Hi it´s Roy here and my first attempt at the bog, whoops blog...
El Calafate to Puerto Natales via bus was pretty much unaventful and took about 4 1/2 hours. We didn´t have anywhere booked so checked out a few hostels and found a nice one, Bulnes. Dumped our bags and had a quick look around the town to get our bearings and that was it for the first day.
Second day we found the supermarket and purchased provisons and had a good look at our options for the hikes available within Torres Del Paine national park. Found two that we fancied and booked the return trip to the park for the following day.
Third day, up nice and early and boraded the bus to the park, outward journey took 2 hours getting us to the entrance at 11ish. We then had to wait for the minibus to take us to the area where our hike was to begin. Started our hike to Torres Del Paine look out (three big rock towers) at 12.
The first leg was easy, a 1/2 hour walk to a big hotel where the main hike was to start.
The second leg to a little way point was to take us 2 hrs and it was raining. It was hard going, mainly up hill, made it to the way point in the 2 hrs. We stopped to try and dry off and made some sandwichs with the provisions we had brought the day before. We stopped for about 1hr all told with getting in and out of gear and eating.
The next leg was to take 1 1/2 hours to a overnight camp site, the rain had easied of a little so the conditions where a little better but the walk was harder. The footings made it difficult in the bad weather and the inclines where stepper.
The last part of the hike should take 1 hour and take you to the look out point, we should have brought mountainering gear, it was insane, we climbed straight up for about 30 minutes and my lungs where exploding, my knees and calves where killing also. Sarah decided she didn´t want to go any further up and I said I wanted to continue after getting this far. I left the rucksacks with Sarah, grabbed my camera and continued on up. I climbed up for another 20 minutes and I didn´t seem any near to the top. Time was running out for the return leg, so I made the decision to start heading back down. When I got back to Sarah, I fired off a few quick pictures of the view of the towers and we then prepared for a quick hike back to the bus. It was 5pm and we needed to be back at the bus for 7:30, was gonna be close.
We speed back, both exhausted, no stops and as fast as we could. It seemed to take forever but got back to where we needed to be at 7:45 and had missed the last bus :(. We had no choice but go and get a room in the hotel, it wasn´t cheap!! Both exhasuted and full of aches and pains, I jumped in the bath for a long hot soak and then jumped into bed. Sarah decided it was best for her to have a soak to and then also hit the sack. We both now know why they call it Torres Del Paine.
Up at 9:30 for breakfast, back to the room to pack our gear and onto the minibus at 1, back to the park entrance. Jumped on the bus to return us to Puerto Natales at 2:30 for the 2 hour ride back to town...
