We spent the last four days trecking in the Torres del Paine national park in Patagonia. The park is one of the most popular sights in South America and one of the most popular National Parks.

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The main activity is trecking, and the whole area is really well setup for it. There are two options, a 4/5 day hike to see most of the sights, or a full 10 day circuit of the park and around the mountain. We went for the shorter one. They call it the W because of the shape of the routes.

So, we loaded the backpacks with the essentials - tent, sleeping bags, cooking equipment and food enough for four nights. The first sight on the list is a nice waterfall, and after that we got a catamaran ferry to the park proper.

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Once into the central park (its pretty isolated, only one dirt road connects to any of the park, and it covers 181,000 hectares) we set off for our first 4 hour 11km hike to the campsite near the Glacier Grey.

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The next morning after a feed of Porridge and Jam we broke camp and headed back the way we had come. We stopped in a refugio (hotely kind of place) and met two Canadian guys we had met in Valpariso earlier in the trip. We had to drag ourselves away from there, they were tempting us to stay with cartons of wine, and treck another 2.5 hours to the next campsite.

After a VERY cold night (I sept in two sleeping bags with my coat and a bin bag wrapped around them), and our morning porridge, we attempted to treck up valle frances, the second major site to see in the park. We didn’t make it. The rain turned to sleet and the sleet turned to snow. We turned back, after about an hour and a half. It was horible and cold and the visibility was so bad we couldn’t even see the mountains we were meant to be going to see.

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After a quick warm up and some soup, we got back on the track, another 5km to our next campsite.

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That night we treated ourselves to a fine bottle of red wine to insulate us from the cold. Either it worked or the night wasn’t as bad because it didn’t feel as cold in the tent. We were woken up by the wind trying to knock the tent down rather than the cold that night.

The next morning looked good and we trecked towards the final major thing to see in the park, the Torres themselves. It was sunny at times but the wind still howled, I got knocked over at one stage. But unfortunatly the relatively good weather was not to last. As we went around the corner of the mountain into the valley, it got really nasty. The gusts of wind were catching our bags and trying to knock us over, and we got soaked through. We had had enough and really didn’t fancy camping in that weather again so we reluctantly decided to turn back.

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We got back to the luxury of the last Refugio and got the bus out of there that evening, back to Puerto Natales.

This morning we sold all our camping gear to a rental place. We were sad to see it go but we’ve  both had enough of camping for a while. Our sleeping bags aren’t really warm enough for the conditions down here and we didn’t want to bring it home. My back is thanking me already!