Thursday, February 28, 2019 – the pics are out of order… lo siento (I’m sorry)
Up at 6 AM today to make a long overland trek to Torres Del Paine, Chile. It’s about 600km (400 miles) round trip from El Calafate, Argentina, where I am staying for the next few nights. I was greeted by a beautiful sunrise as I waited to be picked up for my trip to Torres.
End to end, it was a very bumpy and sometimes dusty 15-hour ride in this crazy bus-truck.
I was seated in the very back, so every bump—and there were many—jostled me and bounded my ample body up and out of my seat! Sort of like a carnival ride, the one that you survive and vow to never go on again 🤪
Worth every minute…
The sky is simply vast here. No air pollution, minimal contrails, and displays of multiple colors and cloud shapes throughout the day. I could easily spend the whole day just watching the clouds blow by, but there is limited time to experience and explore this place of such special beauty, so I wait for another time to reflect and remember the good fortune I have to be here…
Back to the story. The 27ish people on the bus were an amazingly diverse group, including Japanese, Brazilian, Argentinian, Belgian, and couple of countries I didn’t catch during introductions. I was the only American. The two I was fortunate to sit with live just outside of Amsterdam. Jaccoliene and Nico are trekking various parts of Patagonia and left our tour mid-way to spend a few nights in Torres del Paine before making their way south in Argentina. We will try to meet up later in our trip, as our time in my next stop might overlap with their schedule for a night.
I realized on the way back to Calafate that Torres was visible in the distance from just over an hour out of Calafate, but on the way there I was on the other side of the bus, blissfully unaware and simply enjoying the clouds and scenery in the other direction. We passed lots of guanaco (llama-like critters that are abundant here), rabbits, lesser rhea (big, gray, ostrich-like birds, but smaller (who knew?)), flamingoes, and various other birds. Hard to photograph while bouncing and moving at a good clip, but beautiful and fascinating.
After moving through customs and immigration to leave Argentina and enter Chile, we arrived in the park. Our first close-ish look of the most iconic view of Torres came at Mirador Lake, with the peaks and horns reflected in the still waters of the lake. From there, I can’t recall the names of all the places we saw, but I kept the map, so I can try to recreate the route later when I have more time.
We stopped for lunch at a roaring waterfall on the Rio del Paine, and still within view of the “towers of blue” (Torres del Paine translated). Continuing on, there were many lakes and unbelievably beautiful vistas.
The hike we took was quite nice and we walked for about 2-1/2 hours. I thought we were at a high elevation… Ha! At this point we were only about 200 feet above sea level!
Upon completing the walk, we re-boarded the bus, reversed our way through customs and immigrations of both countries—where the Europeans in the group reminded me of how “easy” traveling between countries is on their continent—and returned to Calafate just after dark.
This summary seems rushed to me, as I’m leaving for a full day at Perito Merino glacier in less than 1/2 hour. Hopefully, I’ll have some time this evening to catch up on today’s activities and revisit yesterday here…
Travels with Nance 