We’d arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday and despite it being Thursday jet lag still wasn’t done with us. We both woke up at 2am and while I tried to get back to sleep (eventually relying on half a sleeping pill) Glen decided to eat a Snickers.

Loudly.

Actually, it wasn’t the eating that was the problem, it was the crinkling of the wrapper. For some reason he didn’t take the damn bar out of the wrapper and kept munching away, peeling the wrapper back millimetre by millimetre.

Dear reader, my husband is lucky to be alive.

We woke up at 6:30, got up, dressed, and went upstairs to the buffet breakfast. There was a generous spread (though the eggs were scrambled and runny) so we stuffed our bellies in preparation for the hike ahead.

Chorillo Pingo

We joined the group in the lobby a little before 8am for the Chorillo Pingo half-day “hike” in the national park. 

Our guides, Lucas and … (I’ve forgotten his name but he was friendly) and the driver Jorge took us into the park about 45 minutes to a visitor centre.

We were a group of about 13 and we were going for a walk along the Grey River towards a waterfall, going through forest and across plains.

We set off over some not too tough terrain. There was a bit of up and down but it was mostly flat and mostly exposed. 

We stopped frequently for photos as it was totally stunning. The river was a true force of nature, wide and strong, as it carried glacier water down through the park.

Berries grew along the side of the path – one called calafate (a bit like a blueberry) and another that’s like a very tiny pink apple (about the size of the big blueberries you get back home). 

I was overjoyed at being able to eat nature as Glen will attest to my pathological need to devour wild berries. 

Newfoundland was amazing for this and Torres del Paine is the same: the guides had given us carte blanche to eat the berries as none of them were poisonous.

The ripe ones were the best (of course).

We stopped at an old rancher house, one of the rooms being called the “Presidential Suite”, where we were given a bit more information about the park and its formation.

I was distracted though as there were four white horses here and I was much more interested in patting them. One of them finally came over and stood next to me for a while as I stroked it. I was in heaven.

And how could I forget! We saw a puma paw print in the mud. It was perfectly formed and there was only one but it was such a treat. 

On the drive out the guide showed us a video of a mother puma and her two cubs walking along the road the day before so we were primed for seeing them.

Even though we didn’t actually see a puma ourselves, the print was super exciting!

We continued our walk, reached the mirador (lookout) and the waterfall in some dense, very green beech forest, ate a snack, and then turned around and walked back.

I admit to being a little tired by the time we returned, exhausted from more walking than I’ve done in a while, the jet lag, and the overwhelming beauty of the landscape around us.

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Mirador Cuernas

You think you know what windy is? You don’t know what windy is. 

After lunch, we joined the group at 3pm for our afternoon hike, a little reticent about going on another walk after that morning’s efforts, but FOMO dictated we couldn’t not go.

There was about an hour’s drive into the park. We got out car at the waterfall mirador and were nearly blown over by the wind.

Apparently, the wind gets so bad in the park that hikes are regularly cancelled, including about a third of the hikes that we were about to go on. 

And considering how windy it was, I struggle to understand how it could get much worse! A couple of people in our group actually got blown over. I’m not talking about a bit of a stagger, I mean fully hitting the ground. It was THAT windy.

But, despite this, we continued on. 

We looked at the waterfall, walked through a fairly easy trail (this one better than the morning one for being able to look up rather than at your feet the whole time), and cutting across land that had been devastated during the 2007 (2011?) fire. 

Eleven thousand hectares burned and the white trees remain.

We passed a lake (the water was chilly) and after about an hour made it to the Mirador Cuernas which is a spot above a lake which gives you a closer view of the mountains.

Torres del Paine means Blue Towers and relates to the tower-like mountain peaks and the blue haze they give off.

The interesting thing about their appearance, though, is the banding that runs across them. 

The lower part of the range is sedimentary rock, then there’s a layer of igneous/volcanic, and then another layer of sedimentary on top.

Apparently this top later of sedimentary rock is too crumbly for mountain climbing — though I’m sure that doesn’t stop everyone.

It’s spectacular, but you’d be hard pressed not to be blown away (ha!) by how amazing the whole place is. It looks like a painting, something not real and totally idyllic. I loved it.

During our stop we spotted a condor gliding far above us and then four guanacos appeared on the crest of the hill behind us. Our first guanacos! Our first condo! (More about the animals on the next post.)

We then returned to the bus, taking about an hour, and absolutely busting to go to the loo. The landscape was a bit too exposed to go behind a bush but when we finally did the wind made it an interesting experience…

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FOMO is a bitch

Yes, I have a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out). I thought I had it mostly under control but when there’s the chance of seeing animals in the wild it goes off the charts.

While talking to people in the group and various guides, the option of doing the 22km hike to the base of the Torres became an attractive option.

Yep, 22 km of hiking looked attractive. 

This was mostly because I thought there’d be a good chance of seeing puma. Guides talked about the spectacle of it all and that it was their “favourite hike”. 

So, despite having the full-day Paine tour booked, a tour that is done by bus and covers a good whack of the park, and despite being more than a bit sore after the day’s strenuous activities, I went and enquired about switching to the Base Torres hike.

It was booked out. Oh no! What would I do? Our only option was to see if anyone pulled out at the last minute. Glen wasn’t as upset as I was.

At dinner, I told people in our group that we (mostly me) wanted to do the hike and that I’d try the next day. 

Someone else was booked in and thought they might cancel so there was an option but the more the evening wore on — and after a couple of glasses of wine — when I was presented with the chance I baulked and said I’d sleep on it.

And boy, am I glad I did!