Day 22 - Torres del Paine
December 5 - Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
We took the 7 AM bus from bus station to the park. I can’t believe these buses go on the crazy rough roads they do! Everyone on the bus appeared ready to hike or camp.
To hold us over, I had packed hard boiled eggs, salami and cheese sandwiches, bananas, and juice. We were more than set.
The park entrance was super organized, which was important since we were the first of several buses to arrive that morning. Herd the cattle:
1. Fill out form
2. Pay
3. Hand in form
4. Watch park safety video
Then we had to take another bus into the park to Los Torres campground and hotel. It felt like cheating to pull up to a campsite like that on something that seemed so “treacherous” online. But this was a concession of our reservation snafoo, so we decided to embrace it. We set up camp, finding a place protected slightly from wind and sun, and decided to checkout the hike to the Mirador, with plans to do it at sunrise. We wanted to maybe time it and orient ourselves so we could do it in the dark. Did I mention we traded our reservation for breakfast at the hotel? Well we found out between 7 and 9 we would get “hot” breakfasts, and any times outside of those hours, they’d package up something cold for you…
We started the hike and at some point it just made sense to do the whole thing, so pretty soon we were at the mirador. The towers were stunning! It is sort of like a group of Devil's Towers from Wyoming - perhaps they are similar geologically (Sparky, can you check in to that?) At the top, we enjoyed our salami and cheese sandwiches. The way down was slow, both because it was steep and there was a lot of traffic- people coming up. It took us almost 6 hrs up and down and our knees were a bit sore.
We did the math. If we did the Mirador in the morning, not only would we have to wake up at 1:30 AM, we'd also be pooped and really would have to run down to make it to hot breakfast. Worth it? Not sure…
We had the rest of the day to relax, read, and play cribbage. We made rice and lentils with at tomato sauce that was quite tasty.
We took the 7 AM bus from bus station to the park. I can’t believe these buses go on the crazy rough roads they do! Everyone on the bus appeared ready to hike or camp.
To hold us over, I had packed hard boiled eggs, salami and cheese sandwiches, bananas, and juice. We were more than set.
The park entrance was super organized, which was important since we were the first of several buses to arrive that morning. Herd the cattle:
1. Fill out form
2. Pay
3. Hand in form
4. Watch park safety video
Then we had to take another bus into the park to Los Torres campground and hotel. It felt like cheating to pull up to a campsite like that on something that seemed so “treacherous” online. But this was a concession of our reservation snafoo, so we decided to embrace it. We set up camp, finding a place protected slightly from wind and sun, and decided to checkout the hike to the Mirador, with plans to do it at sunrise. We wanted to maybe time it and orient ourselves so we could do it in the dark. Did I mention we traded our reservation for breakfast at the hotel? Well we found out between 7 and 9 we would get “hot” breakfasts, and any times outside of those hours, they’d package up something cold for you…
We did the math. If we did the Mirador in the morning, not only would we have to wake up at 1:30 AM, we'd also be pooped and really would have to run down to make it to hot breakfast. Worth it? Not sure…
We had the rest of the day to relax, read, and play cribbage. We made rice and lentils with at tomato sauce that was quite tasty.
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