Chile
Laguna Amarga

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    • Day 66

      Ein tierisch guter Tag

      January 31, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

      Es gibt viele Nationalparks in Chile. Aber es wäre seltsam würde man beim Aufzählen nicht mit diesem Anfangen. Torres del Paine. Mit den 2 Wandertrails W-Trail der ca. 4-6 Tage dauert und den Rundkurs O-Trail. ca. 130 KM lang. Dort gibt es auch Campingplätze die nur zu Fuß zu erreichen sind. Diese müssen zu dieser Jahreszeit schon ein halbes Jahr vorher gebucht werden. An diesem morgen hatte ich es geschafft rechtzeitig aufzustehen. Das Wetter ist trocken und es herrschte angenehme Temperatur. Alutasche ausgepackt, um später meine Motorradkombi verstauen zu können. Tagesrucksack verstaut und Wanderstiefel an. Ich wollte eine Tagestourwanderung zum Filetstück machen. Zu den berühmten Türmen. Der Park ist über 100 KM entfernt. Zum Glück eine Asphaltstraße die zwischendurch von ca. 25 KM Ripio unterbrochen wird. Die Strecke wird neu ausgebaut. Es geht durch Cerro Castillo, ein Grenzübergang nach Argentinien. Gauchos auf Pferde mit einer Schafsherde sind ein passendes Motiv. Auch Guanakos (keine Alpakas) säumen den Straßenrand. Gefährlich wird es wenn diese wie beim Wildwechsel plötzlich die Fahrbahn kreuzen. Und dann im Ripioabschnitt ein Gürteltier. Ich schaffe es gerade noch ihn bei der Flucht zu fotografieren. Von weitem sieht man schon das Massiv der Berge vom Torres del Paine. Und auch Raubtiere. Diese kommen mit dem Bus. Ich ergreife die Flucht. Ein Silberfuchs flüchtet vor mir und versteckt sich zwischen den Büschen. Er wartet bis ich ihn fotografiert habe. Danke. Am Laguna Amarga treffen sich Flamingo und Guanakos (keine Alpakas) und Rautiere aus dem Bus. Man trifft sich immer wieder, lacht, scherzt und winkt. Bei der Ankunft im Park muss ich ernüchternd feststellen, ich bin zu spät. Der Zugang zum Wanderweg ist geschlossen. Wegen der Länge ist ab 10 Uhr Schluß. Auch eine weitere Fahrt durch den befahrbaren Teil des Parkes könnte knapp werden. Ich komme morgen wieder. Und sicherheitshalber mit zusätzlichem Benzinvorrat. Die Strecke zurück und ein Bild von Gauchos die diesmal Rinder treiben. Abstecher zu den Höhlen bzw. Cueva del Milodón. Entstanden durch die kontinentalen Plattenverschiebung und schmelzende Gletscher. Der deutscher Kapitän und Unternehmer Hermann Eberhard Schmith gilt als Entdecker und Gründer der ersten Siedlungen in West-Patagonien. 1895 fand er in der großen Mylodonhöhle die Reste eines vor 10.000 Jahren ausgestorbenen Riesenfaultiers. Da er auch Fellreste fand, war die Entdeckung eine wissenschaftliche Sensation. Zum Park gehören noch zwei weitere Höhlen und ein Felsgestein. Ca. 3 Stunden dauert meine Wanderung und ich bin der Letzte der den Park verlässt. Zurück nach Natales. Einkaufen, duschen in die Stadt zum Essen. Noch ein Kunstmann Miel (Honig) Bier und zurück zur Unterkunft. Ich muss morgen noch früher aufstehen. Ich geh schlafen. Mein Reiseblog muss warten.Read more

    • Day 11

      Torres del Paine Dzień 1

      January 6 in Chile ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

      Start rano a Puerto Natales, najpierw trzeba się dostać autobusem do Pudeto, skąd katamaran miał nas zabrać do Paine Grande i dalej już na piechotę do Refugio Grey.
      Jednak zmieniliśmy plany i wybraliśmy w ostatniej chwili wariant nieco lżejszy, czyli katamaran bezpośrednio do naszego refugio. Tutaj zamówiliśmy kajaki, żeby popływać przy lodowcu.
      Ten plan też trzeba było zmienić ze względu na silny wiatr . Może uda się rano.
      Śpimy w namiocie. Na szczęście nie musimy go nosić, można wynająć.
      Starczyło czasu na mały spacer, może jutro uda się obejrzeć lodowiec Grey z bliska.
      Potem start na naszą trasę tzw. "W", od kształtu poszczególnych odcinków układających się w tę literę.
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    • Day 83

      Torres del paine J3 et 4

      February 1, 2023 in Chile

      Là, on a clairement glandé. Mais le parc est tellement cannon c'était cool. On a bu du vin, on a bien mangé, on a vu des cascades, on a marché dans du sel. Là j'ai rien compris car tous les lacs et rivières ici viennent des glaciers (d'où le bleu incroyable, ça vient des minéraux des glaciers), l'eau est donc douce, fraîche et parfaitement buvable. Le dernier lac est entouré de sel faut que je fasse un recherche. On a aussi cherché à voir des pumas mais sans succès. La patagonie et surtout torres del paine, concentrent la plus grande densité de pumas des Amériques. Il n'est pas rare d'en croiser ici, chris en a vu un pendant 1 seconde mais pas moi. VoilàRead more

    • Day 62

      Laguna Amarga

      March 2, 2023 in Chile ⋅ 🌧 14 °C

      This bright green Laguna is worth its own post. Sitting alongside the road just outside Torres del Paine national park, this amazing lake got its colour from high pH waters. The white stones that crown its shores are calcium carbonate stromatolites. We used the lake's wind shelter to cook dinner before entering the park and accidentally left our camping table behind...!

      Recommendations:
      Worth a photo stop!
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    • Day 189

      Laguna Amarga

      December 1, 2019 in Chile ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

      Etwas ausserhalb des Nationalpark, an der Laguna Amarga bietet sich ein wunderbarer Platz zum übernachten mit einem herrlichen Blick auf die drei Torres. Um 5.20 Uhr ist dann ein schöner Sonnenaufgang, der die Berge beleuchtet.Read more

    • Day 93

      Torres del Paine

      April 5, 2022 in Chile ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

      Wir haben es tatsächlich nach Patagonien geschafft!

    • Day 24

      Torres del Paine W Trek- days 1 & 2

      February 1, 2017 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

      I've split the TDP trek up into different posts because otherwise it's just ridiculous.

      This is quite indulgent with lots of description to help jog my future self's memory. Some of it displays my excellent creative writing talent and some of it is basically me saying how nice everything was, depending on how deliriously tired I was when writing.

      So this trek was one of the main things I wanted to do in South America. National Geographic named Torres del Paine national park as the 5th most beautiful place in the world. Not bad!

      You can skip this next bit as it's more for me to document my admin faff...

      TDP has two main multi-day treks that people do. The first is the W trek which is usually 5 days (4 nights) and oddly enough in the shape of a W. The second is the O trek which is the W plus more places in the park to make it about 10 days long and somehow turns the W into an O shape.

      I had done some average to poor investigation and came to Buenos Aires believing I could book the free campsites along the W a few days in advance. I was told basically immediately by everyone in Rayuela that this year they have an online booking system and that all the campsites are booked until the end of February, and the only other option is to book refugios (read - hostel) which are $70000 dollars per night and they are booked up anyway.

      So I kind of resigned myself to just daytripping into TDP park. Then one day I sat down and by fluke found some free refugios which date aligned with each other (cancellations I guess) and this meant I could go. Hurrah! (bank account starts wailing)

      ...restart reading here!

      So the much awaited TDP walk has begun.

      DAY 1: Paine Grande to Grey

      Sat on the bus at Laguna Armada which is the first drop off for people who are going east to west to get the shuttle into the park. I have my map and I'm excited but nervous! This will be a new experience for me, hiking alone and over a few days with lots of things on my back. The first two days are a piece of cake but the last two are looooong and will involve very early wake ups I suspect.

      I saw a bit of Patagonian beauty this morning just on my walk from the hostel to the bus stop. The clouds were insane. I read somewhere that they look unusual because the wind is strong and pulls them (?)

      We got dropped off at Pehoe lake where a catamaran would take us across to our starting point. I realised that I had failed for day 1 and forgotten to bring a lunch with me so I spent an extortionate amount on a sandwich from a cafe. In the queue for the catamaran I chatted with Ilona, a girl from Seattle who I had first met in the hostel, and her friend Anna. The catamaran was cool cos I like boats and I like pretty scenery, basically.

      The first part of the trek was 4 hours ish from the catamaran drop off to refugio Grey, walking up towards a glacier. I sadly walked through lots of burnt trees. About 5 years ago someone set fire to something in the park by mistake and burned a ridiculous amount of it, the fire so big it jumped across a lake and continued to burn on the other side.

      I also went past quite a tall waterfall which was cool.

      Once I got to the refugio I decided to make a coffee to energise myself and then walk an extra hour and a half further to see the glacier more closely.

      I felt extremely competent and outdoorsy as I fired up the little gas stove I'd carried with me. To save weight I'd taken all my food packets out of their boxes and so I had little sachets of cereal, milk powder, coffee, potato powder etc. I added the milk to my coffee and started drinking. It tasted rough. I knew I shouldn't have got the cheapest milk powder, but who would have guessed it would make such a difference? I ploughed on regardless because I wanted the energy from the coffee. Halfway down the cup I discovered my coffee was turning solid and realised I'd used the mashed potato powder instead of milk powder.

      Energised by my mashed potato and coffee combo, and by my lack of enormous backpack, I whizzed up through beautiful forest along the trail. It was really green and fairy-glen-like with lots of the trees strangely having fallen over, or twisted around things, possibly due to the famous Patagonian wind? I came to two 20m high hanging bridges, one with a huge ladder up to it, with views of the glacier next to it. I tried to pass a guy on one of the bridges and it was a very slow and nervous pass in case one of us spontaneously shoved the other off the bridge or something.

      It was beautiful! I was buzzing. This amazing scenery is 100% worth the cost (thank god).

      Back at the refugio I had a weird evening. The refugio is kind of like a hotel with the common area being a restaurant rather than the usual kitchen or sofas of a hostel. It meant I felt quite isolated especially as I was doing my cooking in the campsite area but my sleeping in the refugio. I felt a bit inauthentic staying in a bed rather than a tent as well! Luckily I had two nice Korean boys in my dorm, Daniel and Darren, who told me about Seoul and how much they hated mandatory military service, and fed me biscuits.

      DAY 2

      I woke up at the leisurely hour of 8:30am and packed all my shiz, went to the campsite and fired up my surprisingly powerful burner, had a more normal tasting coffee and some cereal with powdered milk (it's actually fairly convincing) and then left my massive bag and went to have another but different look at the glacier. This time I went to the Grey Mirador (mirador=viewpoint). I ignored the trails and did quite a lot of scrambling around the rocks to get the best view I could of the two awesome icebergs/other mini glacier things. The first one was an archway of ice, almost looking like one side of the arch was meant to be a slide at a kids swimming pool, and was milky white and solid. The second was a less interesting shape but was all shades of blue, quite a deep blue at points, and looked as though it was trying to melt, made up of lots of different coloured blades horizontally crossing its body. I took lots of photos. I felt intrepid for reaching the water's edge.

      Something else that deserves a mention was the colour of the rock that I was climbing all over. It was BEAUTIFUL and almost as impressive if not more so than the glacier. It was shimmering, like mother of pearl, and loads of colours...purple, orange... in different patterns. Sadly my phone camera isn't good enough to capture this but they were definitely the best rocks I've ever seen! Nurd. I finally understand David's enthusiasm.

      I was only planning on spending half an hour there but ended up more like 1.5! I couldn't get enough of these amazing glacier shapes and the floating ice in the lake. I actually really appreciated the solitude to take this in and was in awe of nature, absolutely loving where I was.

      I headed back to the campsite to do the actual walking of the day.

      As the walk was identical to yesterday's (but backwards... heading back the way we had come) I was worried it could be a bit more difficult mentally to be walking alone, so I was lucky to bump into Ilana and Anna coming out of the campsite and we hiked together. :) They are both from the US and met each other at work, fundraising for the opera in Seattle.

      The walk back was...the same...but went quickly because of my buddies who are very lovely and also interesting people. We also bumped into the enthusiastic Germans who have hired a car and are sleeping in it and doing random day treks into the park.

      The refugio I arrived at is Refugio Paine Grande. It's less swanky than the last one but feels better to me because it has more of a hostel vibe. Also...I didn't realise but I get dinner, breakfast and a packed lunch here! Sweet. It's right on a lake which is very lovely and blue. I went to sit beside the lake and it promptly began raining. I thought I could stay dry by shoving myself into a bush which worked for a while but then I had to abandon ship. Soon off for dinner. Tomorrow I walk something like 25km with my enormous monster bag. I'm sure this will go well.

      Dinner was immense. 3 courses and meat and a salad! Met a girl from Switzerland who is on her second gap year and came to Chile to work for two months in Puerto Williams, which is the most southern city in the world and totally tiny and provincial, in a company selling helicopter rides to rich people. She didn't know any Spanish before she came so did a homestay for a month and then off she went to work with Chileans in the middle of nowhere- a city so isolated that they can't find enough people to work at the helicopter place because nobody in Chile is willing to go so far. Wow! So so brave and she must be about 20. I am so impressed.

      My roomie is from France and she has been to loads of places, all of them alone. She said I should be careful because she used to want to be surrounded by people constantly, but none of her friends like hiking so she hiked alone...Then the more she did the more she liked the solitude. Now when she is with people she feels she misses everything the world had to show us because everyone is talk talk talking. She only travels alone now despite having a group of friends as home. They all think she is crazy.

      Two very interesting people and perspectives this evening!

      SMALL WORLD ALERT

      Just went for amble around the lake and was stopped by a gaggle of middle aged men from... Huddersfield! One of them had overheard me talking to Lyn, the Swiss girl, and proceeded to spout lots of names of people who were around my age doing medicine in Leeds. And I actually knew one! I now feel excitable and a bit homesick, as one of them said, 'its impossible to escape Yorkshire folk'...Even when halfway round the world :P

      Pic 1 clouds leaving Puerto Natales
      Pic 2 glacier from distance
      Pic 3 ice archway
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    • Day 13

      Torres del Paine

      May 10, 2018 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

      Heute ging es für uns mit einer kleinen Reisegruppe in den „Torres Del Paine“ Nationalpark. Unser Guide Alberto hat uns heute über den Tag gebracht. Er erklärte uns alles über die Landschaft und die Tiere dort. Das Wasser hier wird über einen Wasserfall von See zu See weitergegeben. Die Farbe der Seen kommt vom Sediment durch die Gletscher oder durch mineralische Ablagerungen am Grund der Seen. Es gab auch ein paar Tiere zusehen. Das Alpaka konnten wir direkt aus dem Bus fotografieren, hat sich nicht weg bewegt :D.
      „Torres Del Paine“ kommt wörtlich aus der Zeit der Ureinwohner und heisst „blaue Berge“, heute waren die Berge nur leider nicht da. Den ganzen Tag hingen die Wolken sehr tief und es hat dauerhaft geregnet. Sehr schade, aber zu dieser Jahreszeit leider normal.
      Der letzte Stopp im Nationalpark war der Glacier Grey, diesen konnte man von einer kleinen Halbinsel aus sehen. Zu dieser Halbinsel kamen wir über eine Hängebrücke, die zu einem schwarzen Strand führte. Der 17km entfernte Glacier wäre nun direkt zusehen. Heute leider nur Nebelsuppe.
      Nachdem wir den Park verlassen hatten ging es wie den ganzen Tag auch schon über Schotterpisten zu einer Höhle. In dieser ziemlich großen Höhle sind vor gut 11.000 Jahren die ersten Menschen heimisch gewesen. Auch der Milodron, ein Steinzeittier war zu dieser Zeit aktuell.

      Wieder am Hostel angekommen machten wir uns daran, die Unstimmigkeiten zu klären. Wir hatten leider ein dreckiges Zimmer bekommen, dass unter unserem schon bezahlten Preis lag. Heute war ein anderer Student an der Rezeption als gestern. Der Gute konnte leider kein Englisch, aber wir haben es trotzdem geregelt. Wir sind jetzt im „richtigen“ Zimmer.
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    • Day 46

      Unterwegs zu Fuss

      October 27, 2018 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

      Was zu Beginn als harmlose Wanderung auf saftigen Wiesen aussah wird immer mehr zur Kletterei. Aber es ist herrlich, wie sehr sich die Landschaft verändert. Beeindruckend ist das Land auch wegen der grauen Bäume. Alle Stämme und Äste und sogar die Sträucher sind grau statt braun. Ob dies am Wasser liegt, welches sicher durch das Gestein sehr Mineralhaltig ist. Sogar die Birken, die uns den ganz Weg über begleiten und die jetzt im Frühjahr die ersten kleinen Blätter haben, besitzen graue Stämme.Read more

    • Day 5

      Ecocamp Patagonia

      March 28, 2018 in Chile

      After a long day’s drive from Punta Arenas, through Puerto Natales, I’ve now arrived at the wifi-free ecocamp in the middle of Torres del Paine national park.

      Stayed in an ecodome with no electricity last night - ie. No heating and no lighting! Made good use of my headlamp! The wind was pretty strong, and at one point I thought the whole dome would come off! It was somewhat comforting hearing the rain and not getting wet.

      Now sitting in the communal ecodome with a nicely lit fire, listening to the rain pattering down outside and Dido’s ‘Thank You’ song playing in the background. It’s a perfect day so far 😊

      ... perhaps I won’t say the same if/when I get back from this 6km walk in the pouring rain!! Lucky I have my waterproof pants and jacket with me!
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Laguna Amarga

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