Pre-motherhood, my husband and I traveled a lot. I never kept diaries, but I would send long ... excruciatingly long ... e-mail to tell people about our adventures. And considering the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the past few weeks is getting peed on in the middle of a jazz concert, I decided to go back and re-live the past ... for just a day.
This is one of my favorites from our trip to the Patagonia in Argentina and Chile three years ago!
And ... be warned ... it's excruciatingly long ...
Like a short chapter book or something.
An adventure that includes glacier hiking, torrential winds, pissing rain, black eyes, and the heroic measures of my husband!! (Intriguing, no doubt!!)
Chapter One: Leaving Ushaia ..
You know you´ve stayed too long in a place when the hostel people begin to pencil you in their work schedule. (They wanted to give me the night shift.)
After finally getting out of bed on Sunday because of my kryptonite intestinal issues, I felt like a new person. (Greg, our intrepid Australian friend had already gotten out of bed the day before.) So I showered and went to have my first breakfast in four days. People I hadn´t ever seen before kept asking, "Wow. Are you okay?"
I felt great! And went to look for a bus ticket to Puerto Natales where we would begin our adventurous trek in Torres del Paine, and found that the first bus out of Ushuaia wasn´t until Wednesday. That´s a LONG time to spend in a small, small town. Oh well. We went back to the national park one day for hiking, and spent the rest of the time eating: king crab, king crab soup, slabs of meat (in Argentina, you pay $5.00 for a side of beef, really), gelati, artesan hot chocolate and chocolates, pastries, alfajores, and more.
I had to go for a final checkup with the doctor:
Doctor: How are you feeling.
Heidi: Okay. Just a little extra stomach movement.
Doctor: You´ve stuck to the diet?
Heidi: Diet?
Doctor: Vegetable broth. Dried bread.
Heidi: (Clearly lying) Sure.
Doctor: (Dumb tourist.) Okay. Stick to it. You should be okay in a couple of days.
Heidi: (Red faced) Thanks again.
We spent so much time in the aforementioned restaurants, the gelati guys invited us to stay with them next time we were in Ushuaia, the beef guy gave Cesar a CD with all the BOCA Juniors cheer songs, the hostel manager cried when we were going and asked to take photos of all of us together (for her Christmas card this year).
It was clearly time to leave Ushuaia.
We left early Wednesday for a 15 hour journey to Puerto Natales .. the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. (Towers of Paine National Park)
Chapter Two: Puerto Natales
Puerto Natales` sole function in life is to get eager backpackers prepared for the mountain. The town is replete with backpacking shops, dried food stores, and backpackers who look really tough in their Mountain Hardwear gear with five o-clock shadows (I`m talking about the women!).
We weren`t intimidated (Well, I was. Just a touch), though, and we, too, were ready to hike the most trekked National Park in South America -- and most extreme.
Greg, Cesar and I spent a day renting the gear we needed to complement our own, got enough food to last us the expected four-nights, five-days in the park (including inordinate amounts of chocolates), and packed for our big adventure.
How naive we were!
Torres del Paine receives about 200,000 visitors a year, and though the actual trek isn´t so excruciating, the weather is a killer. In one day, you can have snow, rain, 100 mile-hour winds, and sun. The most important thing to be for this trek is prepared.
But can anyone REALLY prepare for the towers? That, my friends, is for you to decide after you read about our next six-nights/seven-days. (Note: Two days longer than expected.)
Need a coffee break? Or maybe you can come back and read on later .. if you wish. If not, you can just humor me and write "Wow .. great update, Heidi." Then I will know that you read to this part and just got bored out of your mind.
No hard feelings. (Just don`t expect a souvenir or postcard anytime soon.)
Chapter Three: Towers of Paine = Towers of Rain
The morning we were leaving, a Canadian couple was having breakfast, having just returned from the park. I asked them how the trek was and the woman practically spit out her coffee. "They lie! They lie"
I thought it was an odd response .. little did I know this would be indicative of things to come ... (DA DUM DA DUM ..music cue)
We arrived to the park and took a ferry to where the trek began. Our first leg was up to Glacier Grey -- one of 47 glaciers in the Glacier National Park here (the biggest fresh-water source in the world.)
That day, the wind ripped the rain into us, so it felt like we were being struck with needles. It was a pretty easy 3-4 hour hike up to the massive blue glacier. Exquisitely blue! That night, Cesar worked his magic. It´s fall here, and the park pretty much closes up at the end of April, and the glacier guides have small groups. Many days trips are cancelled because of bad weather. Two guides are going to be traveling in Colombia in July, so Cesar offered to exchange a day of glacier hiking for the three of us ($135.00/each) for lodging at his family`s farm in Colombia. They said yes!
The next day, the trip was cancelled because rain started pouring in buckets. (When it rains like that, the boat can`t get to the glacier, so we`d be stuck sleeping in an ice hut over night or until the boat could come.) So we decided to go for a day hike.
Hiking in pouring rain isn´t fun.
I don´t like people who say it is fun because, quite honestly, when it´s pissing rain, hiking isn´t even remotely fun.
The only people who say it is fun are:
1. That guy who does the entire Pacific Crest Trail with his camel-bak and a power bar.
2. Canadians. Canadians are impervious to horrendous weather conditions. It´s like they´re walking radiators. Weird.
3. Oregonians. They don´t shave, so I think they have some kind of natural wicking agents to keep them dry.
4. That guy. We all know that guy who´s really, really beefy and says, "Yeah, I broke my femur going over John Gardner´s pass but was able to bungee my leg together and hobble my way around the trek."
Nobody likes that guy.
So, after three hours of hiking, the glacier guides lent us their stove to dry our clothes -- it took 8 hours.
In those eight hours Cesar managed to burn a hole in his fleece, his socks, and his hiking pants. Greg burned his shirt. The poor glacier guides´ hut smelled like sweaty burnt clothes. And they STILL let us go on the hike the next day ...
Chapter Four: Crampons, Ice Climbing and Rapeling ...
The next morning, the sun rose and we actually got to SEE the glacier (not behind the clouds). We spent the entire day exploring ice caves that looked like Italian blown glass -- a crystal blue with transparent swirls. We drank water from icy streams. We rapeled down a wall of ice and climbed back up with ice axes and ropes. And we ate lunch next to a crevasse the color of the blue sky just as the sun drops behind the mountain. It was truly exquisite.
We tromped all over the glacier and at 5:00 the boat picked us up as scheduled.
Thus far, it´s been one of the most spectacular days I´ve ever had traveling.
Chapter Five: Towers of Hurricane ... Pain .. Migraine
The next morning we packed up and said good bye to our new friends. We can`t wait to see them in Colombia! The sun was still up and the wind was blowing pretty fiercely. (In Torres del Paine, if it´s not raining, it´s blowing.)
There are "horror stories" of the wind and how people get to John Gardner´s pass on the back side of the mountain only to return because they can`t physically get up the mountain because of the wind. I met two huge Australian guys who crawled 2 kilometers in the wind to get over the pass.
(Just to give you an idea .. Punta Arenas, a city a few hours outside of Torres del Paine has cables on every street for people to grab onto when the wind picks up because people die every year being blown in the wind. It´s THAT strong.)
Can you tell the theme here is wind? Wind is phenomenal and when the human body is taken by wind, there´s no way to regain control of it. The body will roll until the wind dies down unless that human finds something to hold onto for dear life (like cables, trees, bushes, boulders .. whatever)
Because we weren`t doing the entire circuit, but just the front side of the mountain, I thought we wouldn´t have to deal with said wind.
How very, very foolish.
We had a pretty easy day of hiking from the glacier to a beautiful valley encircled by massive granite mountains. I fell into a thorn bush with a wind once, but that´s not a big deal. Greg (our spindly Aussie) fell once as well. I just thought that´s par for the course.
The next morning, we woke up, ready for a fairly easy hike that would take us just one day away from the actual towers. The wind ripped through the trees all night, but we didn´t think much of it. We began our hike and stopped 2.5 hours into it to eat lunch. We were happy. The sun was up. We were dry. What else does a backpacker need?
The wind got so strong it ripped water from the lake and spattered us (hundreds of meters away!). But we continued on -- grateful for the sun. I was about a hundred meters ahead of Cesar and during one massive gust, the wind literally picked me up and threw me face first on the trail.
Crack.
I felt like an upturned cockroach. I couldn´t move, the wind had me pinned to the ground. When I finally lifted my head and blood dripped everywhere.
Heidi: (panic mode -- sprawled on the ground) Novio?? Novio??
Cesar: (running around the corner) What happened? My god! Are you okay?
Heidi: (sob, sob sob ...) You`ve got to clean the blood off my sunglasses. I can`t see. (stupid thing to think about, but that`s all I could do at that point.)
Cesar: Okay. Heidi, you`re okay. You`re okay.
Heidi: (clutching a rock, trying to keep still in the wind) I´m so sc-a-a-a-ared. (Yes. I know I´m killing all my bravado here.)
Cesar: Heidi! How many fingers to I have up?
Heidi: Three
Heidi: Two
Heidi: One ..
Cesar: What´s your Dad´s first name?
Heidi: It´s D-d-d-dominique, but he goes by G-i-iiilbert. (sob sob sob)
Cesar: We´ve got to get out of the wind. We´re going to those trees to clean up.
Heidi: Oh-oh-okay.
So somehow Cesar managed to get me up and down into a little place with protection. He pulled out the handi-wipes to get a better idea of the situation and found I only had a cut above my eyebrow and on my cheek. (honestly, though, heads bleed a TON!). And it´s bloody scary to lose control of your body to wind. WIND! Cesar was cleaning me up while I tried to regain some kind of self control when two little ladies in their sixties came from the other direction. This is what we might call irony and where I lose all credibility about how damned hard that wind blew.
Ladies: Oh! Quite a wind cooking up today.
Heidi: (trying to control sobbing at this point. Not in a "talking" mood.)
Ladies: Oh dear. Whatever happened to your face?
Heidi: Wind.
Ladies: Tsk-tsk
Then they flitted off down the trail.
Now there´s nothing I hate more than a tsk-tsk. I did refrain from hollering, "You´ll break your hips!" Because that´s just not a really nice thing to say.
But I don´t like those ladies.
Cesar managed to clean me up. I put a bandana on my head to put pressure on the bleeding and from then on throughout the trek I was known as the "girl with the bloody forehead and black eye". (Honestly, people came up to me throughout the rest of the hike and said, "Oh! Some guy told me about you!") I also managed to jam my left wrist, swelling to the size of my forearm, and scrape and bruise parts of my body I didn´t know could be bruised.
Ugh.
So we began walking together. Cesar was right in front when another gust literally almost blew me away. I don´t know how he did it but he managed to grab onto a tree, grab me and throw me into the tree and yell "hold on!". My hero!! (horn sounds here) We held onto that tree for a good thirty seconds.
Cesar: Okay. The coast is clear. Let´s go.
Heidi: (hugging tree with all her might) No
Cesar: Heidi, we´ve got to go.
Heidi: You can´t make me
Now keep in mind I almost labotomized myself just minutes earlier by being impaled on a rock and the wind hadn´t died down and I was terrified. So of course I wasn´t being rational.
Cesar: How long do you intend to stay here?
Heidi: Forever. And ever.
There was no way in God´s green earth I was going to let go of that tree. No way. Had it not been for Cesar I would still be hugging that tree -- redefining "tree hugger".
This next part is what I like to call "the military trek".
Chapter Who knows: Military Walking
Cesar came up with a brilliant plan. We had a sign for "hold on" and then when the coast was clear, Cesar´d motion with two fingers and we´d run like hell. We did this for about 2 hours .. sprinting when the wind died down. It´s hard to sprint with a 35 pound pack. Strangely, though, the entire day, a rainbow followed us. The sky down here has the most phenomenal light.
Then we came to the bloody river crossing -- more like a water fall crossing holding onto some kind of flimsy wire. (Yes, I AM AWARE the old ladies already did this. But we don´t like them, remember?) We got through that obstacle and suddenly the wind stopped. Flat. Dead. It was heaven. We walked the last two hours of a 7 hour day under the rainbow in peace.
Chapter Fatigue:
We caught up to Greg who had similar experiences having been hurled into a bush and toppled over. He was bruised all over his body. But we got over a ridge and saw our final destination (for that day). In some areas of the park, there are cabins next to campsites, so we walked into what we thought was one of those cabins with dorm beds.
It was a 17000 star hotel.
That´s mean. Really mean to put a hotel like that near the end of a trek for hikers.
I still had blood spatters everywhere, so when we asked if we could come in for a hot chocolate, the matre-de just said, "sure. Go ahead." Stepping back ever so slightly.
We sat down and the hot chocolates were SEVEN F"!%$ING DOLLARS. That´s cruel. Double cruel. So we just had a glass of water. I think the waitress felt sorry for us, so she refilled Greg´s tea cup twice.
A tour group arrived -- one of those organized group with people who wear cashmere scarves and Italian leather shoes. (Now, I don´t have anything against cashmere clad people, but if I were wearing cashmere and saw three of the scraggliest, saddest looking backpackers, I´d invite them for a coffee .. or chocolate. Or at least I wouldn´t gawk at them as if they were mountain beasts.) Anyway, I think we kind of scared them, so the maitre-de was very happy to point us to the campground.
We dragged ourselves to what we thought was a campsite (it turned out to be a horse pasture .. the campsite was about 100 - 200 more meters down the road). None of us were in any shape to go farther at all (and we still had two days left. We hadn´t even gotten to the Towers yet. Bloody hell.)
After setting up camp, the sky turned an iridescent blue with cotton-candy clouds that made everything glow pink. It was like standing under a pink spotlight. The entire field turned pink. Sydney, my niece, would´ve been very very happy to see that the whole world turned the color of her princess dresses.
The light in the sky is magic here.
The next morning, we got in a little trouble for camping in the horse pasture, but really, we didn´t care. Plus, we started using my eye to our advantage. People automatically stepped back and treated us nicer -- visible wounds are good for sympathy.
Chapter: The Towers!
The next day, we packed up and trekked 500 meters up (in about six kilometers) to our last camp site, then scrambled up 500 meters more over boulders and stones to get to the base of the towers -- three immense, majestic, granite towers next to a lime-green lake. The glacial ice cracked and tumbled off the towers in cascades and waterfalls.
Head pounding, wobbly legs, still a bit freaked out about wind, and totally exhausted, I sat next to Cesar and stared at the towers in awe.
It was worth it.
That night, Greg threatened to erase all the photos of the past week. (He´s a bit shell-shocked.) Cesar and I said, "What a great week! What a great hike!"
Greg stared at us and said, "Jesus, I´d hate to see what a bad hike is for you guys."
Chapter: WE MADE IT!
We hiked out to where the bus was going to pick us up in RECORD time. We had french fries while waiting for the bus. FRENCH FRIES! After a week of oatmeal, dried fruit, and top ramen, they tasted divine.
I have a major shiner (I look like I´ve been in a bar fight and lost.) We´re all too skinny now, so I can`t wait to get back to Argentina´s gelati and cow-sized portions of beef. We leave for El Calafate tomorrow to see Perito Moreno (the famous glacier that breaks off every three years) then we´ll be back in Buenos Aires soon for work and to enjoy what could be even more harrowing than the Torres del Paine -- a soccer match between Boca Juniors and River Plate ..
And I don´t intend to backpack. At least not for a little while.
