Wednesday, March 21, 2007
To the Bottom of the America and Back
Well, its been over a week since I got back to Santiago, but better late than never right? So a couple of fridays ago my dad and I headed down to Punta Arenas, basically the last city on the South American continent. Tierra del Fuego is further south, but its an island; because of time constraints we didnt make it all the way down there to get the end of the world stamps in our passports, but seeing as thats about all there is down there, I'd say we didn't miss to much. So, here's what we did do:
We arrived in Punta Arenas ridiculously early in the morning, and spent saturday checking it out. There's not that much to see really, its a port town that absorbs a lot of tourists who, like we were, more interested in heading to Torres del Paine. We had a warm-up hike in the hills behind the town that are part of national forest reserve. You can tell its a harsh climate because all the trees were 5 feet tall and bent over. From the top we could see over the town, across the Straight of Magellen, and a bit of Tierra del Fuego; basically it was stripe of brown, stipe of dark grey, stripe of brown, stripe of light grey.
In the afternoon we got on a bus that took us out to the penguin colony on Isla Magallena in the Straight of Magellen (creative naming in that part of the world). We spent a couple hours out there looking at the penguins and then headed back to town.
The next day we started our trip up to Torres Del Paine National Park. An early bus up to Puerto Natales, couple of hour layover, then on to the park, after a long day travelling we started hiking up to the first campsite with about 2 hours of daylight left. The drive up into the park was pretty rough, on a bouncy gravel road with terrible latin balads blasting on the stereo. At least it was nice outside the window. One of the amazing things about the scenery in Patagonia was that it kept changing between things I felt I'd seen before. On the drive in we passed through a mountain valley with a wide flat bottom, tall yellow grass, and short but wide green trees that looked like stereotypical pictures of the Rift Valley, inside the park we'd come down a valley with a Rocky Mountain feel to it out onto a more open plain of rolling hills just like the North Yorkshire Moores, through forest like the temporal Rainforests in Washington State and up to Alaska/Norway-esque glaciers and lakes. After 2 hours hiking up we set up camp at Los Chilenos Campsite where we spent the (cold wet) night.
One of the valleys we drove through on the way to the park
The valley leading up to Los Chilenos campsite
The next morning (monday I think) we left camp and headed up to Mirrador los Torres at the bottom of the torres from which the park gets its name. Contrary to popular (well, my) belief, Torres del Paine is not named after Towers of Pain, which I assumed was a hugely popular Chilean metal band. After scrambling up a rockslide for an hour we got to the mirrador; the towers were sort of breaking through a low cloud so we didn't really get a good view of them, but looking back down the valley was pretty amazing.
Los Torres
We headed back down the way we came, out of the valley, and around the foot of a mountain towards the Los Cuernos refuge where we spent the second night. From up on the hill we had a spectacular vista over a series of differently colored lakes and a wide wide valley with some snowy peaks on the otherside. EEEEEEIIS NIIIIICE!
As we approached the refuge the sun was setting behind what turned out to be Los Cuernos, alternating between blinding and beautiful.
Tuesday we made for the French Valley which sits between Los Cuernos and a peak with a Glacier. Walking up through the forest and over the creeks with a river next to us the whole was really peaceful, the quite broken only by the pant pant of other hikers and the sound of avalances coming down the peak next to us. Every so often we'd reach a clearing or a small peak to see Los Cuernos towering over us and the valleys spread out below us.
Los Cuernos
The French Valley glacier
looking back down the French Valley
Unfortunately at this point my camera decided to jump into a stream. It stopped working for a couple days, then started talking in Chinese, and now it works again. Luckily my dad had his own camera, so we weren't without. After coming back down the valley we had a long hike across to the Lago Pehoe Campsite where we spent the night. This part of the hike was pretty windy, but walking along beautiful lakes for a few hours I didnt notice it too much.
Thursday we left camp and headed to Glacier Grey. Past more lakes, through more forests, next to waterfalls, and finally up to Lake Grey and the Glacier itself. The whole day it felt like we were researching scenery to put on water bottle labels.
See what I mean? Once we got back to the glacier we turned around and covered our tracks back to the Refuge at Lago Pehoe where we spent the night. By the time we got back we'd walked about 9 hours a day for 3 days plus 2 hours the first evening, a total of about 80km, about half of it with our backpacks on (beacause of the shape of the trail and the backtracking, it was possible to leave the bags for long secions like the french valley, the hike up to Mirador Los Torres, and the entire last day). Thursday morning we caught a boat across Lago Pehoe that dropped us at the administration building where we got the bus back to Puerto Natales. On the way out the clouds were higher, and we got some nice views of the Cuernos, as well as finally seeing the Torres. Overall, we'd had a bit of wind, one night/evening of rain, one freezing cold night in tents, but had been really lucky with the weather: 3 days of pretty much solid sun is rare in Patagonia, and thats essentially what we got.
Los Torres (in the middle)
We left Puerto Natales early on Friday morning for a day trip into Argentina to check out the Perito Moreno glacier. Chileans say its not the biggest glacier in South America, but everyone else seems to think it is. After a long bus ride across the Patagonian Pampas we made it to Calafate, Argentina's answer to Jackson WY in terms of wild west style architecture and tourist development. We spent a few hours checking out the glacier, and taking a boat trip right up to it on the lake. I've never had the urge to throw someone of a boat as much as when I heard some loud (more proof for my theory) American voices saying "man, global warming eh? thats crazy! look at all this ice! thats just some political shit from Al Gore and the Democrates!"...the fact that we were literally watching huge chunks of ice fall of the glacier obviously didn't register. Whats wrong with these type of people? In whose benefit is politicizing an issue that clearly poses so much of a threat to life on this planet? ARGH!
the glacier and part of the lake it feeds
from up close
from afar
the pampas on the bus ride home.
Saturday we wandered around Puerto Natales. Down on the docks we found an entire fleet of old wooden fishing boats ashore, some of which had a few men working away trying to get them ready for the ocean; i think you could make one of those motivational posters for 'hope' (or a parody one of 'futility') with a picture of them. In the afternoon we headed over to the cave of the milodon where theyve found remains of the milodon, an extinct friend of the saber tooth tiger.
the harborside
WHEN MILADONS ATTACK!!!
that was Patagonia then. Sunday I came back to Santiago and have been here since. Tmrw night The Evens are playing in town, and I'm heading into Argentina again this weekend.
We arrived in Punta Arenas ridiculously early in the morning, and spent saturday checking it out. There's not that much to see really, its a port town that absorbs a lot of tourists who, like we were, more interested in heading to Torres del Paine. We had a warm-up hike in the hills behind the town that are part of national forest reserve. You can tell its a harsh climate because all the trees were 5 feet tall and bent over. From the top we could see over the town, across the Straight of Magellen, and a bit of Tierra del Fuego; basically it was stripe of brown, stipe of dark grey, stripe of brown, stripe of light grey.
In the afternoon we got on a bus that took us out to the penguin colony on Isla Magallena in the Straight of Magellen (creative naming in that part of the world). We spent a couple hours out there looking at the penguins and then headed back to town.
The next day we started our trip up to Torres Del Paine National Park. An early bus up to Puerto Natales, couple of hour layover, then on to the park, after a long day travelling we started hiking up to the first campsite with about 2 hours of daylight left. The drive up into the park was pretty rough, on a bouncy gravel road with terrible latin balads blasting on the stereo. At least it was nice outside the window. One of the amazing things about the scenery in Patagonia was that it kept changing between things I felt I'd seen before. On the drive in we passed through a mountain valley with a wide flat bottom, tall yellow grass, and short but wide green trees that looked like stereotypical pictures of the Rift Valley, inside the park we'd come down a valley with a Rocky Mountain feel to it out onto a more open plain of rolling hills just like the North Yorkshire Moores, through forest like the temporal Rainforests in Washington State and up to Alaska/Norway-esque glaciers and lakes. After 2 hours hiking up we set up camp at Los Chilenos Campsite where we spent the (cold wet) night.
One of the valleys we drove through on the way to the park
The valley leading up to Los Chilenos campsite
The next morning (monday I think) we left camp and headed up to Mirrador los Torres at the bottom of the torres from which the park gets its name. Contrary to popular (well, my) belief, Torres del Paine is not named after Towers of Pain, which I assumed was a hugely popular Chilean metal band. After scrambling up a rockslide for an hour we got to the mirrador; the towers were sort of breaking through a low cloud so we didn't really get a good view of them, but looking back down the valley was pretty amazing.
Los Torres
We headed back down the way we came, out of the valley, and around the foot of a mountain towards the Los Cuernos refuge where we spent the second night. From up on the hill we had a spectacular vista over a series of differently colored lakes and a wide wide valley with some snowy peaks on the otherside. EEEEEEIIS NIIIIICE!
As we approached the refuge the sun was setting behind what turned out to be Los Cuernos, alternating between blinding and beautiful.
Tuesday we made for the French Valley which sits between Los Cuernos and a peak with a Glacier. Walking up through the forest and over the creeks with a river next to us the whole was really peaceful, the quite broken only by the pant pant of other hikers and the sound of avalances coming down the peak next to us. Every so often we'd reach a clearing or a small peak to see Los Cuernos towering over us and the valleys spread out below us.
Los Cuernos
The French Valley glacier
looking back down the French Valley
Unfortunately at this point my camera decided to jump into a stream. It stopped working for a couple days, then started talking in Chinese, and now it works again. Luckily my dad had his own camera, so we weren't without. After coming back down the valley we had a long hike across to the Lago Pehoe Campsite where we spent the night. This part of the hike was pretty windy, but walking along beautiful lakes for a few hours I didnt notice it too much.
Thursday we left camp and headed to Glacier Grey. Past more lakes, through more forests, next to waterfalls, and finally up to Lake Grey and the Glacier itself. The whole day it felt like we were researching scenery to put on water bottle labels.
See what I mean? Once we got back to the glacier we turned around and covered our tracks back to the Refuge at Lago Pehoe where we spent the night. By the time we got back we'd walked about 9 hours a day for 3 days plus 2 hours the first evening, a total of about 80km, about half of it with our backpacks on (beacause of the shape of the trail and the backtracking, it was possible to leave the bags for long secions like the french valley, the hike up to Mirador Los Torres, and the entire last day). Thursday morning we caught a boat across Lago Pehoe that dropped us at the administration building where we got the bus back to Puerto Natales. On the way out the clouds were higher, and we got some nice views of the Cuernos, as well as finally seeing the Torres. Overall, we'd had a bit of wind, one night/evening of rain, one freezing cold night in tents, but had been really lucky with the weather: 3 days of pretty much solid sun is rare in Patagonia, and thats essentially what we got.
Los Torres (in the middle)
We left Puerto Natales early on Friday morning for a day trip into Argentina to check out the Perito Moreno glacier. Chileans say its not the biggest glacier in South America, but everyone else seems to think it is. After a long bus ride across the Patagonian Pampas we made it to Calafate, Argentina's answer to Jackson WY in terms of wild west style architecture and tourist development. We spent a few hours checking out the glacier, and taking a boat trip right up to it on the lake. I've never had the urge to throw someone of a boat as much as when I heard some loud (more proof for my theory) American voices saying "man, global warming eh? thats crazy! look at all this ice! thats just some political shit from Al Gore and the Democrates!"...the fact that we were literally watching huge chunks of ice fall of the glacier obviously didn't register. Whats wrong with these type of people? In whose benefit is politicizing an issue that clearly poses so much of a threat to life on this planet? ARGH!
the glacier and part of the lake it feeds
from up close
from afar
the pampas on the bus ride home.
Saturday we wandered around Puerto Natales. Down on the docks we found an entire fleet of old wooden fishing boats ashore, some of which had a few men working away trying to get them ready for the ocean; i think you could make one of those motivational posters for 'hope' (or a parody one of 'futility') with a picture of them. In the afternoon we headed over to the cave of the milodon where theyve found remains of the milodon, an extinct friend of the saber tooth tiger.
the harborside
WHEN MILADONS ATTACK!!!
that was Patagonia then. Sunday I came back to Santiago and have been here since. Tmrw night The Evens are playing in town, and I'm heading into Argentina again this weekend.
Labels: miladon, patagonia, perito moreno, torres del paine
# posted by jacob @ 5:40 PM 
