EcoCamp at Torres del Paine

We rode up to Torres del Paine National Park today with other happy ramblers from the UK, the Netherlands, New York, California, and New Zealand--all excited for this next adventure. It took about eight hours of driving from Punta Arenas, including numerous stops for food and photo ops. We saw flamingoes and a large number of guanacos along the way.

Once at the EcoCamp, a sustainable hotel where we'll be sleeping in insulated geodesic domes for the next five nights, we met our activity guides and had an elegant three-course meal served with liberal amounts of wine. Tomorrow morning we head out at 8:00 a.m for a 20+ kilometer round trip hike to the base of the three spires, the Torres del Paine.

Torres del Paine translates roughly to blue towers. (They didn't look blue to us but apparently the native people who named them were including the surrounding massif, which does appear blue.)Read more