Torres Del Paine and the Bramathon
bramski
Being sick sucks. Particularly when on vacation, and particularly when in another country. I picked up about 2 days worth of an Argentinian flu/cold, which cut my time in Torres Del Paine down to just 2 nights and 2 days. Fortunately, Erratic Rock is just one of the best hostels I´ve ever stayed at. With a good half a day of reading and watching lots of Bill´s giant VHS collection, I hopped the afternoon bus out to take the Catamaran to Paine Grande, which is a huge campsite near the west end of the park.
El Parque Torres Del Paine is just gorgeous, and absolutely huge. I had mostly clear weather for all 3 days I was there. Once again, Patagonia is windy as all hell, and I and the other tourists were just nearly blown off of the deck of the catamaran as it crested wave after wave, snapping shots of the middle Torres range.
Paine grande is one huge windtunnel filled with tents, mice, and lots and lots of people who have just never set up their tent before. I didn´t see any major disasters, but every day I´d run into hikers who would say, ¨Man! The mice ate right through my tent/backpack/sleeping-bag/jacket¨. I was pretty fortunate, probably because Ben Glenn´s tent is the size of my torso, but all that happened was that some mice took bites of out my snicker´s bars in the backpack that was hanging from a tree.
I completed all of the W circuit but the left hand side and didn´t get to see the gray glaciar. Even my first day in the park, which was this past friday, I got up early and hucked it to Campamento Italiano, and dropped my stuff to head up into the French Valley. I got all the way into the Saddle of Cerro Sur (the southern tower of Paine), and came back to my tent, just still exhausted from being sick.
However, the Bramathon really came about the next day, about 38 km by my count, and about 17 of it with heavy pack. I woke up at 7am and left Campamento Italiano, dropped the pack near a split in the trail and headed up, nalgene only, mostly trail running the path up to El Campamento Torres, and the viewpoint in the valley of the 3 towers of Paine. Absolutely amazing, totally clear day, lots of altitude gain, and those towers are just giant amazing pillars. I made it out to the Hosteria for the final bus after the marathon day at 6:40, nearly 12 hours of straight trekking, with a cumulative 40 minutes of break. I crashed out pretty hard, but that park is just gorgeous.
I´m writing to you now from Ushuaia, southern most city in the world. Home to magellan penguins, and El Parque Tierra del Fuego. Chau for now!
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Posted on: Monday, March 31, 2008 at 2:10 pm 
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