skysworldadventures

Today we decided to check out the coast.  We drove to Buchalemu.  ***Note:   I'm butchering the spellings of places we have gone.  According to Jeff, roughly 80% of the places in this blog are not spelled correctly.  If you actually care and want to know the correct spellings, let me know and I'll look them up for you, other wise, I'm terrible at spelling in english and worse at spanish, deal with it.*** Back to my stoey...  In Buchalemu there is a beautiful black sand beach were we heard you can go horseback riding.  Jeff and I have both ridden a little bit but are not very experienced horsemen or particularly good.  We know the basics and that is it.  It was quite supprising to us when inquiring about riding that we were simply handed the horses and pointed in a general direction and told to go.  There was a whole serries of directions and possibly instructions that we missed due to the language barrier that I took to mean "hello gring...

I did it!  I actually relaxed all day today!!!  Aren't you proud? The day started with sleeping in followed by loafing and reading my book.   We were picked up by a driver for a vineyard tour at 11:30 and lucked out.  The other 8 english speakers didnt show up for the tour so Jeff and i got a private tour.  The best part was that part of the tour was done from horse drawn buggies. The tour and tasting was great.  We had lunch at the resturant at the winery and then went to a second winery for another tasting. We then had our pleasantly wined selves driven back to our B and B and relaxed for a couple hours.  I read, Jeff pretended to read and took a nap. We ended the evening by going in to town.  They are having a 4 day music festival where they close down the street, have a few craft venders in the main square and a ton of food venders and set up a stage and have free music.  We had street food for dinner and icecream and enjoyed the band. ...

Yesterday we had a pleasant morning in Porto Notalles.  It started pooring rain which made me so glad that we had such good weather for out trip.   We got some fancy hot chocolates, second time to this shop.  We went once befoe the hike, it was so good, we went back. We took a bus to Puntas Arenas and flew to Santiago.  By the time we got the rental car, made a few u-turns and found the hotel it was pretty late.  We had dinner around standard Chilean time for once which was about midnight. After sleeping in, we did a little exploring in Santiago, picked up a couple souvenirs for friends and family and drove to Santa Cruz (yep, there is one in Chile and a San Francisco too!).  We are in the Colchagua valley which makes great red wine.  We had an amazing dinner (and wine) and are ready to call it a night...

Ok, lets start by explaining the logistics of leaving the park, then you might understand why we did what we did (besides the "because we can part" *wink*).  To leave from Paine Grande there is a boat that takes you to a bus that takes you back to Porto Natelles which is where food and clean clothes and a hotel is.  The crux is there is a really pretty hike that is supposed to take 7+ hours, is 14-ish miles long and the boat leaves at 12:30 and 6:30PM.  The 12:30 boat is really early but gets you into town at a lovely 4:30PM.  The 6:30 boat makes the hike rediculously slow or leaves you sitting aound waiting for a boat for 3 hours and gets you in to town after 10PM.  Chileans are not morning people.  Dinner is 7:00PM at the earliest the night before the hike and breakfast starts at 7:00AM.  Given the following constraints, what do you do? We opted for wake up at 6:00, skip breakfast and eat a protein bar and hike out butts off to make the 12:30 boat. ...

This was my favorite day of hiking.  It was long and tough but the views were amazing!!!   The day started with a view of the sunrise on the glaciers from our cabaña.  It was more spectacular than the pictures show, I spent too long enjoying the view before getting the camera.  The hike was 3 miles to a camping area where everyone drops their main packs and switches to day packs. Jeff at the pack pile. It is then a steep 3 mile hike up the French Valley (no idea where the name came from) with glaciers to the right, a roaring stream of glacial melt up to the best view in the park.  Due to the total legnth of the day, 14 miles, Jeff and I did a little trail running once we dropped our main packs and only had the small day pack.  This was a nice change as we used some different muscles running than hiking and it was fun. We could hear pieces of ice break off the glaciers and see the small avalanches coming down the mountains.  The sound was unlike anythin...

Day three we changed refugios to one called cuernos.  This was a full pack day but a shorter hike.  The vistas and views were amazing.  I think I had to stop and take a picture every time we went around a corner.  With the shorter distance, about 7 miles, we took our time and kept a leisurely pace. All packed up at the start. Distant mountains and a glacier melt lake. The clouds and mountains reflecting in the lake. The cuernos mountains the trail is named after. Glacier topped mountain. There was a much smaller refugio at this location and it was full by the time we tried to book our trip.  However, it did have a couple of cabañas available so we got one of them. It was awesome!  We had our own little mini cabin to our selves right next to a waterfall.  The only down side was the shower was not heated.  The water for the shower was glacier melt so when I say cold, I mean it! Cabañas we had the one closest  in this picture. Jeff on the porch ...

The day started with a beautiful sunrise... The towers are the jagged peaks to the right. The hike was to the base of those towers.  It didn't look that far but it was!  The hike was supposed to be about 12 miles.  Due to a missing item, we had to double back for a section and added another 2 miles for a total of a little over 14 miles.  There was a lot of climbing and the last hour was a tough scramble over scree and boulders.  It was worth it! This is the trail up to the top, tough hiking over rocks and boulders. Jeff on a bridge.  We had lunch by this stream. The valley we hiked up. The towers!   With a cool glacial fed lake in front of it. Yep, got to have your pic taken at the top - lol! The hike was an out and back.  We were able to leave our big packs at the refugio and just hike with a day pack which was really nice. We ended the day sharing a bottle of wine at the refugio.  It was Jeff's birthday and he said it was a wonderful day.

Thg "W" trek is called that as it is roughly the shape the trails make in the mountains.  It seems to be universally called a 5 day trip since you spend 5 days in the national park but, are only actually hiking for 4 of them.   Wainting for the shuttle I was watching these guys.  The are relatives of llamas, called guanaco. So, day one was get on a bus and go out to the Torres del Paine national park.  They have an interesting bus system for this.  You get a ticket but that doesn't guarentee you a spot on that bus so when the bus shows up, its a bit of a mob scene (note: this is not true for other Chilean buses, your tickes assigns you a seat like on an airplane).  Anyhow... We made it on the bus and got to the park (about 2 hours on mostly dirt roads) and from there needed to find a shuttle to our Refugio (more on what that is shortly).  Apparently we did not learn our lesson on the bus since it took us missing a couple shuttles before we got on one. ...