Puerto Natales – the base camp for a Puma spotted wilderness.
The Torres del Paine National Park is beautiful. Really beautiful. It’s vast, mostly empty and expensive to enter… well while that may be true, it’s third adjective should really be ‘astounding’. It might be easy to ignore natural beauty these days, it seems the temptation to point the camera the other way is overpowering, even on the mountain. However, when you come to realise that the real majesty in your 6×4″ is not your overexposed sultry stare, but what’s behind it; a landscape that’s been carved over thousands and thousands of years, you will get an overwhelming sense of perspective.
There are plenty of things to fill your time in this part of Patagonia, though most opt for the treks around the national park. There is a reason for that, and that reason is that whichever walk you choose will be one of the best walks you’re likely to ever take. Between the Gauchos and their horses, the cascading fresh water that collects in bloody great lakes at the bottom of the mountains and the Tolkienesque mountains themselves, there lies the tracks for the tourists to explore.
The views are literally everywhere and actually put a camera’s ‘Panorama’ setting to good use. The freshest of fresh air whistled through the valleys, it feels so good to breath in that you almost don’t want to breath out. This National Park really gives you a chance to properly stretch your legs. You can’t help but to walk here, but be prepared for snow, sweat and soggy snacks. There’s also a chance to see Pumas! We saw one from afar, it was drinking from one of the lakes. They’re rare to spot but everyone gets giddy at the mention of one close-by… but not too close-by.
A lasting memory would be the look on the face of our walking guide and the pure elation he must’ve felt when we reached the top of the Torres del Paine ‘Base of the Towers’ trek. He had been somewhat of a despot on the way up with his nonnegotiable breaks, hard-boiled looks and thundering cries of “¡Vamos chicos, vamos!”, but when the sun eventually broke the clouds at the tippity top and we rested for tea and flaccid cheese wraps, the man’s soul obviously awakened because he was suddenly as happy as a pig in shit. He threw his arm around me, shouted the words “beautiful mountains!” and pretty much skipped his way back down. I guess he had that overwhelming sense of perspective.
"Was that accidental or were you trying to quote TLC on purpose?"
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