Ushuaia and Torres del Paine

Long silence it has been, i'm aware of it. I just have been spending a lot of time in places where internet wasn´t really available and I find it difficult to bound myself long enough behind a PC to write.

I left off in Ushuiaia the last time. The city is overmarketing its name as end of the world which it actually is not. But at least they do it in such an exagerated way that makes the whole fin-del-mundo-stuff funny again. And the city is impressive. The mountains around it just drop into the sea. Sea is the beagle channel, and I even went on a sailing trip on it.

I stayed in a great hostel, where i met lots of crazy travelers but where i didn´t sleep a lot. I ended up staying a few days longer then I planned cause i was just having too much fun to leave. Every morning i d go to the reception, asking for another night, to the hilarity of the hostel-people. Those who travel alone to Ushuaia, try to get to the ´free style` hostel.

We visited the National Park, which is beautiful yet overpriced since it is the national park at the end of the world. Funny detail, there is a post office where they sell fin-del-mundo-passport stamps for 6 pesos. Unfortunately, i didnt have mine with me, but my fellow hikers did obtain world´s cheesiest, largest, pinguins-containing passport stamp. I missed out, I guess.

More funny stuff. Getting to Ushuaia, I had to hitchhike, no buses between the chilean part and the argentinean part of tierra del fuego. One of my rides was a passionate fly-fisher and had just caught an 8-kilo salmon. A few days later he called me to ask if I wanted to go fishing with him and his friends which i had never done so he picked me up at 3 am (yes, indeed, 3 am!) to go flyfishing. Honestly, i still think fishing is not the most exciting of all sports, but the setting was amazingly beautiful, we drove some 4 wheeldrive vehicles for an hour untill we got to the atlantic ocean.

In ushuaia I met a Dutch guy and an English guy who had the same plan as me, hiking in Torres del Paine. Torres del Paine is a national park, back on the continent, Chilean side again. Most people do a 4-5 day hike, called the W, because of its shape on the map. This was our initial plan, but in the hostel, close to the park, we saw lots of enthusiastic people, we ourselves were in a great mood and made the stupid decision to do `the circuit´ an 8day hike, basically closing the upper parts of the W-hike. The hardest part about the hike is the fact that you have to carry around food for 8 days.

What did we buy:

* 6 packages of pasta

*1 day of powdered mashed potatoes

*7 powdered pasta sauces

*1 package of powdered soup per day

* some canned meat

*a bar of chocolat per day

*package of chocolate cookies per day

*24 hard-boiled eggs, extremely heavy but we were o so happy with them!

*bottle of whiskey

*bottle of rhum (for the hard moments)

Even though we really didnt overbuy and paid attention to the weight factor, my pack was actually heavier then my normal travel pack. Almost all of it due to food, sleeping bag and tent (ok, and the whiskey and rhum). Every meal was a happy event though! Eating to loose weight, every girl´s dream!

Torres del Paine is known for its extreme, fast changing weather conditions which kinda scared me. Heavy winds and snow are not uncommon. We got rather lucky, we only had 1 day of really heavy rainfall. The trekking was hard but amazingly beautiful and the solidarity amongst people was almost turning me into a hippy! Some anecdotes:

*In one of the first campings I saw a camping-cook making bread. Since we didnt have bread for 8 days, i went to check on the price and if bread would be available in all campings throughout the trek. He told me the bread was 4000 pesos and that in some other campings they would sell it as well. Bufff, 4000 pesos is 7 euro, pricey bread so I just carried on. When we left the camping after lunch, he called me (Oye, Belgica) and just gave me the bread hushing that we should move on fast now.

*The evening after the rainy day, we were quite worried about the tent. I didnt quite resist the heavy winds. On the camping ground, I met a guy who I had met before in our hostel. he worked as a cook in the hotel and asked how our tent was doing. In the end, I got a bed in the hotel (worth 50 euros), breakfast, brownie, lots of cookies, rainpants and chocolate!

*Once off the W trek, the campsites were less crowded and we d usually all sat together in the kitchen. In one of these camps, I met a chilean guy who works as a guide to rich people who dont want to carry 15 kilo up and down mountains (while we just loved doing that). He prepared us a salad (vegetables are heaven after 6 days of pasta and outmeal). We threw ourselves on the lettuce, tomatoes and avocado. We ended up having the funniest evening on the trek. Everybody started sharing what they had left. We still had some rhum, others had cigarettes, chocolate, and even some wine. In the morning the same guide made us pancakes!

Aaah, well i d have so many other stories, but I lack the time to write them all down...

This is what the Torres del Paine look like...

It is not easy climbing these ladders with 15 kilo packs and 5 blisters

we had to cross a mountain pass (meaning 3 hours of only very steep uphill mountain followed by a few hours of steep downhill) As prepared as usual, check out my fancy plastic bags. I could literally hear the other hikers thinking, mmm, where does this girl think she s going to.
But we made it anyway :)And these are the views we got... Seas of blue ice

The next day was 25 degrees again. Very strange all of this

What do you think when you all of a sudden see blue icebergs in the lake you re hiking around...

the first time a saw a glacier this impressive... I stood there for a veeery long time, just looking at it.

We ended up doing the 8 day hike in 7 days. My feet didnt quite agree and decided to blow up to hilarious proportions to the hilarity of the hostel people, once back in town.

Torres del Paine was an amazing experience. Between the amazing views, the physical challenge, the fun of meeting so many people, the solidarity between everyone, sleeping in a tent when it s almost freezing but being able to hear huge blocks of ice falling down a glacier, I would already do it again next year!


I m already weeeeeeks behind on my blogging... i ll try to do better but I have so many things to share and so little time to write...