Torres del Paine, Patagonia

Torres del Paine, Patagonia

Just north of Tierra Del Fuego, the Torres del Paine National Park is at the southern end of the Chilean mainland.  It is a magnificent park comprising mountains (the start of the Andes), lakes, of differing colours, and glaciers.  We stayed here for seven days over the Christmas period and we were very lucky with the weather: plenty of sunshine and not continual excessive winds (unusual for this place).

We stayed our first two nights at the Grey Lake, so named for the colour of the water which is primarily melt water from the Grey Glacier.  It was quite strange to find icebergs in an inland lake.  We hiked here and Dave took a boat ride to visit the glacier (Francine thought she had seen enough for a while having just returned from Antarctica). 

From there we drove through stunning scenery to the Péhoe Hosteria (hotel) where we overnighted for two nights in their carpark, which had a stunning view across the lake to the mountains.  We attempted a short hike but were thwarted by the wind – Francine literally could not stand up in it when we reached a saddle between two crests.  We did manage the (less windy) hike to the Cuernos Lookout, meeting French family (Florian, Valérie & kids) again, having first met them in July in Northern Argentina!  We also bumped into our Swiss friends, Sybille & Hermann (first encountered near Montevideo). Everyone comes to Torres del Paine eventually! 

The hike to Lake Cebolla from Laguna Azul, on a windless, but slightly overcast day, took us 22km (return) along the lakeshore through fields of large white daisies and yellow dandelions, up over some hills, then down to Lake Cebolla, where we shared a packed lunch before returning.  Driving back to camp we saw a puma cross the road before ambling over the hill.  Very special.

The next day, Dave made a solo attempt to the Base Torres – a 10km ‘difficult’ all uphill hike to this famous look out.  He started a 6am (to beat the hordes bussed in from outside the park) and ‘summited’ at 9:45am.  The hike started with a relentless uphill section followed by a downhill section to a refuge (for overnighting hikers) and then through a forest before the final and difficult last kilometre climb to the lake.  After an hour of taking in the view, eating breakfast and taking selfies, Dave started back down to return to Francine and Big Bertha at 2:15pm.  He was quite proud his old legs still worked!

It’s so nice to be in Big Bertha with plentiful fuel, gas, fresh water, waste tanks and solar electricity. We are easily able to wild camp for two weeks, which makes visiting parks like Torres del Paine affordable without needing to pay the expensive campground fees.  The park authorities here are very tolerant of people overnighting in campers in the carparks.