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Dear all,
Hope everyone has fully recovered from Christmas and is well into celebrating the new year. We had to celebrate New Years Eve Eve (NYEE) last night, and tonight we will do the New Years Eve thing. See, the reason for that is that the last 6 days and 5 nights weīve been hiking around Torres Del Paine National Park in the south of Chile. Weīve been living on a fairly staple diet of crackers and jam for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week! And cookies and cream museli bars, choc chip biscuits, cup-a-soups and, in the luxurious beginning, we had a loaf of bread and a bit of left over pasta. The night before we left was Christmas Eve, and we went to this really excellent restaurant with a sheep hanging over hot coals in the window (thatīs Nickoīs favourite) and had a 7 course part set menu/part buffet for dinner. I had this fantastic drink called Weina (or something) and itīs cinnamon flavoured alcohol with a small fluffy head and cinnamon sprinkled on top. The whole week trekking in the bush I was just hanging to get back for another one of these drinks. Yesterday, while we were waiting for the boat out of the park, a young couple from our Antarctic cruise, Katie and Andrew, spotted us playing frisbee in the park, so we hooked up with them for drinks and dinner at the same place as weīd spent Christmas Eve back in the town of Puerto Natales. Hence celebrating NYEE, and tonight is NYE so the place to be seems to be this bar/hostel place called Indigo. Should be good... they mix a really, really good Pisco Sour (a typical South American drink) there. Anyway, enough talk about food... Itīs making me hungry. Letīs move on to the trekking shall we. So, at Torres Del Paine, we trekked from refugio (hostel) to refugio on a daily basis. Only one day did we have bad weather, and it was just amazing. Thank goodness the wind was blowing into the mountain, īcause we literally were getting blown away. And there was this lake, and it looked like it was raining over the lake, but what was actually happening was the wind was sweeping over the top of it and blasting the water up a good 200 meters or so in vertical sheets. We couldnīt watch for long, because the stinging slap on the face caused by the water, and the lack of stability in our footing, it wasnīt safe, nor pleasant to stand still, but it was fascinating to watch. Waterfalls along the path were not flowing as gravity intended, it was just incredible. Thankfully, we were only in that weather for about an hour, but others who left the refugio later than we did, copped it for longer. And poor Katie and Andrew were on a 4,100 meter high pass in the snow, with visibility of about 5cm or something dangerously rediculous... and they had to camp out in it! Down lower where we were, the refugio took pity on some of the campers and let them sleep on the floor of the refugio dining area. The other days the weather was magnificent and the walks varied from 3 to 8 hours, and at most opportunities weīd leave our packs tied to a tree at a camping area, or in the refugio if we arrived early, and go on side tracks with just a day pack (luxury!). There were heaps and heaps of Israelis, everywhere. We were really lucky īcause the day we climbed to the actual Torres (towers) after which the park takes itīs name, the visibility was fantastic and only after weīd been at the summit lookout (not the summit of the rock tower) did it start to snow. The only disappointing thing about the park was the lack of visible wildlife. We saw a few guanacos (llamas) on the bus ride in, and apart from a couple of wierd looking geese and ibis type birds on the first day, the only things we saw were little tiny sparrow type birds, and the odd condor. I wonder if there were many animals that saw us, that we didnīt see, or if there just werenīt any. Prior to our days in Chile, weīd spent about 4 days in Argentina. From the small town of El Calafate, we took a guided tour to Glacier Moreno with a couple of other people from our cruise. The tour guide was fantastic. Explaining everything in both Spanish and English... and explaining things really well. The mini bus stopped and Freddricho would tell us all about the plants and landscape and stuff. Even though weīd seen heaps of glaciers in Antarctica, this one was different īcause it wasnīt totally surrounded by just ice. There was forest all around it, up until the tree line, and then bare, exposed rock and it was absolutely magnificent. Itīs known as the most spectacular glacier outside of Antarctica. And it moves 2 meters a day! Thatīs phenominal! Imagine seeing this massive solid frozen river, the front wall of which is 60 meters high, and you hear this massive thunderous sound as you watch a chunk of ice the size of a house fall off the front and disturb the otherwise fairly still, turquoise lake. The day after Moreno, Steve, Sharon, Nick and I caught a bus to a nearby (4 hours) town called El Charlton, which has some great day hikes. The first day we all went together to Lago De Los Tres, a lake at the botom of these massive rock towers that juts out of the earth called the Fitzroy Range. It was a 10 hour return hike so we left at 6:30am so Steve could be back in time for his bus. The hike was very steep to start with, through the Beech (thatīs a type of tree) forest, and then it flattened out for a while through these waste high prickly shrub things, and then it went really steep again up a rocky and rubbly mountain. But the view was so worth it. Also, we were exceptionally lucky, īcause some people wait over a month for good weather to climb the actual towers, and we got perfect weather the first (and only) day we were there. Anyway, at the the top there was a crystal clear, bright turquoise lake, with a smallish glacier above it, and then this massive purely vertical rock structure piercing the sky. After a having a wind blown lunch at the top of the rocky, rubbly mountain, Steve and Sharon turned back, and Nick and I continued down to the lake and around the glacier, recommended by some other tourist we passed on the way up. What a treat! Another glacier, or and then a sheer, maybe 150 meter, drop down to the cloudy turquoise coloured lake, with a small but fast flowing stream running from it down the mountain. We were on top of the drop and I had to venture across the rubble to get the photo of what I wanted, the two different coloured lakes in the same frame. It was a challenging little escapade, īcause if the rocks slid much more than they did... well, lets not go there, for Mum and Dadīs sake. So, then, we walked back down to the bottom of the rocky, rubbly mountain, leaving the spectacular tower rock behind us, and turned off to the left at the shrubby section, and followed a large fast and furious stream around a couple of valleys to another glacier (canīt remember what itīs called) and we did a bit of boulder climbing to get as close as we could to the ice. Another spectactular scene. This return trip added an extra 3 hours to our day, but again was really worth it. At one point Nick and I got separated for about 5 minutes, as we chose different routes around a massive boulder, and we were both calling out at the top our voices, but the wind dispersed any hope of hearing each other. I re-traced my steps (to the best of my navigationally handicapped ability), thinking that maybe Nicko had slipped or something, but couldnīt find him. He kept on walking around the boulder expecting me to come around the other side any second. In the end I just sat down where I was and hoped heīd come back for me, and seconds later we spotted each other. Itīs amazing how in such a small distance with these massive natural obstacles causing big blind spots, you can feel so alone and disoriented when you get separated. We both would have got back fine, but when you donīt know if the other person is hurt, or you canīt find them, it puts a totally different perspective on the situation youīre in. By the time we got back to the refugio, weīd been trekking for 14.5 hours... a good days work. The next day Sharon left us, and Nicko and I had booked an excursion to go glacier walking. The meeting point was base camp for the climb to Cerro Torres, another huge, vertical tower of rock pointing to the sky. Only 2 people summitted it last season, and none so far this season. Base camp was a 3 hour walk from the refugio, and we had to meet at 9:30, however after yesterdayīs effort, I had a little trouble dragging my lazy arse out of bed, and we didnīt leave until 7:30, so we had to keep a good pace, which was just what our knees needed, going up the steep incline to base camp. Anyway, we made it in plenty of time, arriving a 9:29. There were 3 other people doing the excursion too, as well as our guide Gustavo. We were all fitted with a harness and crampons, and set off. The first thing we had to do was beena onto a wire flying fox type thing across a small, but white water none the less, river and haul ourselves across to the other side. Then a 20 minute walk up a morrane, which is the rocky slope left by a receded glacier, and then 40 minutes thru the forest to the ice. We cramponed up, and had a 2 minute lesson on how to use crampons, and then set off walking across the ice, over the cerrax, a lumpy area of ice. Crossing crevasses and looking down into huge deep cracks, some filled with perfectly clear, clean water, others choked with stones, and others with streams still carving them out. The deeper the crevasse, the bluer the light reflected from it, the colours are gorgeous, but theyīre not always easy to photograph without leaning over and risking falling (and not being rescued). Our picnic lunch on the glacier was a very picturesque, dramatic spot. We moved on towards a fairly dirty, 20 meter ice wall where we took turns harnessing up, with Gustavo on belay, a helmet on our heads and armed with a couple of ice axes we climbed the wall. An awesome feeling! Really smashing that axe into the ice gives a really stable hold... itīs amazing. I found it a lot easier than rock climbing. Felt alot safer.... except for the time I very narrowly missed slicing the safety rope in two with a clumsy left handed ice axe placement. Well folks, that was a long email, and abruptly ended too I realise, but I donīt think Iīve got enough Chilean pesos on me to affort to keep on writing. Nicko left about an hour and half ago, when I hadnīt even started writing this. Hope you havenīt been bored reading this, īcause Iīve been excitedly typing away re-living my oudoor adventures. So, take care and a happy and healthy new year to all and families, other halves and all that. TTFN (TaTa For Now, for those of you are not familiar with Whinnie the Pooh), Nique |