Sam is a Lazy Sausage

As Sam is a lazy boy he has asked me to continue on from his last post, even though he is supposed to be doing up to our current location. I believe  he left you all at Puerto Madryn. So we left Puerto Madryn another early start and headed across the Patagonian steppe towards the Chilean border and Torres del Paine National Park free camping along the way. The Patagonian Steppe looked like mid-west America, very flat farm land with the occasional small house. We felt very isolated as there were few towns or road houses and subsequently few options to pee along the way as there were no bushes to hide behind so all us girls would get a lot of honks as we all crouched behind the bus and exposed our bottoms to the oncoming traffic.

by the second day of driving the landscape began to change and hills began to appear and finally these amazing snowcapped mountains appeared as if out of nowhere. We then headed across the Chilean border and into the stunning Torres del Paine National Park. By this point the weather had changed considerably and we were very grateful for the blanket we bought in BA as it was Freezing(quite literally )at night. We set up our tents in the rain and wind and attempted to acclimatize and prepare ourselves for the grueling walk up through the mountains to view the granite towers that give the park it’s name.

Amelia has handed back the reigns to me for the last part of the post even though it is clearly her turn to post. Anyway, in order to make the most of the trek to the Torres, we had to get up early in the morning, read 5:30, to meet our transfer to the start of the trek at 8:00. However, not realising there was a time difference between Chile and Argentina, our tour leader forced us up at 4:30! However the walk more than made up for it; the path took us up a mountain valley above the snow line along a fresh mountain stream and up a steep scree-covered slope to a magnificent azure lake surrounded by sharp towers of granite; the inside of a granite intrusion which had forced up the surrounding mountains 12 million years ago. The trek was definitely hard work on the feet but there was a nice hostel at about the half way mark selling cups of tea which was much appreciated. The hostel was so remote that they would bring in supplies by horse and was situated in a valley with amazing views. We decided we would both like to work there for a month or two.  All in all we walked about 20 kms that day which was quite an effort considering over half of it was up mountain sides. We passed many hikers doing the proper hike ie carrying all their stuff doing either the W walk that takes about 5 days or the longer loop walk that takes about 7 days  and have decided we would like to do the whole thing properly one day in the future as the park is incredibly beautiful with lakes surrounded by mountains covered in  snow and glaciers.

The following day we had another early start to make it to the Ferry to take us to the beginning of our next walk the Frances Valley walk. This walk was supposedly much easier than the previous walk despite being 8 kms longer. Supposedly there were less hills.  This was a lie. The walk was amazing but hard work, it took us through a whole variety of landscapes and vegetation from heathland to forests; we had to scramble over boulders underneath a waterfall scramble up rock faces cross raging rivers on suspension bridges that could only hold two people at a time. We had to keep a cracking pace as we were determined to make it there and back  ( we had to make it back in order to catch the last Ferry across the lake to get back to camp). The hard work payed off  as only five of us made it to the top and the view was incredible and it was snowing( and we were all wearing next to nothing having shed layers rapidly as we worked up a sweat climbing and rapidly had to put the layers back on in order not to die of hypothermia.

Next two days we just enjoyed around the campsite due to the fact that getting the transfers to all the walks cost about $50 Australian each. Instead we enjoyed staying in one place and not putting the tent up and down constantly.  We also managed to suss out the nearest 5 star hotel and enjoyed drinking a 5 hour hot chocolate and scabbing free internet and warmth (as it is very cold in Torres) and enjoying the amazing views in comfort.

Four days later we sadly left Torres heading for Ushuaia. We have been staying in the local rugby club which sports great camping grounds and facilities. Camping has been freezing cold at night until we get warm and then it is bearable. Today we just walked around the southernmost city in the world (I (Sam) had to do it in shorts and a t-shirt as it was laundry day, which gave the locals a good laugh at least.) and tomorrow we will visit the Tierra Del Fuego National Park and see the end of the Pan-American Highway. Hopefully we will update the blog on a more regular basis from now on.

-Samelia-

P.S. The time of posting for this post is approx. 1 week after writing.