As I sit here next to a roaring fire, wearing just about all the clothes I own, I can hear the ferocious wind whipping through the low buildings and across the town square out the front of my hostel.
I’m also acutely aware that they breed them strong down here in Puerto Natales or I’m a giant pansy. Somehow the wind is doing nothing to deter the musician and his loud speaker from entertaining the brave (or maybe they just know how to be appropriately dressed) crowd in the square. He’s excellent and I’m all for free folk entertainment. He’s now competing with dozens of car horns doing a slow moving parade through the street, I think it’s something to do with international children’s week…they did it yesterday too.
It’s certainly a lively town and not a place to come for peace and quiet, that’s done about 140kms out of town…
Christian the affable tour guide and Victor the speed-freak minibus driver were in charge today and we covered a lot of miles seeing some of the best sights Torres del Paine has on show.
Back in the 1890’s the local German immigrant pioneer, Herman Eberhard and a few of his mates found fame by unearthing a skin belonging to a milodon – a megafauna creature that shared the plains with sabre-toothed tigers, prehistoric horses and paleo-man, doing his best to not get hunted for food and skin with as much luck as you’d expect an ancestor of the sloth to muster. The theory is man would herd and chase them to the top of cliffs and force them off…hardly sporting of them.
The cave where the skin was found is now a heritage site and you can walk into the 200mtrs deep, 80mtrs wide and 30mtrs high chamber that was over 1000 years in the making as glacier melt, then inland sea washed away the mudstone crease, leaving the cave.
Continuing on to the crossroads town of Cerro Castillo which hasn’t been left untouched by the tourism dollar wand, and sits just shy of the border with Argentina for a coffee stop, stopping only to take photos of the first glimpse of the Torres Del Paine formations and test our strength against the freezing wind. The wildlife came out to perform too with loads of guanacos giving us a passing glance, and a show of over 15 condors all flying across the steppe together was a rare sight.
Salto Grande is a waterfall that thrusts itself over the ledge and pours from Lago Nordenskjold (yes, that traditional Chilean surname…), into Lago Pehoe. Its other distinguishing feature is the magnificent backdrop of the Cuernos del Paine (Cuernos means “horns”) and Cerro Paine Grande. It’s reached at the end of a gritty, wind-blasted walkway and the thundering water is the milky aqua of glacier melt water.
Nearby is part of the park that went up in smoke in 2011 due to an Israeli hiker deciding to flout the rules and burn his rubbish. He also managed to burn over 13,000 hectares and was fined the paltry sum of 120,000 Chilean pesos, about AUD240. He then spent over $9500 to avoid a conviction. They’re now trying to raise the fine to something that is actually effective. The trees grow very slowly due to the weather and you can still see dead trees from a fire that happened in 1985 so it’ll take some time for the forest to regenerate to its potential density.
Up the road, past the muy caro Hosteria Lago Pehoe with the USD300/night views was our lunch spot – again I was blessed with a sensational picnic location, albeit exposed to the elements, thankfully the cafeteria served excellent coffee. Views across Lago Pehoe and up into the Cuernos del Paine and beyond, so very amazingly grand.
Onward with more rally driving from Victor had us at Lago Grey in the early afternoon to take a hike across the moraine left behind by the retreating Grey Glacier. Akin to walking on the soft sand at Marcoola, for about an hour my mind wasn’t on the walking challenge, but again the wind. With even less to stop its advance it raced down the glacier and across Lago Grey to give me a buffeting I would imagine could feel at home at the Boxing Day sales, with a little less bitch-slapping.
The walk was worth it, views up the lake to the glacier featured massive ice bergs in obscure shapes and sizes and chunks washing up on shore, letting us feel close to the ice. I played in the water and ice for as long as it took to not feel my fingers anymore before we ambled back over the gravelly moraine. The change from open space to treed forest on the side is abrupt and birds flit among the branches calling out to each other. For such a windswept place, I never thought of it as desolate at all.
Soft sand trek to the shore of Grey Lake 
Crystal clear glacier ice 
Grey Glacier in the distance
We stopped a couple of times on the way home to take photos of guanacos up close and to attempt to capture a shot of a condor circling in the wide open sky, getting back into Puerto Natales around 5.30pm. I got my first kiss from a Chilean, Christian was a great guide and had a hug and a kiss to give away as they dropped me at the hostel.
Upland Goose 
Guide Christian 
Bucket list tick
I leave tomorrow for Punta Arenas to break up the long trek to Ushuaia. It’s only a short trip Chile, but never fear, the warmth of your people has ensured I’ll be back, even if the warmth of your weather is severely lacking 😉 Chau!