We woke early and was surprised to see flurries of snow blowing past the window. The central massif we had spotted the day before was still obscured by mist, and it looked set to be a miserable day weather-wise.
Our tour was scheduled to start at 08:00, so we got up at about 06:45 and went for a hurried breakfast at 07:30. At 08:00, we went to the tour office to be introduced to our guide – Claudia and our fellow tourists – a Singaporean woman and her two daughters; and an American couple and their daughter. We were also given snacks and water to take with us. The, the ten of us, boarded another of the twelve seater mini-buses, with driver, and headed out of the hotel gates, towards the entrance to the park, about one kilometre away.
By the time we left the hotel, the mist had lifted although the sky was still overcast, and the threat of snow, or even, drizzle seemed to be receding. We stopped briefly at the gates of the National Park to pay our entrance fee, then off we went rattling along the gravel roads in the park, around the shores of several turquoise lakes and catching ocasional glimpses of the eastern side of the Cordillera Paine, whose peaks were still hidden in the clouds.
After nearly an hour, the driver stopped the bus and we disembarked at the beginning of a track which led away down a very shallow valley through low hills. At the head of the track was a sign: “Warning. If you encounter a puma, stay calm and be wary. Do not run. Fleeing may trigger an attack”. We set off down the track with one guide at the front and one at the back. As we walked the overcast was breaking up and patches of blue sky appearing. The temperature, and general conditions, were great for walking and we were really enjoying ourselves. We saw a number of birds and animals, including a number of guanacos, all of which Claudia told us much about.
Guanacos inhabit both the plains and mountainous regions of South America. They are found in Peru, Bolivia and Chile, and in Patagonia. They, along with Vicuñas, were the original precursor camelids of South America, out of which the indigenous peoples bred lamas and alpacas. They live in family groups composed of females, their young, and a dominant male. Bachelor males form separate herds. While family groups tend to remain small, often containing no more than 10 adults, bachelor herds may contain as many as 50 males. You always know when Guanacos are around because they post lookouts on prominences to keep an eye out for pumas, and you can often see these lookouts silhouetted against the sky watching you.
After gently descending for a while, that valley bent around and began to descend more steeply between impressive ridges, we, on the other hand, started to ascend the side of the valley towards the boulder-strewn shoulder of the ridge to our left. It wasn’t particularly steep or high and we made it to the overhanging rocky muffin top without much difficulty. Here, in the shadows of the overhang was the legacy of people that lived here thousands of years ago – cave paintings: animals and hand prints. By this time the sun was shining and the sky was blue and almost cloudless. We studied the paintings; admired the spectacular views of the mountains opposite; and ate our snacks.
Upon leaving the location, we worked our way along below the rocky outcropping to its end, and then crossed over the shoulder of the ridge onto a gently descending plateau behind it. We followed a track across it towards a number of distant startlingly blue lakes, with the backdrop of a snow covered ridge in the far distance. As we descended gently along the track towards the lakes we saw quite a bit of wildlife including a family of grey foxes, including some young pups, which we watched through my binoculars. Eventually we came to a road where the hotel bus and driver were waiting for us. It had been a fabulous walk, which had taken about three hours, and now we were heading back to the hotel for lunch before our afternoon tour.
When we got back the hotel, we had a couple of hours before our afternoon tour, so we decided to go to the hotel’s spa and have a swim in the pool before lunch. We turned out to be the only guests in the pool, and had a relaxing 45 minutes or so swimming around and playing with the pool’s spa functions. At lunch, we took advantage of our “all inclusive” package, and had glasses of wine with our meal.
Our afternoon tour was scheduled to start at 15:00. We were to be going up river by zodiac, so we were given some safety instructions and offered special ‘equipment’ – goggles and massive insulated coats. Our fellow tourists were a young American couple, a Brazilian couple and their little girl, and a very odd American family that we referred to as “the Von Trapps” because of their numerous blond musical children. After briefing and kitting up, we left the back of the hotel and walked over to the Hotel’s jetty on the Serrano River and boarded a rather luxurious zodiac.
The Rio Serrano is not a major river – its only a meandering 38km long – but it drains almost all of the surface water from the Torres del Paine, via the Última Esperanza Sound (on which Puerto Natales lies), into the Pacific Ocean. We sped downstream towards the Última Esperanza Sound at a hair-raising speed that helped to explain the special equipment, but after only about ten minutes and four miles we reached a basin in which we moored at a small jetty – any further progress was prevented by a two metre high water fall.
We admired the falls for a while, and then turned back, crossed a bridge over a tributary of the Serrano, and headed upriver along the meandering bank back towards the hotel. It was warm and sunny, and we walked along a gently undulating grassy trail through sparse woodland, around several meanders, getting frequent glimpses of the central massif of Cordillera Paine across the river. After about a mile, the ground began to rise and we climbed to a rocky promontory around which the river wound. From here, there were long views up and down river, and northwards towards the Torres.
Continuing on, we were walking high above the river along a densely-wooded trail that began, gradually to descend again. The air was full of bird calls, and we spotted a king fisher sitting on a branch right next to the trail. After about half a mile or so, we descended back to the level of the river, which wound back towards the hotel, but we had to turn away up a narrow tributary, because the footbridge, whose piers still protruded from the water, had been washed away at some point in the past. We headed up the narrow valley of the tributary, for about half a mile to a point where we could cross the stream on stepping stones. Here we stopped and ate our snacks while we waited for the whole group to, which had become very strung out along the narrow trail, to arrive.
We had dinner in the hotel again. As we were leaving the restaurant, we noticed the Von Trapp family entertaining the patrons of the bar with singing and playing instruments.
Monday 17 – Day 79 – Torres del Paine
We had booked a full daily Paines tour for today. It was scheduled to start at 08:00 again, so we got early and went for a hurried breakfast at 07:30, we went to the tour office to be introduced to our guides – Claudia again and Olaf (which didn’t sound like a very Chilean name) – and our fellow tourists -the Brazilian family from the day before. We boarded the mini-buses with Olaf driving and Claudia riding shotgun, and headed out of the hotel gates, towards the entrance to the park.
It was a very windy day, with scattered cloud skittering across the sky. We initially stopped by the bridge across the Lago el Toro for a few minutes for the view of the Cordillera Paine over the lake. It was very, very windy, and the wind was whipping up white horses on the surface of the lake, and spattering us with spray. We then followed a similar route to that which we had taken the day before, but this time stopping at a number of miradors to take photographs. We got many photographs of the central massif from different angles, with gradually decreasing levels of cloud and mist, and increasing levels of blue sky and sunshine. We could clearly see features of the massif that we hadn’t seen before – the thee granite towers from which the park takes its name, the horn-shaped peaks called Cuernos del Paine, and the hanging glaciers occupying the bowl-like Monte Almirante Nieto.
We continued on a long circuit around the park, with the central massif at it centre – eventually seeing the back view, which we hadn’t seen before. Presently, we reached a picnic spot by the Lagoona Azul, or Blue Lagoon. As we approached we saw a small herd of wild horses, one of which was on the ground giving birth to a foal.
Claudia and Olaf produced a large cool box, which contained a table cloth, tea and coffee, and various snacks. We sat at a picnic table and refreshed ourselves whilst Olaf demonstrated his colourful personality – telling tales of his rugby tours of Ireland, England and Australia.
After our break and refreshment, we headed back making a few different stops for views and photographs. Back at the hotel, we had lunch with Claudia and the Brazilians. And after lunch a nap.
At 15:00, we met at the minibus for our afternoon excursion. It was very windy. For the first time, we headed around to the West side of the central massif, upstream along the Grey River, towards the Grey Lake. After around 40 minutes, we parked in a car park adjacent to a visitor centre and headed up a trail. We soon came to a foot suspension bridge over the river. A guide coming the other way over the bridge informed us that, due to the wind, only six people at a time should cross. There were seven of us, so Olaf had to follow on behind. It was quite a hairy crossing, with the bridge bucking and swaying in the wind. We followed the trail through the trees, over a low hill, and down towards an expansive “beach” of grey sand at one end of the Grey Lake, which receded into the distance to the foot of the Grey Glacier at its other end. Either side of the lake rose densely forested hillsides, and towering above, on the far side, was the central massif of the Cordillera Paine.
The vast “beach” was about one and a half meters lower than the lake, and separated from it by a long, straight, and very uniform two meter high embankment of gravel and sand through, and under, which the lake constantly seeped in order to feed the Grey River. Claudia explained that, incredibly, the embankment was a natural feature formed largely by the wind. Over the embankment, we could see small blue icebergs floating in the grey water which was being whipped into a frenzy by the wind, and silhouetted against this were tiny figures leaning into the wind and getting covered in spray as they progressed along the embankment.
We descended onto the beach and headed towards the embankment, avoiding the rivulets of meltwater seeping to the surface. The face of the embankment was fairly steep and we followed it along for a while before finding a part shallow enough to easily ascend. Once up on the top we were assaulted by the full force of the wind blowing off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, down the Grey Glacier, and along the length of the lake. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the lake was sparkling, the central massif was magnificent, and the wind tore at our clothing and tried to lift us off our feet – it was amazingly invigorating. We walked the full length of the embankment and back – a couple of kilometres – before heading back towards the bus and the visitor centre. It had been a memorable experience.
We returned to the hotel at about 19:00. The view of the Cordillera Paine was fabulous – the cloud had almost completely disappeared and the evening sunlight was tinting it misty orange, pink, and purple. Later we sat in the bar to admire the scene, and we chatted with a young American couple that had just arrived. We pointed out to them that they should probably photograph the Torres immediately because they might not see them again before they departed.
We had dinner in the hotel, and picked all the most expensive dishes and wines to get the most from our all inclusive package.
Tuesday 18 – Day 80 – Torres del Paine and Punta Arenas
The dawn came slowly – a low, heavy overcast allowing only a thin light to feebly illuminate the landscape, and the Cordillera Paine was completely hidden.
We were due to depart from the hotel at 11:00 so were finally able to have a lie in before going for breakfast. About 10:45, we took our bags to reception, checked out, claimed our brown bag lunches, and went to sit on the bus with the Brazilian family, who were also going back to Punta Arenas (and staying in the same hotel BTW), and the infamous Olaf, who was to be our driver. Then we had to wait for nearly half an hour for the other passengers – an American/Indian brother and sister, who, I suspect, has been disagreeing with their bill.
We sere setting off late, the weather was gloomy, and it was drizzling on and off; so Olaf didn’t hang around. Once we were aboard, he set off at a steady lick retracing the route by which we had arrived. It was a four hour journey and all the passengers succumbed to sleep on and off as Olaf sped through the landscape in silence. We stopped briefly at Hotel Rubens for a bathroom break. Otherwise we drove non-stop until we reached the outskirts of Punta Arenas, where we dropped off the Indian pair at the airport, before reaching to our hotel – The Best Western Finis Terrae – about 16:00.
The hotel was cozy in an old-fashioned sort of way, with lots of dark wood wood and brass, and a Christmas tree and an open fire blazing in reception. We went to out room to freshen up and have a nap before having dinner in the bar.