Home |
South America |
SA Travel |
SA Books |
SA News |
Chile |
Planeta Chile |
Torres del Paine
In many ways it's fortunate that Chile's Torres del Paine National Park is not more accessible. If it were, it would be as crowded as any other world-class natural area.
Lying just 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) north of Antarctica, the 180,000-hectare UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protects the majestic thousand foot high granite towers that are its namesake as well as herds of guanacos (a wild relative of the llama), huemul (a Chilean deer), pumas, foxes, flamingos, Andean condors and hundreds of other birds and animals.
I was in Chile in February 1997 exploring Central and South America after working as an assistant managing editor of a newspaper in Mexico City for almost two years. I spent six months in 14 countries and Torres del Paine was the most impressive park in the entire trip.
Despite it's remoteness, there is a way of getting there (or leaving) that makes the trip even better.
The boat trip from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, the staging ground for trips to the Torres del Paine, is not the cheapest or fastest way to get south, but in my opinion it's the best.
The route starts along the island of Chiloe through the Gulf of Corcovado; you can see several huge volcanoes on the mainland if the whether is clear enough. You then enter open sea and cross the Gulf of Penas and then enter the Chilean fjords, the most impressive part of the trip. Some of the canals you sail through run for hundreds of miles. They look too straight to be natural but too huge to be man-made.
You can see inaccessible glaciers, mountains, dolphins, seals, and, occasionally, killer whales.
The MV Puerto Eden, a car ferry operated by Navimag, makes the three-day run once a week in either direction. There are cabins of varying size and luxury with the cheapest being the dormitory section below decks. We went with the cheapest option (which cost about $180 as opposed to $260 for the cheapest cabin) and were happy to have saved the money.
The ferry is also a great way to meet fellow travelers and put together groups for the Torres del Paine. All passengers congregate in the same common areas and the menu for all groups was the same, give or take a salad here and there. The food was plentiful but you'd do well to take purified water with you because the water on the ship is suspect.
The boat trip ends at Puerto Natales, a town of few endearments but many camping stores, hotels, and grocery stores -- perfect for staging expeditions to the Torres del Paine.
You can get yourself outfitted and supplied in a day without much difficulty at fairly reasonable prices. You can rent anything from stoves to tents to sleeping bags which is nice if you are on a long trip and don't want to lug stuff around the rest of the continent.
Of course you don't have to camp in the park if you don't want to. There is an excellent system of refugios which provides lodging and prepared meals. They even accept credit cards, though not American Express.
For most of the visitors, the major decision for visiting the park is whether or not to do the "Paine Circuit" -- not to be confused with the Circuit of Pain.
Bragging rights aside, there's not a whole lot of reasons to do it according to the people I met. Most hikers complained that the trail was poorly maintained, that the campsites were littered with garbage and the scenery was not worth the effort. It also takes between six to eight days which requires a lot more preparation. The common response I heard to the question "How was it?" was a string of curses.
A better choice if you have less time or just want less hassle is what the park rangers call the "small circuit" and what most travelers call "the W" based on the shape of the trail. This more-traveled route covers the three most famous and impressive attractions -- the base of the Torres themselves, the Valle Frances, and the Grey Glacier. It could be done in four days if you were in a hurry. Six days would be better.
We did the W in four days and wished we had five. We hiked into the Pehoe campground our first day base and did day hikes from there.
One day we hiked up to the Grey Glacier, the westernmost point of the W, a seven-hour hike along iceberg-dotted Grey Lake that ends at the base of the huge glacier. The wind blew down the valley and the trail at almost 45 mph at times. At some points it was all we could do to make forward progress or stand erect.
A second hike took us out to the Valle Frances that runs along the base of the Cuernos del Paine, soaring granite towers similar to the Torres, the middle point of the W. In the valley we saw a condor circling before it finally perched on one of the huge towers far above us.
On our last day we intended to try to make it to the base of the Torres, the third point of the W, but our luck with the weather finally ran out and the rain sent us back to town. I think we should have done that part our first day and skipped the hike into Camp Pehoe.
(One thing to be aware of if you plan to hike the entire W is that the trail shown on some maps connecting Campo Italiano with Los Torres the is not maintained by the park and is reported to be extremely rough. Several people I met needed two days to do it even though it is only 7 miles (12 kilometers) long.)
Most heartening about the park though, was the number of Chileans we met there. After visiting so many fantastic places in Latin America where the nationals either couldn't afford to visit or didn't care to, it was heartening to run into Chileans of all ages hiking there.
Brent Chism is a writer and editor currently living in Washington, D.C. On his trip, he contracted scabies in Potosí, Bolivia and is now a proponent of the $4 a night hotels instead of the $2 variety. He travels frequently in Latin America and advises visitors to Camp Pehoe Refugio to "beware the tuna loaf." he can be reached via email at bchism@earthlink.net.
Eco Travels in Chile
Home |
About |
Advertise! |
Books |
Central America |
Ecotourism |
Headlines
Learn Spanish |
Mexico |
Media |
Site Map |
South America |
World Travel |
Updates