Trekking Torres Del Paine W Circuit!
I had a down day in Puerto Natales and I am thankful I scheduled that in because I started to catch a little bug. Just the sniffles, congestion, and upset stomach but it allowed me a whole day to sleep and fight off whatever infection was trying to keep me down. I always pack a little bit of cold medicine on every trip now just in case. The little hotel that I stayed in had a cafe where I had the best pumpkin soup in my life. At this point in my life, it was the only pumpkin soup I had ever eaten. I have since tried to replicate it without success. I made a soup that was edible, but it hasn’t been anything close to what I had in Chile! This hotel was pretty adorable, it had wooden benches with throw pillows in the lobby area, great comfort food in the cafe, rock gardens along the wall for baseboard trim and a rough cut slice of lumber for a headboard bolted to the wall. It was rugged but cozy and the gals that worked there were so welcoming.
I was still a little under the weather when I started to prepare for the W trek through Torres del Paine. I met my next trekking team which consisted of a super nice guide (I can’t remember her name!) and a couple on their honeymoon and a guy named James.
I don’t recall much from the first two days of hiking besides not feeling well and the weather being about as miserable as I felt. I remember needing more tissue than I brought and the gal from England had packed extra so she gave me a packet. We talked about language differences because I requested a Kleenex which she said they would call a tissue, but they also would refer to vacuuming as hoovering because Hoover was a dominant brand there, much like Kleenex was the dominant brand in the U.S. for tissues. I love picking up these different little perspectives. I know that we looked at some petroglyphs but don’t recall the stories behind them that our guide shared. I was there during the guanaco mating season and we walked through many small herds of them. It was interesting that the males claimed dominance by standing on top of the highest points.
I believe that we were scheduled to ascend to Mirador Base the second day, but the weather was not cooperating and I wasn’t feeling well so our guide gave us the option to return and ascend the third day and do the third day’s hiking to our next accommodations. It would be a long day but our chances of seeing the iconic views would be higher. I am so glad that we made this call! By the third day, I was back feeling better and ready for the gorgeous views! It was a long day of hiking on crowded trails but totally worth it!
Day four we passed the Cuernos on our way to view Mirador Britanico. The Cuernos were absolutely stunning with dark rock set atop the light gray rock with a distinct line between the two colors. I was also taken in by the variety and beauty of the flora. We hiked through one burn which sparked some conversation because fires were strictly prohibited and our guide informed us that it was started by a legal camp stove on accident years ago. I took so many photos of the vegetation.
Day five we were on our way to Grey Glacier. By now I had seen a couple of glaciers but that turquoise water from the glacial melt never gets old. From Grey Glacier, we took a fairy back to the beginning. They fished some ice that had calved off the glacier out of the water and used it as the ice in some celebratory drinks.
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