Exit through the Gift Shop

We had a slow start and enjoyed our breakfast with a view before hitting the road, driving some 400km north to Torres del Paine, one of Patagonias big highlights.

Fuel stations in Patagonia are notoriously scarse, so we took every chance we got to fuel up. At our fitst stop we got to chat to a group of not-so-young-anymore Germans who were on a tour from San Pedro de Atacama to Ushuaia (basically the end of the world) in something that called itself the "Rotel" -> A huge off road capable bus that doubled as a Hotel by unfolding the sidewalls to make room for 20ish bunk beds. Fascinating!

We continued north and got to the national parks visitor centre - somewhere 50km past the official entrance, and since this season the last and only place you are allowed to stay with your camper for free - in the early evening, after a rather nasty stretch of gravel road. Which made us wonder, what are our entrance fees of 30 euro p.p. being spent on? Not on infrastructure it seems.

The next morning we got up extra early (5am 😴) hoping to beat the crowds for the most famous route of the park: the hike up to the actual Torres del Paine. A demanding 22km or 9h (return) hike. 🥾
The early start was absolutely worth it, as we got to see the landscape in the golden morning light, Gauchos bringing in the horses, and only met maybe a hand full of hikers on the way up. The last kilometre of the hike was more of a climbing session leading up up up over big boulders to reach the famous Laguna Torres viewpoint. The tough climb was totally worth it as we were rewarded with a stunning view of the towers and almost no other hikers. Well…at least for another 30minutes, which is when the masses caught up with us. On the way down it felt more like going against the stream on an especially busy german Autobahn. Yak.
The end of the park's most iconic hike? Exit through the gift shop! Welcome to Chilean Disneyland.

Towards the end of the day, the weather had turned around a bit. The wind had picked up and it started to rain. Being back in our van, we didn’t mind too much, cooked dinner and looked forward to a peaceful night of sleep.

Oh well, did I say peaceful? As hinted to in an earlier post, we were in for some surprises with our van. Today’s episode: Wet dreams, or, why is it raining IN the car?!

At some point during the night, we felt water dripping onto our faces and were suddenly wide awake. The roof window was closed, so where could this come from? First one, then two and by the end of the night five leaks had formed on the inside of our van‘s roof, right above the sleeping area. It was even dripping through the ceiling lamp. WTF!
In the early morning hours the rain stopped and after some Macgyver-style fixing of the leaks, we could finally get some sleep.

We slept through half of the day and spent the second half of it trying to get some sort of information and support from the car rental agency. Since there is no signal throughout the park, we were forced to buy one of the 10h wifi passes from the park‘s visitor centre for 16€ (what an absurd price, but still more acceptable than the 1h for 10€ pass), hoping to get it reimbursed at some point. With all of this going on we missed out on most of the 2nd out of 3 days of our park ticket. What a shame! The only thing we did this day was a hidden little nature/birdwatching walk which seemed to not yet be finished, as it did not even appear on the national park‘s trail map (which again had to be purchased separately to the entrance fee, of course).

On our last day we hoped to go on another day hike on the opposite side of the park, a rough 30km gravel drive away. To get to the trailhead, and later back to the car, we had to take a 30 minute ferry across Lago Pehoe. The price for the ferry? Yet another whopping 50€ p.P. (return trip). The queue was long though, and we barely made it onto the boat, which shows that in Torres del Paine people are willing to pay whatever it takes to „savour the nature“.
This park is best known for it‘s scenic multi-day hikes, the O and W trek, for which anyone wanting to complete them needs to factor in horrendous camping, food and transportation costs, easily summing up to 1000€ and more for 1 week of trekking. Incredible!

From the arrival point of the ferry, we went on a very windy 4 hour hike towards a glacier view point. The path partly navigated through areas with burnt-down trees, which likely fell victim to the large forest fire that hit the park some years ago, caused by careless hikers and leading to a ban on wild camping throughout the park. The view at the end of the hike was nice, although could not compare to Perito Moreno, but more impressive was the wind, which almost blew us off our feet!

All in all we felt that Torres del Paine was very beautiful but also quite overrated and commercialised by now. Apart from the hike up to the Laguna Torres, which is worth it if you start early enough to beat the crowds, it feels more like a visit to the (very crowded) theme park than a national park.
Especially considering you can go on similarly beautiful hikes in El Chalten (Argentina) for free (more about that soon!).

🥾 KMs hiked: ~36
🐈 Pumas seen: 0 🥲
💧 Nr. of leaks in the roof: 5
😴 Hours of sleep lost: too many
👥 Nr. of tourists hiking up torres when we hiked down: ♾️
🌐 Price for 1h Internet: 1 kidney (well...almost)
🏔 Iconic views enjoyed: 2Meer informatie