TORRES DEL PAINE

In addition to meeting Hamish our other reason for coming to Puerto Natales was to visit the National Park "Torres del Paine" (pronounced pinee) which is famous for its glaciers, lakes and hugely exciting snowy mountains. Paine is the Tehuelche word for blue. They were the indigenous people who originally inhabited this area. We were picked up by our minibus at 7.15 am., luckily being the first so able to take the front seats, later people being quite squashed in the back. The first stop was at the Cave of the Milodon...


This was a prehistoric ground sloth, rather like a huge bear with a tail. It lived between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago. The cave is massive, 96 ft. high and 230 ft. wide and very deep. Sue says she managed to get herself lost, but found again without too much trouble.


We went on to the park which is 2 hours drive from Natales, where we saw all sorts of things including several herds of guanacos, condors, eagles, waterfalls and lakes. The mountains of course were the most imposing presence of all. Especially some called the Cuernos (the horns). These were surrounded by even higher, snowcovered peaks, the biggest of which is Cumbre Principal at 3050 meter Also we went to the Grey Glacier, though could not see much of it from where we were. We walked to the Grey Lake, and then out on a long spit right across the lake. Floating there were huge chunks of glacier which had broken away just in the last week. These had blue areas which looked as though they had been dyed. However, it seems this is caused by some sort of effect from the sun in conjunction with the freezing ice. If you want to know more on the subject go to: www.luminous-landscape.com and then on to What´s new.
That was all on Sunday, a full day out not returning till 8.00 pm. Monday was a chill out day of looking round the town, visiting the local history museum, which was excellent with lots of information on the indians who inhabited these parts of Patagonia over thousands of years.

Sue:we have found a really nice place to hang out in and eat good veggie food,listen to cool music and drink very nice vino.It is run by an english girl,who fell in love with a chilean goucho and has stayed here.There is a good book exchange shelf too.We are over half way now,and havent fallen out yet,a few dissagreements,but nothing important.I am really looking forward to getting to Tomuco,where Ros informs me there will be loads of beautiful rugs for me to drool over .
In between we have a fantastic sea voyage to take .

Ros again: we are missing your comments dear friends and rellies, tho do understand that you have many preoccupations with horrid weather, bills and other mundane facts of life back home. However, hope you are enjoying all this nonetheless.