Parque nacional Torres del Paine

Thanks for your comments, everyone! I didn't know some of you could speak Spanish (hahaha).

Wow! That's all I can say about yesterday's visit to Torres del Paine. After seeing everything, I can only hope that one day I will be able to return to do the whole nine yards: camping, hiking, etc. The park has it all: wildlife, lakes, rivers, mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, and more. The famous 'torres' are mountains with a tall and slender shape, like towers. Unfortunately they were obscured by clouds for most of the day, but I caught a brief glimpse of them in the afternoon. The lakes were the most beautiful I've seen. All the water comes from glaciers, and the color is exactly the same as the blue of the Caribbean Sea. I really can't describe everything I saw...you'll have to wait for the pictures to see. The entrance fee to the park is a bit steep, but worth every penny. I only had to pay the price Chileans pay because I could prove to them that I'm now a legal resident of Chile. So I probably saved at least $20 that way.



One disappointing thing about the tour was that we spent a lot of time in the van. The park is huge, and so it took as much as 45 minutes to go between sights. Another reason to take your time and spend a week there, I guess.

On the way to the park, we stopped at the 'Cueva del Milodón', which, despite its being a National Monument, was a little tacky. In the 1880s, a German pioneer discovered the skin of some prehistoric animal in this huge cave. It turned out to belong to the milodón, which was a huge furry animal which sort of looked like a mix between a bear and a sloth. The cave itself was enormous, but only consisted of one large room. (This Kentuckian was none too impressed with the cave...Mammoth Cave beats them all.) The remains of the milodón are in some museum in England (something the Chileans are not too happy about) so instead a life-size statue of it had been placed in the cave. It was kind of hokey.

The weather here is crazy. You literally go through 4 seasons in a day. It rains, then the sun comes out, then it rains again, then the sun comes out, then it hails, then the sun comes out again. All the while this gale-force wind is constantly blowing off the water which forces you to break out the gloves and hat. If it weren't for the wind, the temperature would probably be around 50ºF or so, but the wind makes it feel like it's about 35ºF. So much for summer! I am so glad I sprung for this windproof jacket in Chicago. It really has lived up to its claims that it does not allow wind through the fabric, even at 50+ mph.

Puerto Natales is kind of a hick town. There's nothing to do here if you're not headed to the parks. The ferry leaves tonight at 9.00pm, but until then I have nothing to do except have some dirty laundry washed (self-service laundromats do not exist here; instead, they do it all for you) and buy some snacks/motion sickness pills for the boat. With the way this wind is blowing, I think it's safe to assume some nausea will strike. I'll have 48 hours between getting off the boat in Puerto Montt and having to be back in Santiago, so I'm going to try to research where to go in that brief period. I am looking forward to returning to the heat of Santiago!

I doubt the boat will have internet access (and if it does, it will probably be prohibitively expensive) so this will probably be the last entry for a few days.