The icing on the cake of our South American adventure was our five-day tour in and around Torres del Paine, a Chilean national park in Patagonia (the southern tip of South America shared by Argentina and Chile; the “end of the world”). Peter took the below pictures during our flight and descent into the Puerto Natales airport, the launching point for the tour.
Torres del Paine is dominated by the spectacular, granite peaks of the Cordillera Paine mountain range. The picture below shows the Paine Grande in the middle (note the varying colors of granite) and the three “Torres del Paine” to the left.
The intensely colored rivers and lakes, whose bright hues reflect varying sedimentary deposits, add to the magic of the area. Check out all the colors!
Our five-day tour with Chile Nativo was our biggest splurge of this four-month adventure. We chose a trek that allowed us to stay in hotels (most involve either camping or bunk rooms) and that included hikes both outside the park and within the park’s famed “W” trail. It turned out to be even better than we hoped. First, as luck would have it, we were the only participants who signed up for the tour on our dates. And second, we won the leader lottery with the brilliant, passionate, warm, and fun Francisca!
Taken together, our two bonuses meant that we also had a built-in Spanish teacher. Despite her fluent (self-taught, of course!) English, we asked Francisca to speak to us almost entirely in Spanish. She obliged and helped us enormously with our language studies. I also provided some lessons in English vowel pronunciation, but it was in no way a fair trade for her!
Francisca has a degree in food engineering and has been a guide in Patagonia for six years. Her passion for the area was infectious! It was so much more fun to observe a mushroom or a small flower when Francisca was along, practically jumping out of her skin with excitement at each sighting.
We bonded quickly with Francisca and dubbed her our “Chilean daughter.” Our son’s birthday was on the second day of the trip, which was perfect because, as you may recall, we spent our daughter’s birthday in Ayampe, Ecuador with our “Italian daugher” Ilaria.
During the first two nights of our tour, we stayed in a hotel with a perfectly framed view of the Grey Glacier and its spectacular surroundings. In addition to taking some amazing hikes in the area, we rode in a boat to and around the glacier. The icebergs in the picture below floated up to the shore near where we boarded the boat.
The Grey Glacier itself was stunning and enormous.
Sadly, however, the glacier was less enormous and probably less stunning than it should be, thanks to us humans. The rate at which the glacier is melting has been accelerating rapidly in recent years, as depicted in the below graphic.
Though the icebergs likely multiplied for the same tragic reason, they too were srikingly beautiful.
And the boat ride itself was a blast!
After the boat trip we danced and blew our way back to a beautiful trail, lunch with a perfect vista, and a waterfall.
Day three was the longest of the tour, with a fifteen mile hike along the W trail. Again, each vista topped the last! Unforgettable!
Following our long trek, we took in this sunset from our next hotel!
On day four, we crossed the park, observed wildlife, and ended at an amazing ranch with some of the loveliest lodging we ever have experienced.
The final day was extra special. First, our tour driver Billy arranged to have us observe the shearing of the many (many) sheep on the ranch. The sheep were organized in waves, and one by one they were removed from the pit, held tightly, and sheared. Billy explained that ideally all of the sheep’s fleece is removed intact. The sheep seemed calm and unbothered through the process, though a few had some nicks on their bodies afterward. Billy said the nicks were not necessary and would not have happened with more careful shearing.
We then went out for our final hike, this time along a trail where pumas are known to run wild. Throughout, Francisca searched diligently for pumas, but in vain. We did, however, see this 2600-plus-year-old cave painting.
And this beautiful scenery….
Then, just as we were loaded in the car and ready to head back to Puerto Natales, one of Francisca’s friends alerted her that a puma and her three cubs were nearby. We drove over, parked our car next to a ranger who was tracking the big cats, and waited. And waited. Francisca’s over-the-moon excitement was in itself entertaining during the interim. And then out came this beautiful mama puma, followed by her three 11-month-old cubs.
And with that we bid farewell to Torres del Paine, spent a couple more days in Puerto Natales, and flew back to Santiago.
From the Santiago airport, we drove three-plus hours south to Pichilemu, a wonderful laid-back surf town with a small but mighty Spanish school. Our time here has been full of fabulous surprises and joyful moments, but those will wait for my next blog entry.