Hiking in Torres del Paine

From Puerto Natales, we hired a tent, sleeping bags and mats and a camp stove and set out to trek the "W" route of Torres Del Paine around the base of the statuesque Patagonian hills over five days.

Couch surfing
Our first couch surfing experience was a strange one. We ended up sharing a bottom bunk, in a dark small house containing a family of four, five other couch surfers and a hyperactive little dog. We were allowed to stay on the proviso that we hired gear or booked bus tickets through the family (albeit at below-market rates), which is not strictly in keeping with the couch surfing ethos, but it was a budgetary necessity. The host family were lovely, and we met some amazing people including a four people from France who are riding their bikes around the world. We got some tips from them, shared stories, and got to practice our french. 

Lago Grey
The weather when we arrived was pretty good (only slightly snowing) so we went straight over to the west side of the park and marched to Lagos Grey to see the large glacier there. It was pretty amazing, with icebergs breaking off the body of the glacier and floating down the lake. We stayed in the campsite and marched a couple of hours further on down the (closed) path to get a closer look then turned back to make sure we would get to the next campsite before dark.

Autumn colour

Everywhere we went the trees had turned to red, making all the scenery extra spectacular.

The tent graveyard, nailed down tents
Our hired gear turned out to be pretty good, even if Sam's pack weighed about 600kgs. 

We met three other groups of campers whose tents had broken during the trek; all of them at Paine Grande campsite "the tent graveyard" where we managed to weather the wind in reasonable comfort. 

Next night was v gusty as well with little shelter: the solution was to nail our tent down to a wooden deck - no joke, we had to scavenge and straighten a bunch of old nails first from the old wood using rocks that were lying around.

Bad weather
After three days of good-great weather we were pummeled with heavy rain and 180kmph gusts of cold wind on the next day's modest 5 hour hike up to a high pass near the base of the Torres peaks. A terrible day, we were completely soaked through to the skin, and shell shocked from being nearly blown over precarious cliff walks. We weren't the only ones; about 15 others squelched our way to the refugio and took shelter from the terrible weather.  Turns out the rain had flooded the rivers and washed away a bridge farther up the path, so we were evacuated the next day for fear of getting stranded if bridges lower downriver were also razed (which they were shortly after we crossed them).




El Calafate
After the trek, we shot over the border to Argentina for a rewarding mountain of meat from a parrilla, and an easy day trip to the epic Perito Moreno glacier. 

This glacier is still moving forward  at a rate of 2m per day, and constantly breaking away into the lakes around it. You can get really close and see house-sized ice cubes falling, hear the thunder clap as they break off. The face of the glacier looks like it is carved into a line of statues by the constant erosion and movement