Sorry about the entry title, it has to be the most clichè travel entry title for Chile, but its appropriate, I swear. After hopping the bus out of Ushuaia, I was headed towards Puerto Natales, a sea port located in the middle of Chilean Patagonia. It was the city from which I hoped to take a three day cruise north, but it also turns out that its the base for hiking in one of the most popular and spectacular parks in the world, Torres del Paine. I have to admit ignorance about Torres del Paine, having only heard of it from pretty much every backpacker I met in Buenos Aires. Since it was such a big hit, I figured I´d check it out before trying to catch the boat.

As it turns out, because Torres del Paine is such a popular draw, it is also very expensive, and Puerto Natales, as the base city, has decided to follow suit. Coming from Argentina it was shocking to pay over $5 for a sandwich and a beer, but I managed to find a very reasonably priced hostel in the house of an older gentleman named Pancho (also the name for a hot dog, and poor Pancho looked as if he´d seen a bit of overprocessing as well) and his daughter. They were very helpful and pleasant, especially since I was the only person staying there. I´d managed to sneak in well after the busy season and just before the cold, though the wind had a lot of bite to it. Pancho clued me in on all the details about getting into the park and hiking the most popular sections. The favored route of ill-prepared backpackers is called the "W" because it is a series of three consecutive incursions into the massive series of mountains found there, and the three hikes together make a "W"-shaped trail. The reason this series is so popular is it can be done in 3-5 days and can be done without camping equipment. This all sounds terrific until you realize that to hike the "W" without camping equipment requires staying in $30 per night hostels along the way, and if you don´t bring sufficient food, the cost of three meals a day is another $30. For someone travelling on a $25 per day budget, that´s a bit steep. Instead, I elected to empty all out my superfluous equipment and rent some "field-tested" equipment from Pancho at the bargain price of $7 per day. Had I been a smarter man, I would have checked this equipment a little bit more carefully, particularly the sleeping bag, but we´ll get to that later. My next problem was plotting my course for the "W". I need to be back to Puerto Natales in time on Thursday to buy my ticket for the boat, which meant I´d have no more than four days and three nights to get it all done. I also wanted to sleep only in the sparsley-distributed free campsites as opposed to the more abundant and useful $5 per night sites. All-in-all, I figured a route that had me hiking between 10 and 12 hours per day, and about 6 hours the final day, before the last bus left at 1:00. That seemed reasonable enough, since the sun was currently coming up around 7:30 and setting around 6:30. Planning isn´t my strong suit.

The following day, my bus picked me up and hauled me off to meet my doom. As should be obvious now, I knew very little about what I was getting myself into. In the summer, all recommendations for hikers were for sturdy, waterproof boots and clothing/equipment able to handle strong winds and cold weather. I was headed into the park in mid-fall with a pair of slip-on leather walking shoes (neither terribly supportive or waterproof), gear I´d seen only momentarily, but which seemed sturdy enough (duct tape is windproof, right?), and an unlined wind/rain jacket (no rain pants) with a fleece along for warmth. As far as I was concerned, I was ready to take on the world. For food, I´d decided on Ramen noodles (or the S. Amer. equivalent), instant soup, hot dogs, oatmeal, instant coffee, two rolls of cookies, granola bars, and peanuts with raisins. Yum.

I arrived at the park around 10:30 and tried not to wince visibly upon paying my $18 entry fee, but the pain was eased by the view from the entry gate, fully 5km from the start of any trails.

I was excited by the potential. I´d learned along the way somewhere that "Torres" means towers and the main attraction of the park are the three large rock towers standing up above the scenery. The fisrt section of the "W" was the hike in to the base camp below the Torres, where my first free campsite was located. I had about 8 hours for what appeared to be 5-6 hours of hiking on the map. The first 5km was along a road, and while there were vehicles shuttling hikers along, the cost money, so that would never do. In fact, the walk was interesting as it was the only section of the "W" that went through the area that burned. This year a huge fire was started in the park by a careless Czech backpacker, and it had really removed everything. While I had arrived late in the season, there were still a number of people setting out on hikes, and I jumped into the crowd with them as we started the long slow ascent. The first stretch of trail into the Torres is the steepest section of trail, and as the sun was beating down on us, it made for slow going. I was genuinely concerened about my 12 hour day coming up, but decided I´d worry about that when the time came. After passing the uphill stretch, the going was much easier, and I found that I was able to beat the times posted on the map by a considerable amount. I arrived at the base camp by 2:00. I decided to set up my camp and shoot up for a look at what all this fuss was about. They were awesome.

The three individual towers were standing above a glacier which fed into a small pond. The sheets of rock would probably scream out to any rock climbers worth their salt, but to me they were just impressive spires of granite shooting up into the sky. Unfortunately, the sunshine of earlier in the day had gone by the time I arrived, but it was still magnificent. Since I´d run out of water, I decided to fill up from the centuries old source of glacier water at the base of the towers. Someone later told me glacier water was supposed to be a laxative, but it treated me fine and was tasty and cool. Upon returning to my camp, I cooked dinner and prepared for bed. It was only now that I realized the folly of my ways. Pancho had given me a small mummy-style sleeping bag. I am not a small man. Upon shimmying into my cloth coffin, I found that the material only came up to my elbows, and was almost impossible to zip up around my chest. All this would have made for a humorous joke if I weren´t quite afraid of the cold temperatures which made this park famous. Snow had been melting away at the entrance when we arrived, and I was now considerably higher up. I also had neglected to determine what the temperature rating of Pancho´s sleeping bag was. For all I knew it could have been the equivalent of a Care Bear´s K-Mart special. Naturally, these useful revelations did me little good now. Instead, I began the interesting process of trying to squeeze myself into the bag. I found that if I jammed my feet into the bottom corner of the bag, I could stretch the material on one side with my knees and the other with my butt just enough to get my shoulders beneath the lip of the fabric. It meant, however, that I was stuck on my side, with my ear facing the hole made for my face. This seemed like a minor problem. Closing the zipper, however, was not a minor problem. Through acts of contortion, I managed to get one hand free enough to weasle up in front of my chest, though it was little more than an opposible flipper as my arm was completely pinned. By shifting my shoulders at an angle, I convinced the zipper to close up, and set out on a very uncomfortable night of sleep.

The following day dawned beautifully (no snow on the ground), and I got underway at a good hour, about 7:30, right with the sun. I had scheduled about 10 hours to get over to the next campsite, at the base of the second big mountain, on the backside of the Torres. The good weather didn´t last long, though. As I reached the exit of the trail into the Torres, a dark cloud began to spit rain and snow down on me, and a hefty wind picked up. The unpredictability of the weather in Torres is oft-mentioned by hikers, but is apparently a bit steadier in the fall. The first day had been clear and calm, but it seemed my second day would not be so pleasant. As I edged around the ridge forming the first "U" of the "W", I was hit by wind, and lots of it. I spent the day fighting against unbelievably strong winds, mostly in my face. On a number of occaisions, a gust would abruptly end, and I´d stumble forward, or the direction would shift and catch me at the side. At these times, my backpack acted like a sail, and on a couple of occaisions I literally was spun around and had to dive to the ground to avoid being blown of the mountain. The rains I expected never came, but a constant mist was brought up from the lake below and pelted me throughout the walk. I still made fairly good time, but as I turned into the middle portion of the "W" I was exhausted from fighting the wind, and ended up with a nasty ankle sprain. I still managed to get in around 2:30, and decided to limp up the mountain as far as I could get. From here, I got some photos of the glacier perched on the mountain, and, since I was lame and unable to get to the top, they were about all I captured on film for the day.

For the evening, I decided to give myself more options, and instead of my evening contortions, I put on all my clothing and slept half-out of my bag. Luckily, the weather wasn´t too cold and I was considerably more comfortable.

The following day, I decided to revise my plans and cut the trip short due to a lame ankle, but I was determined to see as much as possible, so I got up early again and got on my horse to cover as much territory as possible. Luckily, the day was gorgeous, and the sunrise made for some terrific pictures of the scenery.

Without the wind twisting me around, I was able to walk with relative comfort and hoofed it into the third leg of the "W", which travels on flatter terrain over to a large glacier. Having seen glaciers before, I wasn´t too worried about missing out, and I still managed to get some photos of the snow-covered Andes
over the lakes in the distance.

It was a good day, and I wasn´t too worried about cutting the route short. As it was, I´d walked almost the whole "W" in just over two days (I was only short of the whole thing by about 2.5 - 3 hours). Not too shabby. The downside was that instead of hiking to a campsite and walking out to the bus, I ended up having to take the $18 ferry out of the park. This hurt me immeasurably, but offered outstanding photos of the scenery of the park. I can´t put them all here, but if you´re curious you should check out the photo page, photos.yahoo.com/luvnlife_sa.

With that, I headed off to Puerto Natales with a little more time (a full day) to track down a ticket to the boat. This was good news as the bus brought us back to town after 6:30, and I would have missed the hours of the ticket office had I completed my planned itinerary. As for the boat, I´ll get to that in my next posting.