Southern Patagonia 2008
page 2
Torres del Paine National Park
Back in Chile, this is the Última Esperanza area north of
Puerto Natales, view looking south toward the Magellan Straits. This
is superb land for large-scale sheep farming, with a ready shipping
access. The boom in sheep farming began in 1877 when the price of
wool was high in Europe.
The Paine Massif in the distance, our destination over
the next few days.
I joined a small guided tour for about 10 days to ride, camp and
trek. Our adventure began on a vast estancia, or ranch. We stayed at
this crumbling gaucho post for two nights before riding off to Torres
del Paine National Park.
The national park covers about 600,000 acres and was created in
1959. The massif was formed about 12 million years ago by techtonic
and glacial action, leaving granite towers that rise about 9,000
feet. It is separate from the Andes mountain chain. It consists of
mountains, glaciers, rivers and lakes. There are five distinct
regions of flora within the park. We viewed guanaco, condor, red fox
and skunk.
Guanaco look like llamas and walk like camels. They are
all the same color, are curious, and have a comical bleating sound.
Herds of 50-100 animals were common as we entered the park from the
east. In his book In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin describes the guanaco
as making "a noise like a baby trying to cry and sneeze at
once."
We followed some puma tracks this day, which made our horses
nervous. At one point we saw about 15 condors perched on a hillside,
most likely waiting for the puma to finish eating so they could feed
off the scraps.
Río Paine, a nice place for a lunch break. We will
camp near the Towers in the distance.
Panchi is setting up the cooking and dining tent at
Torres campground. His meals were multi course, five-star camp-stove
extravaganzas. Pisco sour and wine were always available. One of the
Towers is barely visible above the hill.
Torres del Paine
This was at the end of a killer climb over huge boulders that form
the morraine at the base of the towers. Paine (PIE-nay) means blue in
Mapundungun.
Riding to Cuernos campground
Lake Nordenskjold
Los Cuernos (horns)
Lake Pehoé
Balmaceda Glacier
Serrano Glacier
Return to Puerto Natales