"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans"

Torres del Paine revisited

Hello again, Hope everyone has had a very good Christmas. We had a nice one too... a different one but very nice. Anyways, back to the travel story...where were we...oh yes: Puerto Natales.

The town Puerto Natales has a very special meaning to us especially Torres del Paine national park where we got together. That was the main reason we decided to return to the area. After a day relaxing and preparing for our trek, we headed off on Monday the 10th of December. We started at the Posada Rio Serrano this time, at the Ranger station. This was the only part of our trek we had not done before. Bill, at the Erratic Rock, managed to get us a special deal on a tour bus so we could see the Cueva de Milodon - A huge cave where the biggest one was 50 meters high and 200 meters deep - and also to get us to the start of our walk about 3 hours earlier than with the normal bus as they were taking the new road. There was, though, a slight problem. It turned out the bus was driving exactly the same route as the regular bus making us almost 4 hours behind schedule. However, the cave was cool, and we saw condors up close, plus a lone fox that was begging for food from the tourists practically sniffing their hands. So finally when we started our walk around 2 in the afternoon we had a big task ahead of us. Not only did we have to walk about 6 hours to the refugio at Pehoe but we had to walk against the wind...and I am talking gale force winds. I got blown off the trail at least 20 times sometimes by at least 5 meters; but luckily it did not happen while scaling narrow paths overlooking an ice cold glacial river. The views were pretty spectacular. For most of the trek we had panoramic views of the whole Torres del Paine mountain ranges.
We got to the camping place about 20:00 and after pitching the tent (with difficulties in the strong winds) we headed to the Refugio for some supper. We had decided to have dinner at the refugios this time so we did not have to cook and so we did not have to carry so much food, it is after all, our honeymoon and we deserve small luxuries once in a while ;). It was a canteen and only one menu for everyone. As we got through the queue and to the register this happened:
" Are you staying at the refugio?" the register guy asked me
"No we are camping" I answered politely back, looking forward to having a nice dinner after a hard day of walking.
"Ok, then it will be 38 us dollars per person" he said casually
"What!", my voice was getting a bit less polite by now, "but it says 30 dollars outside?"
"Yes that is for the guests who are staying in the refugio...for you it is 38 dollars...is that ok sir?"
"is that OK!? No it is not OK, it is extortion, it is daylight robbery...it is....it is..."
at this time Kathleen was tugging at my shirt saying in a low voice "Jón, just pay the man and let´s go...your holding up the queue". The cashier guy was looking at me like I was about to smack him one...but then luckily for him I decided to back down and pay the ransom they were holding for my food. And besides, there were more poor campers behind us that would protest about the same inequality and have to pay the food ransom for not staying in the extortionate refugio.
The next morning it was still windy...I remember asking at some point a local guy if it was always windy there and the answer was something like: " no no not at all...I remember one day two years ago where it was almost not windy" Anyway, this was just a sign of what was to come. The day started quite well. We had some sun and the walk was beautiful. When we arrived at the encampamiento Italiano we had lunch and instead of walking to the Valle Francais where we had already been the first time around, we pushed on to campamiento las Cuernos (the horns) to save time and be well rested for the next day. We passed a beautiful pebble beach and cooled our feet in the lake sitting there for a while enjoying the sunshine. Half an hour later we were at the Camping place and just managed to pitch the tent before all hell broke loose. The winds were unbelievable. We heard from people who had to run from tree to tree at the pebble beach between the strongest gusts -where we had been sunbathing half an hour earlier- so they did not get swept into the lake. Two guys trying to camp could not hold on and the whole tent was gone in seconds never to be seen again. Being inside our tent was like being in a tumble dryer and for a short period I realized how it must be getting caught in a tornado. As we were having our dinner in the refugio, it sounded and looked like the roof was going to blow off any minute. The storm was so intense that the water in a waterfall in the mountains above never reached the bottom as the wind just swept it away. And if it was not raining heavily, which it was most of the time, the wind actually drenched us with water it had collected in the lake about half a kilometer away.
And then....(to be continued!!)

posted by Nonni @ 7:28 e.h.