Day 3 Camp Frances to Camp Chileno

I woke up Steph an hour earlier than I should have by accident. There are some things you don’t do in life and not giving Steph enough sleep is one of them. To make it up to her I quickly set up the stove and had oatmeal mixed with some left over chocolate ready by the time she made it back from the bathrooms.  At least this time I had the stove figured out.  I definitely didn’t have oatmeal figured out; I should have read the instructions before throwing out the box to reduce weight, but we ate it anyways knowing we needed every calorie we could get.  We made it out of camp in 1 hour and 30 minutes this time.  The first minute with our packs on we silently questioned our ability to make it through the day, but at a certain point the packs just became a part of us and it suddenly wasn’t so bad.

After making a quick stop 2 hours in at Camp Cuernos we fell in stride with a Swedish law student named Sophie whose conversation made our final 6 hours of hiking with our packs go by much more quickly. We also encountered a family of four walking the trail with absolutely no gear.  We determined they must have had porters carrying their things since there was no way they could survive with so little. They asked us how much longer they had to walk until the next camp because they were getting tired.  They then marveled at the fact that we were walking the same distance with all our bags!  Why this was a surprise to them was bewildering to us since they were the only people on that section of the trail without gear, but Steph didn’t hesitate to point out that we weren’t exactly happy about carrying our things around before saying goodbye. We were less happy when we discovered that the last 2 hours of the trail to camp Chileno was a brutal uphill battle.

Sophie our hiking companion for day 3

You never know what dangers you will encounter on the trail.

Remember how I said that at a certain point the packs become a part of you?  Well by this kilometer that was a total load of crap.  I could feel the pack just as much as I could feel the newest addition of blisters to my toes.  While I was being tortured by blisters, Steph was developing welts on her hips from her bag.

I often felt during the hike that my travel companion was nothing more than a large bag with legs.

After setting up camp in the last somewhat flat area of the camp Chileno (the paid camp sites have no issue with charging 7500 pesos / $15CAN for spots that don’t really exist) we made our way to the cooking area to finally try out our bag of instant mashed potatoes.  If you have never seen instant mashed potatoes they are a light plastic bag of yellowish flakes and there is no exaggeration with the word instant.  Steph started freaking out as she added water and watched the flakes expand and transform into mashed potatoes within seconds. We weren’t sure if this was supposed to happen since the box with the unread instructions was sitting next to the box with the unread oatmeal instructions in a trash can in Puerto Natales.  However, to our surprise, within 4 minutes we were eating our most amazing meal of the trip (after having had the potatoes a second time we have determined that the awesomeness of the meal was 75% influenced by our insane hunger).  Lugging a stick of butter around for 4 days in an over sized Tupperware container had suddenly become worth it and we devoured them straight out of the pot as we chatted with two guys (a former chef and former IT guy) who had saved up for 6 years in order to take a 2 year trip together. They were great company.

Steph devouring instant mashed potatoes

We retired to bed at 9pm, but couldn’t go to sleep right away because a girl in the neighbouring tent broke out into endless, annoying laughter. It was so annoying that I almost got out of our tent to search her out, but eventually her and her tent mate started having sex (he was probably sick of her laughter too and was doing whatever he could to stop it) and at least then she became much more considerate about the noise she was making and I could finally get to sleep.

Day  4 –Torres del Paine

I woke up to that F#$ing laughter. It was just as well since Steph and I needed to pack away our tent before starting our trek to the towers at 6:30am. We had decided to forgo sunrise since it would mean getting up at 2am, but didn’t regret it when we saw it was overcast and unlikely that we would see the sun rising against the towers. We left our big bags at camp since we would have to double back and set off on the 2.5 hour uphill trek. As we got higher the drizzle of rain turned into an uncomfortable wet snow.  With every bend in the trail we told ourselves that it was impossible for the steep uphill climb to continue, but it did.  Apparently Torres del Paine means “The Blue Towers”,  but we preferred referring to them as the “Towers of Pain” by this point.

Not the view we were hoping for.

When we did reach the lookout we couldn’t even see a hint of the towers through the fog.  It was supposedly right in front of us, but at least we could say we had completed the “W”. The climb down was much faster and the sun eventually came out.  We began chanting “Beer, Beer Beer,Beer” with every step. We picked up our packs at camp and set out for our last 2 hours of  the trek in the stunning sunshine to the Hotel situated at the eastern entrance of the trail where the transfer bus would pick us up at 2pm.

Steph with as big smile as we walk the last 500 meters of the trek.

When we arrived back in town we were overwhelmed with errands: returning rented equipment, finding an ATM that worked, exchanging American money after realizing that none of the town’s ATMs worked, ordering pizza and stocking up on wine and beer to celebrate our accomplishments.  When we had met hikers coming back from the trail the night before we left for the “W” we were surprised that they were in no  rush to shower, but now we finally got it. Who wants to shower when you can put your feet up and drink a cold well earned beer instead?

Extra Pics from the trek