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

Torres del Paine revisited (Part II)

...And then the wind continued through the night occasionally waking me up when the tent hit me in the face. The next morning the storm was not as strong. We managed to pack the tent relatively easy and after making some oatmeal for breakfast, we headed off to the next adventure. In the beginning Kathleen thought we were on the wrong trail because it was marked for horses. It was a bit weird I admit but I had seen ppl. coming from there with backpacks the day before so we pushed on, hoping for the best. It turned out to be the right way luckily and as the morning continued the weather seemed to be getting better. It was raining when we started off and we had our rain gear on but that only meant that we got wet from the inside out instead of the outside in. Things were going well and at the cross roads where the path leads up the mountain to the torres or down to the refugio, we decided to have lunch and rest before the big push up the mountain. However, as we were about to finish lunch a cold breeze swooped in and soon after it started to rain. We had a decision to make. Over the Torres, black rainclouds hovered and over by the refugio it seemed nice and dry. So it was not a hard decision to make. We had already done the walk up to the Torres before and saw them both at sundown and sunrise so we took the easy way out and headed to the refugio. The closer we got the more it rained and the more we knew we had made the right choice. We met a couple from the UK coming down who had turned back two hours from the Torres as the weather was terrible with fierce winds and torrential rain (no pun intendend). We were getting soaked and were extremely happy to get on the next bus back to Puerto Natales. There were lots of other people trying to get back and some were panicking when trying to get on the bus...thinking it might fill up and they would get left behind. Scary stuff...but we were pretty calm after our encounter with the pumas two days earlier...JUST KIDDING ;). There are pumas in the park and you do get advice on how to behave if you bump into one, but they are rarely seen.
Back in Puerto Natales, we went to our favorite fish restaurant. It was also where we went on our first date:) , and it was still as great as the first time. The next day we walked down to the Navimag office and booked a 4 day boat trip to Puerto Montt.

posted by Nonni @ 9:43 e.h.