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About to embark on a 3 day camping trek in Torres del Paine (See picture) - more to come soon!
To take up where we left off in Puerto Natales, we had an early start to get to Torres del Paine and begin the first of three treks. The first was the Torres walk, billed as relatively easy by Lonely Planet and the most difficult by our tour leader we set off with trepidation. Russ powered on ahead for awhile leaving me with the possibility of being blown off the side of a cliff in complete isolation! Three hours later and we reached the top for a spectacular view of the Torres, what we were met with was harsh wind and light snow. 15 minutes of the coldest picnic in the world and we were on our way back down with no further clue as to what the Horns look like.
I had been looking forward to the camping aspect from the beginning with fond ideas of beers round the campfire, maybe some music and toasted marshmallows if I was lucky. There was a campfire yes, but it was possibly the poorest excuse for one I have ever seen (mainly because we didn´t want to burn down the national park). This meant it was every man for himself jostling for position around the campfire (well it turned out be every woman for herself whilst the men stood around being manly). As you can imagine this situation didn´t provide the best night´s preparation for the two further days of trekking! However, our tour leader Alan turned out to be an old romantic and had setup a honeymoon suite for us. This consisted of the standard tent with a cardboard sign taped to the front, two bottles of wine and some flowers in a bottle! As most of the group didn´t have this luxury most of them opted for horse riding on the second day. Russ and I preferred two legs and nailed the second day´s walk with the Irish contingent slightly battered and bruised. A chest infection had reduced Russ to my level of fitness and left him gasping and spluttering up any hillls that we climbed (this is my normal state of affairs)!
All in all, Torres del Paine was quite the most spectacular scenery that either of us have ever experienced and would recommend it to anyone. We´ll get some photos online as soon as we can as words cannot really do justice.
Hope all is well.
Kathy and Russ Brown
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