Verena & Jan auf Weltreise

5 days of trekking. 35kg backpacks, 4 nights in a tent, 65km walking trails and 31 amazing pictures.
Pictures are online already –> “See Us!”

After a big day in El Calafate we drove to Puerto Natales in Chile. This little town is the entrance to the spectacular national park “Torres del Paine” (=“Blue Towers”). A very famous hiking track in the park is called the “W” and means a 5-day walk through different valleys with amazing landscapes and breathtaking views. The whole park covers 180.000 hectares and the variety of different vegetations leads to a large presence of mammals like pumas, condors, guanacos, flamingos and an enormous bird fauna.
Click here to go to Torres del Paine Nationalpark
After a long bus ride, we arrived the town at 10 p.m. Our hostel was overbooked so we had to find a new one. We ended up at another hostel with a weird owner called Omar. He looked like a child-eating ex-prisoner, but close to midnight we had no other chance. The next morning, surprising Omar baked fresh eggs for breakfast, helped us to plan the trip and was really friendly.
The first day started at 6:00 a.m. We drove to the park and caught the catamaran to cross the lake that we could start from the beginning of the “W”-circuit. This way takes 5 to 6 days, covers 80kms and is about 35 hours of walking.  Verena carried 13 kilos (8 kilos more than in NZ) and Jan had 23 kilos. The backpacks were full of food, a tent, sleeping bags, mattresses, clothes, cooking facilities and lot more stuff. After the first day we realized that the information signs for time & distances were not really realistic. We always took more time with taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful scenery. We finally came across windy lakes and a mirador (lookout) of the Glacier Grey after we stopped for lunch. It was a stunning sight to see the Glacier in the sun. The 1^st day stayed sunny all day with only a few high clouds and strong wind much better than we could have expected in Patagonia. The night in the tent was uncomfortable and full of noisy wind around us. The 2^nd day we walked the long distance of 18km – too long for not well experienced hikers. Marco got pain in his knee and Verena had aching muscles. Therefore we decided to make a shorter walk on the 3^rd day. We arrived at the camp after a 5 hour hike at 3:30 in the afternoon and had enough time to relax.
The 4^th day Marco stayed at the camp to recover his knee so Verena and Jan walked alone the next long way. A light drizzle started to fall as we trekked along the mountains followed by sun, followed by rain, by sun, by rain … Verena nearly got a nervous breakdown while changing clothes all the time. We were done when we arrived the last campground before the three high towers of Torres del Paine. The next morning we were too lazy to start at 4 a.m. to see the sunrise so we went up 5 hours later but the view was still amazing. Finally we were happy to make the long track and met Marco at the bus station. Furthermore we enjoyed the shower and fresh clothes and a big “bife de chorizo” (Steak) in the evening .

4 Kommentare »