W stands for WE DID IT.

So NOW I´m in Punta Arenas (check out a map... last REAL city on the continent, pretty cool!)
I survived Torres del Paine. Barely. Man, was that an adventure WAYY out of my league. I´m going to try to do a rough post of what I did. I just tried to load my pictures at this Internet Cafe, but it didn´t work out so well. So I´ll edit it once I get back to Viña.

FRIDAY
Friday was when we arrived in Puerto Natales, like my other blog post said. You know, when all our equipment got laughed at? And we rented a ton of stuff, including boots, which turned out to be a HUGE MISTAKE. More on that later...
Sarah and I also started noticing the crazy hours of daylight in the south during their "summer." The sun rises before 5:30, and doesn´t set until after 9:30.

SATURDAY
The day of my last post. The last breakfast. We made our way to Torres del Paine. On our way there, we stopped at a small cafeteria. As the winds whipped around us, I staretd to realize just how crazy we are for attempting this...

We arrived at the park, grabbed another transfer after paying the entrance, and went to our first campsite. It took us a while to set up our tent. And we forgot a few crucial stakes (oops). Thankfully, the park ranger who ran the campsite set us straight.

We also learned on this lovely Saturday that we essentially needed to scale a mountain to reach the first mirador (lookout). Feel free to refer back to my post on La Campana to remind yourselves about how I feel about mountains...

So we climbed for hours, carrying a smaller backpack (we left our heavier stuff in tent at the bottom). We also got lost on the wrong side of a river, and ended up losing nearly an hour as we attempted to go back to a point where the river was crossable. That was sweet.

After a few hours, we realized that we were going to run out of daylight (I mean, it might set LATE, but the sun does set). It didn´t seem worth it to risk going on when we didn´t know how the sun would set around the mountains. We also didn´t have flashlights (Note: ALWAYS BRING FLASHLIGHTS CAMPING). After we made the decision to turn back, we tried to cook some soup using our little camping stove. Sarah sat on top of a table, using her body to block the wind. Ahh, the wind! I´ve honestly never seen wind as crazy as it is here, especially in TdP. One man estimated 110 kph to me, roughly 70 mph gusts. Apparently, 100 mph isn´t uncommon in the summer (we´re nearly in the summer here).

Anyways, we gave up cooking and made our way back to our campsite, and cooked inside our tent (Note: NEVER COOK INSIDE A TENT). We really had no other choice, though. All the wind blew our any flame that we attempted to use to heat up water. Also, we had huge issues with our rental shoes. They legitimitely started bruising our feet, making that first mountain adventure uncomfortable. Horribly uncomfortable, downright painful.

So we passed out in our mummy sleeping bags, trepidatiously awaiting the next morning....

SUNDAY

We cooked in our tent again. Oatmeal. Deliciuos.

Then we took a shuttle to another lake (by the way, we realized there was a cheating way to hike the W by using all the park transportation available, which would allow you to set up tent, put your ridiculous backpacks in there, and then walk around a bit more free. The hikes were still intense, but it was SO MUCH EASIER without 15-18 kilos of gear each). On this shuttle, it started snownig like CRAZY. Sarah grew up in FL, then moved to GA, and now goes to school in Nashville. I think it was quite an experience for her... I, however, was PUMPED.

The shuttle let us off at a lake, where we would take a catamaran later that day to our next campsite. So we hid our backpacks behind a shed, and went on a hike to Salto Grande and Mirador Los Cuernos. Salto Grande is a crazy waterfall in the park, and Los Cuernos are some of the more famous mountains there, that kind of look like horns. The waterfall was absolutely INCREDIBLE. And the walk to the mirador was beautiful. It had cleared up by now, and was sunny (they say that the south of Chile gets all four seasons in one day. It is not a lie). However, RIGHT when we got to the mirador, those blizzard-like conditions kicked back into high gear. Kind of disappointing, incredibly ironic. We also got incredibly close to these animals called guanaco, which are a type of Chilean deer. This hike was not in vain.

We awlked back to thelake, where we now had 4 hours to wait until the catamaran. The winds were still fierce, so we decided to cook in the bathroom (Note: TdP had the BEST PUBLIC BATHROOMS I´ve seen in Chile). After a super classy lunch of soup and instant coffee, we decided to brave the weather and wait for the boat. And it was worth it. The catamaran had free coffee. Life is good.

We set up camp on the other side of the lake MUCH FASTER this time, since it was snowing again. Snow in Torres del Paine doesn´t actuallly fall down, I´ve learned. Oh no. Since the winds are so intense, it legitimitely blows 100% horizontally. Weirdest thing Ivé ever seen, and us New Englanders know crazy weather.

That night, Sarah and I made fantastic lentils in our camp stove. Delicious. We also met up with some people she knew from her theater class, traveling in a group of 6. The world is TOO SMALL. We all camped there that night (this time, under a blanket of snow... thank God for our rental tent).

MONDAY

We had decided that we were going to leave that night, and cut our trip short by a day. We defintiely kind of felt like we were quitting, but the weather was SO crazy, and our clothes not entirely appropriate (I don´t have a jacket in Chile...), and we were seriously in so much pain from the rental boots that it didn´t make sense to stay. It seemed dangerous, quite honestly, to be hiking around just the two of us when we were so far less than 100%. My ankles are still awkwardly bruised and deformed, almost a week later.

This morning, we cooked in a shower room. Keeping it classy and interesting.

Began the hike. AMAZING VIEWS. Our destination was Glacier Grey. We got there after about 3.5 hrs of trekking. And getting to see it, there was a moment of "It was worth it. This is why I came."

Sarah also convinced once of the kids from the group of 6 we met up with to use his hiking stick and fish a piece of ice out of the lake. And he did. And we licked it.

I repeat---- we licked a piece of the glacier.

The hike back was maybe the most painful thing I´ve ever done (Note: Earlier this day, I stubbed my foot HARD into an awkward rock wall, and I´m pretty sure my toe is broken. Not pretty. BUT DONT WORRY--- it´s just a toe!! And the baby one. Expendable).

Got back to campsite. Tore our tent down. Made coffee. Went back. Fell asleep.

My time is abuot to run out at this Internet cafe, and I dont want to pay more! Ill finish updating and add pictures in a few days!

Besos,
C