Torres del Paine

The next leg of our journey involved more walking than riding. We took the bus from Puerto Natales into Torres del Paine national park with enough food for five days tramping and the ride to the next border crossing (leaving Kate no room for any undies!). From the bus stop we biked into our starting point and set off in the rain at around seven in the evening. As we are not really set up for tramping we had to improvise a bit with how to carry our gear and had tents and dry bags strapped on the outside of our day packs. Kate ended up looking like a sherpa with her pannier attached precariously to the outside with bungies. Shane and Sophie (our pack horses) ended up carrying most of the food. On arrival at our first camp-site we were met by the camp-ground owner- an angry little South American woman. After being told in no uncertain teams, in the clearest Spanish we have some across so far, that camping was not free we had to up and move our whole camp and pay a ridiculous amount for the night. We managed to calm Kate down (who as many of you will know has a bit of reputation for disputes with camp ground owners!)

The next day dawned hot and sunny. We were very glad for an ice-berg swim at lunch-time. Unfortunately Shane couldn´t quite handle the jandal and was caught on camera bolting from the water!!

We did a pretty big day, walking for 29km through farmland, beech forest with views of glaciers and the backside of the famous torres (towers) del Paine. We reached our campsite late in the evening and Soph had her first introduction to the strength of Patagonian winds.

The track had very few people on it as it was officially closed due to a small, but quite challenging landslide- although we were not to find this out til later. The third day proved to be the highlight of our trip. We ascended around 600m across small snow fields and rocks to cross the John Gardner Pass (1250m) to be met by spectacular views of the massive Grey Glacier. The glacier made anything we had seen in New Zealand look muy pequeno (very small) being 6km wide at it widest.

We made a rapid descent with a mixture of running and sliding on our bums. After a brief lunch stop with the standard delicious combination of crackers, salami and jam we reached the landslide we had heard about. In order to cross the rock strewn gully we had to use temporary ropes and part abseil/part scramble down a steep slippery bank. We discovered one member of our team has a particular dislike for this type of terrain. As we waited anxiously at the bottom Shane patiently guided one of his chicas step by painful step to safety at the bottom. That evening we dined on Shane´s delicious fish in the evening sun overlooking the stunning Grey Glacier.The perfect weather continued over the next few days as we enjoyed frequent swims in the lakes alongside the track, randomly bumped into some Kiwis we knew and gradually ran out of food! Our trip was topped off by an awesome night sleeping under the stars beneath the enormous towers of Torres del Paine.

After the tramp we were pretty hungry! This is the girls delighted to find some scattered peanuts in Shane's trailer bag!

We are back in Argentina in El Calafate making the most of the all you can eat restaurants and ice-cream shops (trying to make sure Shane doesn´t fade away!) Tomorrow we are going to look at the famous Perito Moreno glacier (advancing at 2m per day!) and then heading north on our bikes to El Chalten and beyond.........