
Now, probably nine or ten days on, 25th dec, I'm in a chaotic living room/kitchen dining room/lounge affair with about 25 israelis and 15 or so chilenos, some of whom may be part of the extended family that own this place. And I'm still in Puerto Natales.
Not that i have sunk into some civilisation worshipping slump. In the intervening period I have been away for eight days. I have delved into the unforgiving wilderness, pitched my tent by raging torrents and benign lakes, plucked succulent vanilla flavoured Triton biscuits from the bending boughs of nearby shops, and thought vaguely about whittling something once. It's been a journey alright.
Set off from here on the 15th December, cycling on a rutted, gravelly road past some beautifully sited estancias on a long inland finger of the sea loch that puerto natales lies on. I was following a road that from the look of things would lead me via a southern shortcut to torres del paine, not the main road that most of the tourist buses take. After about 25km of slow going, I arrived at the estancia founded by Manuel Eberhard, a German naval hero of the early days of independent Chile. The road turned into a private track that led only to a farm on a hill. Damn. Spoke to a couple of fence erecting guys, retraced my steps.
Dead end sign not pictured.

I eventually reached the right road, which lay parallel to the previous one, but around 3km east. But the sun was bright, if not hot, and the land looked suited to a hotter, more arid land, with Australian style scrub and trees either side, and sheer vol cliffs either side. Towards nightfall the snowy peaks started marching down one side of the road, with the other consisting of lakes and beech forests. With night coming, I found an unlocked gate leading down to a large sheltered lake, which seemed to be an unofficial kind of rough camping site; a few remains of campsites and logs lashed together for shelter were strewn around. I made camp, and took advantage of the abundance of dead, dry wood to have one hell of a campfire to ward of the drizzle.
Spent the next day in the camp too, due to nothing more than laziness. I'd like to say I spent this time profitably, but unless you count making haphazard attempts to play 'When the levee breaks' on the harmonica (and by 'haphazard', i mean 'utterly shit') as profitable, I probably didn't. Oh, I also did some workouts with the differently sized logs lying around, which probably made me look like I'd watched Rocky IV a few too many times, and had seriously misjudged the similarity of my physique to Mr Balboas. Maybe my VHS had a really screwed up aspect ratio.
Me, attempting to beat my cameras timer, and not quite making it.

17th December dawned. Then, probably around seven hours afterwards, I got up. Not quite as bad as it sounds - I'm pretty far south, and the summer equinox is approaching, but still not exactly a statement of intent. I set off for Torres del Paine. The road start heading up pretty swiftly, and deteriorating in quality pretty swiftly too, until I reached a road crew who were driving a steamroller back and forth. The road was constantly snaking upward through a flint canyon, which must have taken a inordinate amount of explosive to blast apart, and an awful amount of work to move the shards elsewhere. Still, I guess it will keep Chile in flint hand axes for centuries, should prehistoric living suddenly come back into vogue. Anyhow, I reached the park boundaries, paid my 15,000 pesos (approx 20 quid), and wooshed across the grassy meadow, and through the winding lakeside road towards the nearest campsite.
Winding road, Torres del Paine masked by cloud in the distance.


There are some photos below of the Torres, the horns, or cuernos, are the structures with no snow on them, the sides too sheer for any powder to find purchase, with the taller, more conventional mountain peaks alongside.

It had a pretty otherworldly, front cover to some fanciful sci-fi book vibe to it by moonlight, like another red moon might chase the silver one out from behind the clouds. Or maybe the solitude is warping my mind. Either way, a beautifully situated campsite, with shelters to pitch tents under, although 10,000 pesos, or £12.50, seems a trifle steep for a patch of earth to call my own. However, it was the only campsite by the road for 33km, and night was falling.
Campsite Lake Pehoe.

The small distances shown on the maps of the region are deceptive by bike, as the roads undulate steeply, and are in pretty bad condition for a fully laden bike. The constant rocks and corrugated sections that the bike cruches along mean that at the start of every day I have to attempt to re-true the back wheel, as the spokes lose tension constantly, and if the rim bends one way slightly this will rapidly deteriorate. The back wheel has most of my weight, and the majority of my luggage resting on it, so it's probably taking over 100kg of weight - fine on a paved road, as there is no crunching downforce, but not on the ripio surface that makes up a lot of Patagonian highways.
Unidentified bird of prey poses in a self-conscious 'i am a far-seeing, noble beast' fashion.
Hosteria just up from the campsite. As close as I could get without taking out a 20 year mortgage or selling my first-born into indentured slavery. These places are seriously pricey.

The following day was slow going through the hills, as I cycled towards Las Torres Campsite, which is the kicking off spot for most of the hikes, but it was a beautiful, sunny day, and I amused myself by fooling about with my camera, taking many over-exposed, lens-flaring photos, and often managing to make my really pretty damn good camera take photos that looked like thirty year old polaroids. I also started having my picture taken from moving cars on a regular basis, which has only been an occasional pleasure uptil now. I like revelling in the idea that people either see me as a lone warrior, struggling against geography and the elements, or as some crazy gringo. Maybe they're just amused at my clothes.
Got carried away adding photos. Appears my blog is too big to appear in one part. I'll post the next part tomorrow. Dx
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