Navimag

When I got back from the Torres del Paine trip on two Mondays ago, I found out that there were still tickets available for the Navinag, a cargo ship that provides space for people heading up to Puerto Montt from Puerto Natales (the city I was in). It only leaves once a week, boards at midnight, and takes 4 nights. So without even showering (it was pretty bad), I walked down to the ticket agency, got a discounted ticket - which wasn't too bad considering it covered room and board for 4 nights as well as transportation - then got back to the hostel at 7 pm with five hours to shower, repack my things for another trip, meet the group from Torres del Paine for a farewell dinner, and get to the boat with all of my stuff by midnight. It all went very well but I was extremely tired.

The boat itself covers 1400km and apart from 100 or so people it has many cattle and sheep, which you could hear and smell. Along the way, it passes many uninhabited fjords and was covered by a thick veil of fog for the first 2 full days - a bit of bad luck, but it really made the trip feel ethereal and at the end of the world. On the last day the sun came out and we spent the whole day outside, slathered in sunscreen of course. It was all good fun.

Torres Del Paine

Torres Del Paine has been the highlight of my trip thus far. It is a national park in Chilean Patagonia and one of the most famous hikes in the world. There are many different hiking options available - the "W," the "U," the "I," or the "circuit," among others. I did the full circuit which incorporates all of the others and typically takes 8 days, which is how it worked out for me. The entire way the path is very clearly marked out with markers and well-trod clay, so getting lost is very difficult to do. The weather is capricious and when it really acts up the winds can reach 120 km/hour - enough to knock a grown man off of his feet. Fortunately, I didn't experience that although there were some strong gusts on the last day. People told me stories that when a gust like that comes in, you can see massive waves along the lakes getting sucked up with it, providing a bit of warning.

The full circuit goes around the mountains and then leads into the more crowded "W." In total it's about 120k or so - very tiring. A good bit of it was up and down mountains, including one day when we ascended to 1240m from 540m and then descended to 540m again. That was one tiring day, but when we reached the top we got an incredible view of a glacier that stretched out further than the eye could see. Every day you stop at a designated campsite and they normally have a bathroom and shower, but they cost money. Sometimes they don't have those facilities, but it doesn't really matter because who wants to shower every day when you're hiking, right? I started off on my own like many others but we quickly settled into a group of sorts. We would hang out at night and sometimes hike together, going ahead or falling behind as we felt like it.

On the last day, it is best to get to the Torres at sunrise to see the spires turn a bright orange, which then fades. So we duly set out at 5 in the morning in pitch black on a 2 hour hike, sweating up a mountain in a t-shirt with the snow falling in the pitch black - a pretty cool experience. We ultimately were unlucky with the weather and couldn't see the famous view on the last day but it was still not a bad way to end the trek.

Along almost the entire way we were surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery on earth.

There are way more pictures if you want to see them on flickr - just click on the photo stream at the top right.

El Calafate

El Calafate was a lot of fun. We ended up staying for three nights because the tour we wanted to take - a four hour hike out onto Glacier Moreno - was booked for the second day, but the wait was worth it. We occupied ourselves for a day by wandering around a nature reserve with tons of birds.

Really nice.

The next day, Lara and I met up with Megan - a fun Kiwi - and we joined a bigger group out on the ice. We headed off at 7 in the morning and got back at around the same time in the afternoon. Glacier Moreno is the only glacier in the world that is not receding and outside of Antarctica and Greenland, it and some other glaciers around it are the third biggest glacier deposits in the world. Here's what the glacier looks like:

After getting off a boat, we hiked a pretty easy 50 minutes to the edge of the glacier and put on crampons - claw-like appendages to our shoes that let us walk around on the ice.

It is a weird sensation - it is impossible to slip with them on as long as you walk properly and point your feet in a way that your ankle is always perpendicular to the slope so you don't roll your ankle. After about an hour they are easy to use.

We walked around for almost four hours on the ice and it felt like another world. A couple of occasions we came across crevices that dropped down 30 - 70 meters. If they were wide enough to be dangerous, a guide would stand near it and shepherd us along. Other times, we'd walk right over them. Here are a lot more pics:

Great trek - loads of fun.

I'm now in Puerto Natales and will hike around Torres del Paine the day after tomorrow. If my blisters seem up for it, I'll do the full circuit which could take 5-10 days depending on the weather.