Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

The Torres del Paine National Park lies to the extreme south of Chile, in the Chilean Patagonia. To be precise, in the XII Región of Magellan and Chilean Antarctica (Chile is divided into 12 regions).
The province is known as "Ultima Esperanza" (Last Hope).
Hope is not a word I would use. Reality is more like it. Hopeful Reality. Or perhaps Realistic Hope.

I am afraid Patagonia has stolen my senses, and senses ...
...if I seem to lose my mind. I left it somewhere there, wandering the Patagonian plains, lakes, forests and mountains.

It is an area roughly 242,242 hectares large and was officially declared a National Park in 1975, and from this date to today, has been administrated by the National Forestry Service of Chile (Conaf). On the 28th of April 1978, the United Nations recognised it as a World Biosphere Reserve. Thank Goodness! This has enabled ... more

The Torres del Paine National Park lies to the extreme south of Chile, in the Chilean Patagonia. To be precise, in the XII Región of Magellan and Chilean Antarctica (Chile is divided into 12 regions).
The province is known as "Ultima Esperanza" (Last Hope).
Hope is not a word I would use. Reality is more like it. Hopeful Reality. Or perhaps Realistic Hope.

I am afraid Patagonia has stolen my senses, and senses I did not have a lot. So do forgive me if I seem to lose my mind. I left it somewhere there, wandering the Patagonian plains, lakes, forests and mountains.

It is an area roughly 242,242 hectares large and was officially declared a National Park in 1975, and from this date to today, has been administrated by the National Forestry Service of Chile (Conaf). On the 28th of April 1978, the United Nations recognised it as a World Biosphere Reserve. Thank Goodness! This has enabled many endangered species to recover and strive in this beautiful habitat, most spectacularly, the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), which seems ubiquitous there and is hardly bothered by the presence of humans.

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Torres Del Paine is known as one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and no one could contradict this. The topographical extremes are overwhelming: there are about 27 lakes, rivers and lagoons, 24 summits, and over 10 glaciers.

I had heard so much about it before going there; I had read about it, seen photos and been told about its extreme beauty by past visitors. But all this did not prepare me for the shocking beauty of the place.

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I drove there with my ex-partner and our son, having used the Argentinean motorway to get to the extreme south of Chile, as the Chilean one is rather bumpy.

But there are many ways of getting there, you can fly into Punta Arenas in Chile and then take a bus from there to the park with a tour company, or go to Puerto Natales (112km south of the Park) and catch one the many buses that shuttle back and forth from there to Torres de Paine at least 2 to 3 times a day. The buses have to be taken from the junction of Valdivia and Baquedano as Puerto Natales has no central bus station.

You can also fly from Calafate in Argentina; this will get you to a small airfield near Torres del Paine. Buses can be taken from Calafate as well.

However, for more information on how to get there, as this is not really the point of this review, I would advise you to get in touch with the Chilean Consulate or to check this website:

http://www.gochile.cl/html/Paine/TorresDelPaine.asp

Of course, you can also find a lot of information from a Lonely Planet or similar guide book.

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The main entrance to the park is the Portería Sarmiento, and then there is a bit of a drive to the administration (about 35 km), where there is a Conaf visitor centre with some interesting exhibits, and some useful maps and information about the park. The entry fee was $12 for foreigners when we went there (less than 2 years ago) but cheaper for Chilean nationals.

We drove in this way on a rather cloudy and windy day.
The weather in this area is severely unpredictable; Torres Del Paine being very near the Patagonian Ice field and the Pacific Ocean, and it is not surprising to experience winds of over 100 kms per hour to bright sunshine in the space of 2 hours. You have to be prepared for all kinds of weather and pray that you will at least get a few hours of clear skies.

As it happens, this is what happened to us. I cannot forget my first impressions. A long winding road took us down towards a lake whose colours I can hardly describe. I could see the mountains hidden by a mysterious mist that seemed to clear away only to become denser. I made my ex-husband stop near the lake, whose name I did not even ponder about asking, as its beauty had me in a state of utter amazement.

I descended from the car with my camera in hand, and hardly had I stepped down from it that I was transported a few meters away from it by the sheer power of the wind. I started laughing while wisely pulling my woolly hat down on my face, and could see my son desperately begging to be let loose as well. He came out of the car with his dad holding him very tightly and trying to stand firmly, for although he is a tall and strong man, the wind was stronger. He was trying to say something, but I was about 20 meters away from them and whether it was the howling of the wind or my bewilderment at the mesmerising turquoise of the lake, I could not hear a thing.

I was still laughing though, out of absolute happiness and tried in vain to take some pictures, but even my camera seemed to whisper: "Never mind the pictures, just admire and revel in the beauty that surrounds you".

Well, I did get back into the car before being physically blown away into the lake, and after having blackmailed my son into doing the same (I will give you TWO chocolates if you promise not to jump into the water) for he had somehow managed to free most of himself from his father whose physical strength seemed to amount to that of a feather faced with the wind that descended upon us.

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Back into the car, we drove on for another hour or so. Into the park and past steppes of intense greens and rusty colours, greys, blues, and deep browns, earthly browns that seem to draw you towards them and invite you into the centre of the Earth.

Not quite.

I could hardly see the mountains now and was about to start cursing my luck when, out of the blue (or should I say the grey), the wind died down and the sun appeared with a wink of complicity. It all happened so fast that I felt it was just a dream. But it wasn't. Or rather it was, but a dream come true.

We parked the car in the first place we could and let ourselves loose in the wilderness of Torres Del Paine, our hearts merry, our spirits free, the rest of the world forgotten…

The mountains were still shadowed by some happy cumulus clouds (how did they get there so fast??) but the mountains are only part of the charm of the Paine.

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It is worth mentioning that "Paine" means bluish, in the Tehuelche language. The Tehuelche are one of Patagonia's first inhabitants, they were hunter gatherers and lived in this part of Patagonia (as well as many parts of Argentinean Patagonia) as far back as 11,000 years ago, and perhaps longer. They hunted mainly guanacos and ñandus for their meat and skins.

Isn't it a wonder that these "natives" hunted these animals for thousands of years, a time during which they remained plentiful in the area, but that in less than a hundred years, the colonisers of Patagonia managed to drive both races nearly to extinction?

Oh and I forgot to say, and somehow managed to exterminate the Tehuelche as well.

But enough of that.

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After a couple of hours of exploring a tiny area of the park (the happiest was Orlando, Lalito, my son), it started to get dark. And I mean really dark. Almost black clouds gathered in the sky once more and a heavy rain began to fall as if the end of the world was approaching.

We prepared our bed in the car (it was a large 4x4), had dinner (bread, cheese and wine), and as nothing outside was visible, decided to sleep.

The next morning, I was the first to wake up.
It was dawn, and I love nothing more than to wake up with the sun (he has been know to reveal secrets to me).

The day was clear, the sky was limpid and promised a display of magical colours. I felt like a little girl, childhood was back!
I stepped down from the car, very quietly, with my camera of course, and with a smile I could not contain, which I found myself struggling not to let loose into a burst of ecstatic laughter.

I realised we were near a tiny forest, but I could make out bright, blindingly white "bits" in the background. I started to walk and without my noticing it, my legs took a life of their own and began running, jumping above logs and bushes and little flowers. Try as I may, they would not obey me, so I followed.

I was dressed in cotton leggings, a t-shirt, ankle boots and a sweater I pulled over my head at the last minute. I can't remember if it was cold, I was too happy to remember such trifles.

I came to a clearing between the dead branched of a magnificently twisted tree, I glimpsed a red necked woodpecker, which swiftly flew away before I could point my camera at him. I realised I was trembling. I still could not say if it was the cold or the excitement, but I was trembling and smiling until my jaws ached.

Then I saw them. The snippets of glaciers floating in Lago Grey (Lake Grey). Bits of the Grey Glaciers gracefully floating on the water. Their geometric shapes as harmonious as any mathematical equation (which I have never quite understood).

I was far from them and at that point, my mind did not reason that I should get closer to them before discharging my camera's shutter uncontrollably. I was torn between two thoughts: should I go and wake my son and his father up to witness this magnificence? Or should I just carry on my way and discover even more by myself?

Well, I will let them rest and wake up by themselves to be awed.

I walked and walked and walked. I had woken up at around 5.30 am. It was now 7 am and I was still walking. I walked past silvery dead tree trunks, tiny purple blooms (what were they?) the gentle waters of the Grey River, beneath green lush trees of many sorts, and found myself facing the huge bits that had detached from Glaciar Grey. I took more pictures than I have ever taken in such a short space of time. Then I sat down and admired.

When I got back to the car it was past 9 am and my son and his dad were awake.
I spewed out a chain of gibberish, which none of them quite understood and ended up gesturing towards where I had been. This, they understood.
Why are words so useless when we think we most need them?
Perhaps because we don't.

We had breakfast (had brought a thermos with us, which we filled with hot water from one of the refuges nearby, very friendly guards) and then decided to head towards the glacier proper.

I discovered there was a shorter way to get to Glacier Grey than the "long shortcut" I had taken. Ah, but I discovered amazing things on this path!!

A special bridge was constructed, which you reach after walking through a nice little forest, and which takes you right in front of the "beach" of Lago Grey. You are then just a few meters away from the little and not so little icebergs that have come unstuck from Glaciar Grey.

You can reach bits of this millenary ice with your bare hands and this we did. My son enjoyed licking them. They are crystal clear and I bombarded them with pictures. Some friends of ours told us how they had used this ice on their trip the Torres Del Paine to drink their whisky on the rocks. Sadly, we had only wine with us.

Oh well!

A rocky path, quite easy to climb, led us to the edge of the glacier. It is bordered with Ciruelillos (Embothrium coccineum) bushes with their bright orange blooms, which contrast beautifully with the stunningly white icebergs.

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One you reach the edge of the glacier, you have to stop. It is not allowed to walk on any of the glaciers in the park without prior permission and this, only with a special guide, which makes perfect sense.

Likewise, mountain climbing in the Paine requires a Special Permit from Conaf, which must be applied for well in advance of your trip there, and this costs about $100.

The Park is full of marked trails for trekkers, these go up and down winding paths along some of the most scenic parts of the Park. Any off trail walking also requires a special permit from the Park rangers.

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Well, we spent almost the entire day near Lago and Glacier Grey and the day was clement with us. Delicate Cirrus clouds formed in the deep blue sky above us and rendered the scenery a little bit more special.

But Torres del Paine is huge and so it was time to move on.

We drove past even more lakes and guanacos, I even saw a condor at one point and tried to fly towards it, but my wings were not powerful enough.

Anyway, I will say no more about my personal experience for the 3 days that followed, except to say that Nothing was disappointing and each place could compete with the other for beauty. But the beauty of it all was precisely the lack of competition and the harmony that pervaded over the entire park.

From mountains to forests, lakes, waterfalls, steppes… each had its message of beauty to pass on, and imprint upon your memory.

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We stayed four days there, and so did not have the pleasure of discovering all or even most of the Park. I would say that a week is not enough if you really want to get to know all of the park, but it is still better than four days.

Depending on the weather as well, some days may be wasted.

The best time to visit is during the summer time (December to March)

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Torres Del Paine is full of accommodation sites. There are at least 3 luxury hotels inside the park and countless refugios and camping sites, spread out throughout the park. You will need to book well in advance, even for camping sites, as the place gets filled up rather quickly.

For more information on this, again, I must direct you to the website above or any recent guide book about Chile.

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As mentioned earlier, the flora and fauna is very rich in this amazing park. One of the most beautiful little flowers I saw is called "Zapatito de la Virgen" (the little shoe of the virgin) (Calceolaria uniflora). But there are also many kinds of beautiful wide orchids, berries, the calafate (Berberis Buxifolia) being just one of them.

Among the fauna, there are of course, the guanacos, huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) from the deer family, and one the Chilean endangered species, the Zorro Chilla (Dusicyon griseus) apparently very docile and easy to approach, although I did not see any, flamingos, eagles, condors, woodpeckers, ñandus (Pterocnemia pennata) somehow similar to ostriches and other animals…

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Many special sports can be practiced in the park, trekking of course, climbing, kayaking, rafting and ice hiking.

And this, according to one Paine Adventure guides I have, is the special equipment required to trek/camp/visit the park:

Hiking boots (water proof), waterproof jacket and trousers (gore-tex), thermal, synthetic undershirts (capilene), fleece jacket, wind stopper gear, hat with ear-cover, thermal gloves and socks, fleece scarf, sleeping bag - 10º C, compression stuff sack, mountain backpack 90 liters, daypack (to transport personal belongings such as camera, water bottle and extra clothing), sandals, towel, flashlight, roll mat (therm-a-rest), sun glasses (UV protection, solar protector factor 30 min.), face and lips mosquito repellent, baseball cap and trekking poles (optional).

Well… if you are going to camp and trek, you will certainly need these.

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One the most famous landmarks of Torres Del Paine National Park are the "Cuernos Del Paine" (the Horns of the Paine), an imposing mountainous figure, and the Towers themselves, "Torres Del Paine", three granite peaks that sprang out around twelve million years ago from beneath the Earth's crust to decorate this part of Patagonia.

These are clearly visible on a bright day, but there is much more to Torres Del Paine than this. Undoubtedly an entire ecosystem to itself, very well guarded and protected (make sure you do not drop any litter there and lighting a fire anywhere near the park is tantamount to suicide) for extremely good reasons.

Yes, it seems like a very far place to reach, indeed it is not very close, but travelling the distance is well worth it. The adventure you are bound to live there is not one that can be repeated anywhere else, of this I can say that I am sure.

The landscape is simply uniquely overpowering. Because of its exceptional location, the sights that are to be witnessed there are matchless. The weather, although somehow hostile, is part of its charm; the different lighting situations that strike the park are sometimes like an optical illusion, one that will keep on enchanting and bewitching you whenever the mention of the name "Las Torres Del Paine" is uttered.

Yes, perhaps Torres Del Paine is haunted, but only by delightful spirits.

PS: Sorry, I have posted mainly B&W images, most of my images are slides and my slide scanner is waiting for an adapter.
 

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