Chile - Torres del Paine
What can I say about Patagonia and Torres del Paine? If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would probably be fair to say this: it's probably the most beautiful place I've ever seen.
Drawbacks? It's WINDY AS F*CK. I was sad to leave, but I have to say I was glad to be going to somewhere less windy, which is anywhere else in the world I've been :-D Also, driving around the park was a royal pain as 99% of the roads were horrible horrible gravel roads that made for very loud and very shaky journey. Also I had to be careful not to pop a tire on some evil rock.
To arrive in Torres del Paine we rented a car in Punta Arenas. A little Fiat... with a tent on it's roof! The national park is understandably very popular among tourists and accommodation choices are very limited. I read so many guides online about how to visit the national park and where to stay, but it was all so confusing... I could only find either multi-bed rooms in hostels that got booked up ages ago, or insanely expensive rooms in exclusive hotels. Luckily I managed to find a campsite just inside the park where they emailed me back and made a booking for me! Until the very last second I was worried it was going to turn up something was wrong, or the campsite was in a completely wrong place, or they knew nothing about our booking... but luckily, everything worked out! We parked in our spot complete with a fireplace and a little shelter with table. We were next to a river with pretty blue water.
It was pretty cold the whole time - but not terrible. We brought a shitload of eggs and pasta to eat and slept in our little roof tent. It worked out great, even though it didn't do a great service to our backs. Poor Zach was still before his back surgery and had trouble getting into and out of the tent without causing pain. My back was also not happy after a few nights. It was all worth the pain though - Torres del Paine was AMAZING.
Even though we were limited to only small hikes because of Zach's back condition (not that I was up for any major climbing) he had plenty of choices and saw marvellous places. The colours all around us were mesmerising. Many of the lakes very literally baby blue, the grass was vivid green, the mountains grey and white... all those contrasting shades created a scenery that looked utterly unreal. Additionally, the shapes of some of the mountains are really unique - the famous los Cuernos and the three towers were amazing to look at. When driving in and out of our campsite we would drive down a straight road with a view straight on the Cuernos and it was an unreal sight, couldn't stop staring.
We did three different trips: one walk with an amazing view of the Cuernos with a majestic waterfall on the way.
Second hike with a view of the three towers.
And a trip out to see a glacier. That last one was a little insane. To get to the glacier we had to walk across a beach and it was so windy that it was very difficult to walk (literally had to lean at like 30 degree angle to be able to go forward) and the sand was smacking my face so hard I had to wrap a scarf around it to avoid pain. I thought we would never make it to the other end but we persevered... and I'm not sure that particular view was worth it, but at least we completed the quest ;-) The way to the beach involved a small rope bridge that was understandably a bit wobbly in the wind. It wasn't bad for us at all but some people were having some major trouble. Obtained some hilarious footage of a woman trying to traverse the bridge while being shaken from side to side and holding on to her belonging for her dear life.
We saw many animals in the park too: a very chilled ARMADILLO, that just casually walked by our car in the middle or the road, countless guanacos, large birds of prey...
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