Torres del Paine Part II

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Torres del Paine 

Part II

Day 5 Quickie but goodie - Yeah, day 5 was fabulous we were able to sleep in, take our time packing our tent and eat lunch before we started because we had a nice short hike of only 3 hrs 6 km. This part of the trek was by far the easiest the only difficult parts about is were these steep (poorly maintained) ladders, muddy swamps, and another little fall :)   

 

Along the trail there was this beautiful view up one of the river. The mountains here are amazing; there is a wide variety, you have your traditional mountains covered with trees, then you have your steep rocky pointed mountains, and finally you have your straight rock wall cliff looking mountains. 

Yes, it happened again, I fell in the bushes, unfortunately this time my hand landed in a big muddy puddle. Mike was laughing hysterically :)

Tip for hikers: if you're going to do the circuit bring trekking poles with you. The hike is much easier with poles (especially if you lose your balance easily :). Thank goodness Mike found us these really awesome walking sticks.

Day 6 Third campsite is the winner - 22 1/2 km 7 1/2 hrs of hiking. We passed two campsites, both of which you had to pay to sleep in, before we made it to the third campsite which which was free. This day was long but the weather was extremely beautiful and the trail was not to demanding so overall, it was a very enjoyable day.

Floating out in the water, pretty far away from the main glacier, there was this gorgeous blue ice burg. It reminded my of titanic for some odd reason and yes it's pretty windy, check out my flying hair.

More spectacular views

Blessings from above: The second campsite we passed was by far the nicest campsite on the whole circuit; due to the fact that it's right on the port where all the ships come to drop off people who are just doing the "W" part of the trek and the fact that you had to pay to sleep there. So we decided that since it looked like a great area it would be a great place to relax for a bit and enjoy lunch.

The campsite was awesome and huge. It had a hotel, restaurant, huge area filled with tents, big bathrooms with running hot water and showers, a little store to buy food, and a huge kitchen for all the campers. In the kitchen they even provided gas to cook your food. The kitchen also had a blessings shelf aka: a shelf where other travels leave food that they don't want. Mike and I took some blessings and had a delicious meal (oatmeal with milk and real sugar, I know it doesn't sound like much it rocked). We also snuck into their showers and enjoyed our first shower in over 5 days :) There was also another hiker, Alex blue eyes from Russia, that we told about the awesome showers who snuck in right after Mike.

This is the campsite: In the middle me right after my glorious shower, to my right was the kitchen, to my left the bathrooms, and behind me were all the tents.

After lunch we had a nice hike to third camp, right before the campsite there was this really cool bridge that stretched across the river.

 

Day 6 Day of Freedom - Today was a day of relief and freedom from our packs. From our campsite there was a 6 hr hike (round trip) up to Valle de Frances so we decided to leave our tent and gear and take the day to hike it. It was the most liberating feeling not to have our packs with us. Valle de Frances is a valley surrounded by rock mountains, literally everywhere you look is a rock. You feel so small and insignificant next to these towering giants, its an incredible feeling.

The hike was beautiful and we only got lost once; sometimes when Mike is in front leading he forgets to look for the orange markers and we end up lost in the boonies.

This is one of my favorite places is Torres del Paine.

I love Valle de Frances!

It was a pretty cloudy throughout the hike but for a split second, once we were at the top, the sun came out and shinned directly on Mike. If you notice in the background it's all dark from the thick cloud coverage but Mike was lit up like a little angel.

Mike and I on our way down from the French valley. Check out the diverse terrain. The circuit trail has a bit of everything; from lush jungle, to rock cliffs, to muddy swamps, to sandy tree forest, to dusty dirt, and to makeshift mega stairs.

Us still on our way down and Mike with his uzie

Day 7 Short Cut - 26 1/2 km 10 hr. Today was exhausting. We didn't plan on going as far as we did but we made it to the base of the towers and now we can have a day to relax.

Tip for travelers: Don't pack much water. A great blessing about Patagonia and Torres del Paine is that the water is fresh and clean and you can drink from any stream or river you want. There are rivers and stream every where along the trail and so you don't have to carry much water.

Check out Mikes awesome beard and mustache :) 

Day 8 Taste bud Angel - The weather went from 7 days of sun and shine to rain and snow. On the morning of our 8th day we hiked up to the famous "Towers". As you can see by our picture the weather was horrible; rainy, freezing, and windy. Unfortunately, we could only see clearly two out of the three towers. On a positive note we ran into this other backpacker from Arizona named Cameron. He was down in Patagonia hiking Mt. Fiz Roy (another famous trekking area which we will get to in later posts) and decided to the towers for a day. On this hike he brought with him 3 sandwiches filled with two different types of meat and delicious cheese. He was kind enough to offer us a glorious sandwich and a small packet of cookies which we accepted with open hands. Seriously, as I took hold of that sandwich my mouth was watering and my taste buds were singing with joy. Mike and I had almost run out of food at this point and the food that we did have left, 1 meal of polenta and 1 meal of oatmeal, sounded disgusting because that's all we had really eaten in 8 days. Cameron we love you!

It started pouring rain as we were taking pictures and so Mike has a raindrop on his head

For those of you who do not know this is what polenta looks like. Polenta is made out of corn and kinda tastes like grits.

This is our other fabulous meal, oatmeal. Check out our awesome homemade tinfoil oven contraption. 

Day 9 Raining cats and dogs - It poured all night long, huge fat rain droplets. The rain was so loud that it kept us up half the night, it kinda sounded like water balloons hitting our tent all night long. When we woke in the morning it was still pouring rain and there was mud and dirt all over the outside of our tent. We had planned on catching the 2 pm bus back to Puerto Natales (bus only come once a day and since we were officially out of food we didn't want to miss it) so we had to hurry and pack a muddy tent in the rain and make our way down the mountain as fast as we could. 

This is a view from the bottom of the trail looking up at towers and on the left you can see the snow we got during the night.

We made it to the bus in time. This is the very start of the trail, in the far background right over Mikes left arm you can see the towers faintly.

Yahoo, we did it!!!! 

This trek and place is beautiful and we loved every minute of it!!!

The first thing we did once we got back in town was head straight to the supermarket. There we bought meats, cheeses, grapes, olives, breads, avocados, chips, nuts, drinks, and dulce de leche :)