to Santiago or Buenos Aires, and beyond.  I, on the other hand, wasn’t going too far.  So, I did what any reasonable person would do:  I booked in a 10am massage, then had brunch and did some souvenir shopping before catching a 2pm bus for the 5-hour journey across the Argentine border to El Calafate.

More on that in the next installment.  But first, let me take a selfie.