The most famous of all national parks in Chile and Patagonia- Torres del Paine (Towers of the mountains named Paine). This park is located 2 hours by bus from Puerto Natales. It is known for the W-trek and O-treks. however you need to be pretty organised and book 6 months in advance to book camping or accommodation spots. I was not this organised, so stayed in town and commuted daily. Note this park is also the most expensive!
The first day (Christmas) was actually planned at Christmas Eve diner and involved a bunch of us from the ferry. We took the 7am bus, waited in a fairly long queue to purchase our entry tickets and took another bus to Pudeto. It is from here that we caught the catamaran across Lake Pehoe at 11am. The trip to Paine Grande camp site took 30min and we had some great views. We then headed towards Campo Italiano and planned to turn around once 2.5 hours were up, so that we can get the bus back.
The next day, the weather remained clear and warm- and very rare find this far south! So I decided to head off and do the most well known of the one day treks- to the viewpoint of the towers- Torres Mirador. The walk was shown as 4.5 hours one way- which was a close call t make it back to the bus on time. The walk was tough and pretty much all uphill. Then I got to the last- steepest section which is due to take 1 hour 1 way. I was already pretty drained, but thought that I would give this last bit a crack, as the whole walk culminated in the view of the towers, which you pretty much cannot see as you walk through the forest and valley. The last section is all uphill- clambering up the remaining large rocks and glacial moraine of the glacier that used to exist here. I got about half way up and looked at the time,and with a heavy heart I decided to turn around. I slowly made my way down the rocks, absolutely disappointed and devastated with myself that I didn’t make it to the viewpoint. Mostly due to my lack of fitness. I have included a photo from a friend- Marcel to show what I missed out on. It was taken on the same day.
