Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 13 - Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales, Navimag (Chile)

The third day of the ‘W’ trek in Torres del Paine national park started with a 2.5 hour trek up the central branch of the ‘W’ to the closed climbers camp, Britanico then a further 45 mins to the Britanico viewpoint. Having left our bags and tent at the campsite the walk felt really easy and we quickly made our way up the valley to the glacier viewpoints. Sadly it was pretty overcast so the view was limited but rumours of a puma sighting spurred us on.

After retracing our steps back to camp to pack up the tent we carried on a further 2.5 hours to Cuernos, another pay campsite with hot showers and an indoor area for cooking (after the fires they are quite strict on where you can use stoves and where you can set up camp). The second half of the route took us along the lake again and across a stone beach, all of a sudden we were out of the fire zone and there were birds and wild flowers everywhere you looked. All the plots were on wooden platforms so we couldn’t peg our tent and had to make do with rocks and boulders.

As we got into bed than night the winds hit. Our tent stuck it out for a few hours before a gust of wind pulled up the back and we were left open to the elements (as we’d hired the cheapest tent in town it should be of no surprise to you that it was barely of the standard to survive a British summer nevermind a Patagonian one). We got out and pinned it down again under some heavier boulders. Within 20 minutes the wind had dislodged it again and we realised there was no way we would make it through the night and had to pay a small fortune to stay in the outside dorms owned by the refugio – bunk beds in a sturdy tent shaped like half a golf ball that were so cold we slept in our sleeping bags and liners underneath the blankets.

Day 4 we left Cuernos and the lake side behind and headed further east to the final valley of the ‘W’. We left camp in blazing sunshine, by the time we reached the top of the first peak the winds started and by the second peak the snow started. We ploughed on for 3.5 hours to a refugio where we stopped for a hot chocolate to defrost before heading a further 1.5 hours to our free camp at the base of the torres. We got to the wooded campsite relatively early and spent an hour pitching the tent and building a wall to protect the tent from the winds before brewing a cuppa to celebrate our impressive tent skills. Then we noticed the clouds had cleared and we could see blue sky at the top of the torres so we grabbed the camera and pretty much ran the last 45 mins up the side of a mountain incase the weather was too bad the following day. By the time we made it to the top the clouds had drawn back in and we had a quick glimpse of the towers before the blizzard really started and we headed back down in a white out. That night we were in the tent at 7pm with the snow gathering outside.

After a very cold and uncomfortable sleep we were up at 4am to pack the backpack with the sleeping bags and stove for a second climb to the torres to see sunrise. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as we’d hoped but still a sense of achievement to know we’d made it with only minor arguments and minor injuries and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. We ate breakfast while the sun rose before heading back to camp to pack the tent for the last time. 3.5 hours later, most of which was downhill we completed the ‘W’ having walked almost 100km in 5 days and sat in the sun drinking beer waiting for the bus back in to town and to civilisation, hot showers and clean clothes. By the time we had put our laundry in and taken back the hired equipment we were shattered so we had an early dinner at an amazing pizzeria on the square before climbing into bed.

The next day we were still feeling pretty worn out from the hike and Rhys’s knee was so sore he could barely walk. Rhys stayed in the hostel to rest while I spent hours trying to find him a decent Christmas present for £5 in town. Rhys joined me for lunch and we headed back to the hostel to watch films and chill.

Our last day in Puerto Natales Rhys arranged to meet up with Simon, a guy we’d met in Bariloche and run into on the ‘W’ to stream the Chelsea game. After the game I joined them and we spent a couple of hours in Simon’s hostel with drinks before the guy Simon was traveling with, another Simon who we’d also met in Bariloche got back from the national park. A few more drinks later and we headed out back to the pizza restaurant for take out.

We left Puerto Natales on Tuesday, Christmas Eve. After checking out of our room at the hostel and checking our luggage in at the Navimag office we had 9 hours to kill before we could actually board the boat at 10pm. The Navimag is a 4 night ferry ride from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. The boat takes 250 passengers alongside cars and cargo – our boat had cows, sheep and horses on board. It’s not luxurious but it’s better than a lot of the hostels we’ve been staying in, you get 3 meals a day and lunch and dinner are 3 courses and in the cheapest beds, where we were, you got a bunk bed with a curtain around it in a group of 4 beds off of the main corridor, we even had a port hole.

The first night we boarded, settled in to our bunks, explored the decks, took photos of the sunset and congregated in the bar on the top floor for empanadas, cheese slices and a glass of bubbles to meet the other passengers. We got talking to 2 Australian guys, Ty(rone) and Brad and an English girl, Sarah who became our Navimag buddies for the rest of the trip. The boat left port at 5am on Christmas day.