Torres del Paine or there and back again. Book 2.

There definitely is something heart-warming about the fellow traveller salute most folks in these parts give on the more rural routes.  Most people who pass you, at least when you're cycling, will either give you a cheery wave, a toot of the horn, or a stoic two finger raise.  Not that kind.  Or the Churchillian 'V for victory' (And one point - the Churchillian one is what we'd call the Vs.  When did the reversed V's become offensive? Or was Churchill just confused and drunk when he was flashing them?)  When I first experienced this custom I raised my arm into the air, fist aloft, and let out an uncharacteristic 'whoop'.  The addition of my black cycling glove may have made me look like I'd just won the 400m at the Mexico Olympics, or like I was shaking my fist in inchoate, cartoon rage.  So in future, i decided to go with the wave.  After getting a little bored of waving every few hundred metres, and feeling a little foolish, this has been downgraded to a more chilled, and less exerting, two forefinger raise.  This sometimes accidentally turns into a peace sign, and makes me feel a little like an 19 year old spaniard who likes Manu Chao and has a massive Bob Marley poster on their ceiling, but what the hell, it's a good custom.

Anyways, got to the campsite, slept, next day raining heavily, a write-off.  Apart from the fact you never feel like starting a hike in a downpour, visibility was down to 200 metres or so, so decided to wait it out.  Had some extortionate beers with some fellow campers in the nearby hotel.

Next day dawned bright, I left my bike chained to a tree in the campsite, hid my saddlebags and unnecessary luggage in some nearby undergrowth, and set off.

There were a fair few other hikers moving off in dribs and drabs from near the hotel's adjacent grocery store, selling goods on a 3x to 5x mark-up from Chilean supermarkets.  I still laid in an extra supply of Triton Vanilla biscuits.  When it comes to these bad boys, it doesn't hurt to be too careful in sorting out your supply lines.  I swiftly outpaced most of these stragglers, and moved onto a gently sloping hill, heading up to a rocky plateau. Map below, if anyone is interested.

To the south, I looked across the start of Lake Nordenskjold, beyond that were glacial hills rolling up to ridges, patches of vegetation featureless at this range, apart from subtle changes in colour, and the shadows of clouds racing across them.  I put my rucksac down upright on the trail, and moved down to take photos of a herd of guanacos, serenley watching me approaching.  Suddenly a roar started to build from the west, and a mist of water was whipped at fearsome speed off a lake a mile distant, and across the plain.  The wind hit suddenly; I was prepared, but my rucksac sadly wasn't, and cartwheeled a hundred metres down the hill.  However, it was unharmed, and so was all my equipment.  So, I'm going to endorse Osprey rucksacs.  Expensive, but rigid and tough as hell.  I know my word carries a shit-ton of weight in the trekking community, so I expect to see sales spike pretty soon.  Osprey, if you want to 'thank' me, email me, and we'll sort out a forwarding address/bank account.

Just before my rucksac disturbed the tranquility of the scene.

Just after.

Walked up onto the plateau, and the wind started coming again.  Rather than the constant winds of Tierra del Fuego, the air would be still, and then a roar would start over the horizon, you'd see water vapour whipping in straight gusts across the lake, and then it would hit you, driving grit and small pebbles into you, and coruscating any exposed skin.  Think it involves air being supercooled over the westward glaciers, being forced downwards quickly, and rushing onwards.  After this, conditions eased, as the trail went up and over ridges, with small trees whipping their limbs around you.  Was a little worried one of these uppity bushes might get ideas above their station, and I might have to put one of the suckers in check, but they seemed more used to the wind than I, and refrained from relinquishing their roots and flying at me.  I was keeping up quite a fearsome pace, as despite all learned estimations I was optimistic that i might get to the Grey Glacier that day. 

Got to the Alberge Cuernos, photo below.





Crap coffee, but warm place with a stove, guitars hung on the wall, hikers in socks sitting around eating packed lunches (shoes left outside).  Good place to chill for hal an hour.  On from here to Campiemento Italiano, a free campsite situated at the bottom of a valley leading up to a vantage point surrounded on three sides by the main peaks.  The camp was a spread out collection of often raggedy looking tents, expedition quality originally, but many now bowed, weighed down by rocks to frustrate the wind.  Most people I spoke to had been there for two days, waiting for some signal to move off, and the folk I spoke to had mostly chosen the early evening of the second day to make the climb to the outlook point at the top of the valley.  The camp was dominated by large Israeli groups, fresh out the army, and travelling en masse.  In fact, the amount of Israelis in South America, or at least Patagonia, is astounding, for a country of, I don't know, 7 or 8 million people (I don't have wifi here, so my statistics may be slightly off, for which I apologise).  Could be all the 30 year old Brits are staying in palatial luxury, being carried about the Chilean highlights in pearled litters in some kind of imperial throwback. 

Anyhow, walked up to Campiemento Britanico with my pack, and then on to the outlook post, where you have the Cuernos del Paine to the east, Cumbro Central and the Glacier Frances to the west,a ring of mountains to the north, and a startlingly clear glacial river running down the valley.  I've posted photos below, but you can only get a tenth of the feeling of wildness from these.  It was a good day, sunny with some scudding clouds, but you just get the idea that in less than an hour you could have winds of indescribable violence whipping around, visibility down to a minimum, snow or hail forming up to attack, etc.  Pretty much the feeling you get up high in any mountain range I suppose, but seemed more acute here, even though the heights of the peaks are only around 3000m, which pales in comparison with the Alps, let alone the Andes further north. Anyhow, I meant to keep this succinct and concise, and I'm rambling on at length, so I'll cut to the chase; camped, then hiked back the next day, camped again at a site with such luxuries as showers (the guy nicely waived the fee, i think the whole cycling thing either arouses respect or pity in folk), and set off to, I thought then, El Calafate, at my standard leisurely midday time slot.

Some shots at the top of the Valle de Frances.






Senor Horse at the Campiemento Italiano.  Horseback is the only way to get supplies up there, or to chase banditos out from the high passes.



Inquisitive looking thing.  Pretty sure it can be classed as a bird, probably 'of prey'.  After that, I'm sketchy.

El Calafate is about 280km from Torres del Paine, the roads a mixture of beautiful gleaming pavement and gravelly ripio.  It's actually about 50km away as the crow flies, which I did think quite a tempting idea, but the damn birds kept escaping their harnesses.  And, unfortunately, carrying a bike over ridges and mountains may have presented me with a few problems, not to mention the fact I would be crossing the border in an unorthodox and undoubtedly illegal manner.  So, the road it was.

After an uneventful first 30kms, I was passing through a land with rolling scrub covered hills pushing up against various Torres in the distance, the day was overcast, and was looking like being a long slog towards Calafate.  Was coming up on some kind of action on my left - a small, deserted junkyard with a few heaps of corrugated iron and a couple of busted up pick-ups, when I saw a flash of white running towards me, and leaping the fence.  It was an enthusiastic looking white dog, sized like a rangy labrador.  Didn't seem to be anyone around to call him back, so I let him run happily alongside me for a bit, before trying to send him back to the junkyard.  Sadly, I'm not sure my Spanglish commands quite had the required authority, and he certainly didn't look like the brightest dog ever.





























So, since there was no obvious casa or estancia to send him back to, and he wasn't responding to any cries of '!Vamos!', there was little I could do apart from let him bound happily alongside me, acting as an endlessly enthusiastic outrider. 

This new situation made me extremely popular with the few denizens of the road, and I was getting papped by pretty much every tourist driving past, and the few locals were slowing down to ask if he was mine; I responded in the negative, and tried to see if anyone knew the home of my new friend, but no-one did.  Occasionally he would become (even more) excited by the far off scamper of a fox, or the bounding guanacos in the fields - I'd let him chase the foxes, who unfortunately knew how to outwit him tactically by doubling back under fences constantly, but would stop him chasing down the guanacos by shouting '!Aqui!'.  I could call him to me, but couldn't send him away.  This went on for 30km or so, during which his running ability put my cycling speed totally in the shade - the roads were unpaved gravel, so he could keep pace with me whilst sprinting off to close effortlessly with the guanaco, who are effectively the deer of Patagonia - a pretty impressive dog.

Soon he ran off to the side to investigate what looked like a dead guanaco.  He'd certainly died in a strange position - his left back leg was twisted in the top wires of a fence, and his body was slumped helplessly on the floor.  I called the dog, who I was oscillating between calling 'Scamp' and 'Mister Perro', back, as I didn't want to be witness to an unsavoury scene of dead guanaco gnawing.  Suddenly, the gunaco started spasming on the floor, his trapped leg shaking the fence hopelessly, his other limbs striking the fence posts and wires.  Shit.  I did a quick inspection of the situation, tested the wires for give, staying out the way of his striking hooves, then felt the sinking feeling that I would have to do something, and whatever it was wasn't going to be easy.  The pressure the wires are strung at, and the fact that a guanaco, weighing probably about 100kg had jumped a fence at maybe 20-30mph meant the force had twisted the top two wires together with almost unmoveable tension.  Also, the hoof is considerably thicker wider than the leg, like a horse, with a toe (?) at the top of the ankle, so I would have to spread the wires widely to free him, something which a cursory try showed was far beyond my strength.  Maybe he was going slower than usual when he attempted the jump, otherwise I have no idea how his leg hadn't snapped.

Diagram -

I thought about breaking the fence posts, but it would have taken ages to saw through with my knife, and would probably not have given me the necessary slack.  Also, whoever owned this field might not have taken kindly to me destroying the fence.  So, I decided to cycle back 3km to the nearest estancia.  Upon arriving there, I was overtaken on the driveway by a happily beeping coach, and as I rocked up at what I assumed were holiday lets, the coach stopped, and 30 or 40 cheery, bearded guys, caked in dust and swathed in heavy, hi-vis overalls leapt out and began running to the nearest cabins (probably the shower block, in retrospect).  The two guys left seemed bemused by my tale of a trapped guanaco, which may not have been delivered in exactly flawless, or even decipherable Spanish, and I realised that these were more temporary digs for workers in a nearby quarry.  So, I headed back up the road.

No-one seemed too interested in stopping, although most of the tourists returning from the Torres slowed to rubberneck, so I hit upon a plan.  I have a big, annoyingly heavy D-lock for my bike, one of those that costs £50 and isn't getting broken or bent without some pretty heavy-duty equipment.  So, I realised if I could fit this between the wires, and use a fence post as a twisting mechanism through the D-lock, I could maybe get the wires far enough apart.  First try wasn't a success - there were a few unneeded posts on the floor, so i tried twisting with one - it snapped, driving the wires deeper.  Poor guanaco.  He thrashed some more, but when I spoke to him he actually seemed to understand I was trying to help, and stopped moving.  Probably shock more than some kind of Androcles and the lion style understanding, but hey.  However, two posts at once did the trick, I pushed the leg through the gap, and after some spasming, the guanaco righted itself and ran off.  Result!  I felt pretty damn happy, and had a bit of a self-congratulary moment where I slapped myself metaphorically on the back for my caring nature.

Onwards we went, and by 8 or 9pm the dog was flagging - I couldn't reward such stupid loyalty by driving him on, so stopped in a depression (a physical one, I mean!) and made camp, doling out snacks to myself and my companion.

Was woken the next day by some excited barking, 200 metres up the road; a ewe and a lamb had got loose in the road, and a couple of gauchos were trying to lassoo them, using their sheepdogs to help.  Scamp was getting involved excitedly, although his presence did not seem to be helping enormously.  However, he responded immediately to my command to heel.  The gauchos waved good-naturedly, but couldn't shed any light on the providence of my dog.

I travelled onward to Cerro Castillo, a border crossing to Argentina, but it was Christmas Eve, and I had resigned myself to the fact that El Calafate was too far, and I was going to have to head back to Puerto Natales, or spend Christmas in either a dusty one-horse town or by the side of the road.  Plus folks back home hadn't heard from me for eight days, and I didn't want to worry them.  The lure of the many and varied eating establishments in a tourist town were pretty strong as well.

So, I knocked back coffee and a burger, as all the tourist buses stopped and disgorged their cargo.  The wind was now sweeping towards the town, whistling and shaking the windows of the cafe, but I was going to make it to Puerto Natales if I had to push all the way.  thankfully, I didn't and the direction changed when I moved into the next valley.  One last problem though.  Scamp was having more and more trouble keeping up, his evervesence was still there when I stopped to give him water and sausages, but his pace wasn't.  He had run about 100km in the last 24 hours, and unfortunately showed no sign of stopping trying to keep up, and I had no way of making him stop.  I stopped to check his paws - the pads were beginning to look very red and sore, and his back leg was bleeding, although I couldn't see why, and he wasn't favouring it.  What could I do?  I couldn't send him towards a nearby estancia - he just refused to stop following me, and wouldn't get into the back of a pick-up that offered to take him to Puerto Natales.  My idea was that once I got to PN he could join the ranks of the half wild / half cared for strays on the streets after I sent him off with a nice steak, although I suspect he would have loyally stayed outside my hostel waiting for me.  Either way, I couldn't travel with a dog - carrying enough water and food for me alone is hard enough in the more remote, arid sections of road, to say nothing of what would happen when I got to cities and stayed in hostels.  So, with a heavy heart, and feeling like a complete bastard, I waited until I got to a part of road with handsome, rich looking estancias and farms each side, shouted vainly for him to vamos to one, and took off as fast as I could, hoping that once I vanished into the distance he would head to one - the land was starting to become more farmed and inhabited, so I hope he has found a good home. 

30km later, I got to Puerto Natales, and after being turned away from a few full hostels, and starting to develop a messiah complex, I found a bed at Casa Lili.

Christmas and New Year blog to come soon, I'm on to El Calafate tomorrow.  Am in El Calafate now.  In the last three days has become hot, sunny.  Had an extremely dry and thirsty ride here, and have sunburnt lips.  Gonna hide out here for a day or two, eat parrilla'd up meat, and maybe celebrate a belated new year with some folk I know from Puerto Natales - my NYE was spent in parched semi-desert by a deserted dirt road. Hope everyone had a great Christmas, goodwill to all men and all the rest!

Speak to you all soon x



Oh yeah, decided the cravate wasn't quite badass enough.  Fine for cultivating a refined english gentleman image in Buenos Aires, but for the frontier regions you need something with a little more edge to it.  Time to cut myself a bandana.  I'll be auctioning them off at the end of the trip, unwashed.  I anticipate a fierce response.

Practising the 'unpredictable maverick' look.