Tierre del Fuego has been fascinating, but also very barren and windy. It was therefore absolutely magical to cycle from Puerto Natales on a beautiful and almost windless day towards the Torres del Paine National Park.
We met a guy on the road who worked in the park as a guide. He said this was his favorite road in all of Patagonia. We soon understood why. We turned off the asphalt road onto a winding dirt road. It was simply so beautiful with green vegetation, animals and just as quietly we could see the mountains in the distance. An absolutely fantastic sight.
After staying one night at the Lago Pehoe campsite, we got ready for one of the highlights of our trip. Trekking in Patagonia's spectacular and fascinating landscape. We had decided on the famous 71 km. long W-treks, which are named after the physical shape of the route. It would take 4 days. Absolutely perfect in terms of being able to have a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, food, rain gear and a warm sweater in our 33 liter rucksack. There was room for nothing else.
We took a small catemaran out to the start of the trek, from where we moved up the western side of the w. A large part of this site burned most recently in 2012, when a tourist tried to light a fire. It has happened a total of three times. It's really sad, but it was also very spectacular and thought-provoking to walk in.
We moved further along the trek – and whoa there was an iceberg. And one more. In the distance we could sense Gray Glacier. An impressive sight. It only got more beautiful the closer we got to it. We arrived at Gray camp, where we were to sleep. Here we got a tip to continue further up to get even closer to the 270 km2 glacier. It looked like the glacier went on forever. We saw a boat sailing towards the glacier. It looked tiny. It really put the size of the glacier into perspective.
We sat and admired the impressive glacier. Out of the blue, two condors soared above us. It was almost too good to be true. Huge birds with wingspans of up to over 3 meters and yet so graceful.
The middle of the w is the French valley. It was a very raw, windy and magnificent place. We came in the afternoon, so the glacier was working due to the heating of the sun, and we saw avalanches. It's incredibly loud as it sounds.
Last year the national park changed their rules for overnight stays. Now you must have a reservation to be able to spend the night in the park. The official reason is that they want to reduce the number of visitors to the park, as it wears down the nature. That is good and understandable. Another reason could be that you now have to pay commercial providers to spend the night if you don't get a place on one of the 3 free camping spots. We didn't get that. So we spent 2 nights in a tent and one night in the refugio. Apart from being a bit hard on the wallet, it was now very nice.
The highlight of the trek was seeing the 'towers' which are three mountain peaks and the highlight of the national park. The alarm was set for 03.30 to see the sunrise over the towers at 06.00. It was really early, but it was also challenging to go up the mountain with a headlamp. It went up up up up, and we had heard it would be a really tough trek. In full hopla, we overtook 10 American women with a guide. Then we should probably make it. It went uphill, but it was fun because we almost had to climb up in some places.
We arrived at the top in good time. It was a bit like being in Narnialand and experiencing the light change from dark to twilight until it became bright. Watch the sunrise on one side of the mountain peak and on the other side the impressive rock formations and lagoon.
The jumping-off point is whether it is cloudy or whether it is possible to see the sun's rays reflecting with red light on the towers. We were lucky. All of a sudden the stones turned red from the sun's rays. It was a bit cloudy, but that almost made the experience even more magnificent.
We are so glad we prioritized putting the bikes and took the time to do this trek. The nature experience was simply so fascinating and spectacular. Although now we were also happy to see the bikes again after 4 days of separation.
