Patagonia: Torres del Paine; The Land of Four Seasons in One Day

Wow. Just wow. On the fifth of march I made my way back down to the real world after spending two weeks back home with friends and family. I made my way from Reno to LA to Miami and finally down to Buenos Aires on the 6th. Then early morning on the 7th I flew down to Punta Arenas to meet up with my buddy, Dustin, who was on his spring break from his studies in Santiago, Chile. Punta Arenas was our meeting point to start our adventures in the Torres del Paine National park in the Patagonia. 

Making our way up to Puerto Natales, we gathered all the supplies we needed for the next ten days from cooking equipment to garbage bags (waterproofing) to food that would last us on the trail. Bussing up to the National park was beautiful, or so I heard and imagined, as I was trying to get as much sleep in as I could and pump myself full of vitamin-c packets to kick a cold before the nine day trek. Though I wasn't feeling that great, I was confident that some fresh mountain air would fix me up real quick! And so it did. 

To start off the adventurous trek, we decided to start around the back side of the trek to bust out the back of the 'O' circuit first and then finish doing the 'W' portion of the circuit at the end from west to east. We got to our first campsite of the trek, Campamento Serón, and ran into a group of about twenty hikers or so returning from the pass (our next destination) due to the fact that it was closed for at least the next three days and possibly more. Taking this into consideration and not wanting to get stuck on the backside of the 'O', we decided to turn back as well. This changed our plan to doing the 'W' from east to west now and hopefully catching the pass and Glacier Grey from the other way around. This seemed to work out just wonderfully. We were incredibly lucky with catching the perfect weather every day. We were supposed to be in the shoulder season just before the start of winter which should have been torrential downpours with 100km/hr winds. With the exception of two days, we had gorgeous bluebird skies and great temperatures following us throughout the majority of the trek. The two days that we didn't get "exceptional" weather were quite possibly my two favorite. These days made me feel like I was truly in the elements and part of nature. We woke up with hail and snow dusting down over us. Halfway down the decent to our next location the skies cleared quickly and left us walking on a beautiful sun lit trail with a brisk wind to our backs. About two hours later as we rounded a hilltop, violent winds came smashing in with its lovely friend, rain. Never have I seen rain come in at such a sharp angle colliding into us with a brutal force. As I attempted to put my rain pancho on over my base layers, the wind ripped it to shreds literally peeling chunks off at a time leaving me with what seemed to be a bad Halloween costume. At last it was time to set up camp which nearly bent our tent in half with each powerful gust during the night which continually slapped the side of the tent into my face. When I finally opened my eyes at nine in the morning to see beautiful bluebird skies shining into our tent I was absolutely stunned. They're not kidding when they say Patagonia, the land of four seasons in one day. 

Overall Dusty and I hiked just under 135km or about 85 miles for all you Americans out there reading this. It was quite possibly the most gorgeous 9 days of hiking that I have ever done. As I continued to improve my health and as my backpack got lighter and lighter from eating all my supplies, my smiles and happiness just kept getting greater and greater. No doubt in my mind that I'll be back one day for round two. 

Until then, Torres del Paine. 

A gorgeous waterfall in front of Paine Grande

Los Torres at sunrise

Our beautiful view on our hike on morning 3 

The crazy cool light blue from the glacier water running down. This was the best water I have every drank in my entire life. 

An amazing view of some impressive granite towers within Valle Francesa (French Valley)

Another shot from within Valle Francesa

Beautiful glacier ridden mountain at the mouth of Valle Francesa 

Not such a bad place to set up camp

Lake grey and Glacier Grey 

Hiking up to the viewpoint over Glacier Grey

Dusty taking in the sights above Glacier Grey

Pano of Paine Grande and Los Cuernos

Vicuña chillin out in front of Los Cuernos

Day nine with an impossible-to-remove shit eating grin 

Bit of catching up to do!

Well hello again, friends, family and followers!

So, it's been a few months since I've posted anything. I can't believe it! I'll do my best to fill you in on all the amazing adventures that I've been up to!

It looks like the last event was Jill's and my two week trip throughout Peru... Whew I've got a lot to tell you all. Here we go!

Jill coming down here was incredible! Our two-week non-stop adventure was amazing and needless to say, it took it out of me. I needed a bit of down time to pick up the pieces and figure out my next few moves. I figured that Cusco was just the place for me. The people here are so friendly, the city has an amazing spiritual feel to it and with the Sacred valley just beyond the city limits, I knew this was going to be perfect. 

I enrolled myself in an intensive Spanish immersion course which included 20 hours a week of intense Spanish classroom lessons, living with a local family and taking cultural classes like Salsa dancing and traditional  Cusqueña cooking classes. Along with a constant flow of conversations with locals, Spanish TV and radio and eating out with other Spanish students, my Spanish improved by leaps and bounds in just two weeks. 

When venturing through the colonial city and markets and soaking up the sights of the balcony filled central Plaza de Armas wasn't enough, I started to detour my way through the Sacred Valley on a motorcycle winding my way in and out of all the Inca sites speckled throughout the entire valley such as Sacsayhuamán, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Moray and so many more. 

Jill's fair well steak dinner and wine!

My morning latté and cookie looking over Cusco's central Plaza de Armas

Plaza de Armas fountain/statue 

The jam packed city living of Cusco

Motorcycling through the Sacred valley!

After my time in Cusco I finally had plan two up and ready! I got in touch with a few people on couchsurfing.com and set up a couch in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I could not have asked for a better set up. The family that I ended up staying with was so incredible! The father owned a few produce farms so there were always fresh fruits and foods around the house, the daughter (who was my couch surfing contact) and her cousin showed me around the city and the outskirts which was incredible! We went to a lily pad farm where they have grown some of the largest lily pads in the world. Some reaching over 3 meters across. From Santa Cruz, the three of us made our way up to a small town called Samaipata where we camped out and climbed a gorgeous hike up to some ancient Inca ruins. Making our way back down to Santa Cruz seemed to bring me one of the most interesting social experiences that I have ever encountered. 

I got a taxi back to the a hostel that I staying at for my last day in Santa Cruz. Just as he was about to drop me off he pulled over and asked me through his bulging cheek filled with coca leaves if I'd like to give offerings to the Pacha Mama  (Mother Earth). Obviously I said yes so he proceeded to pull out a beer. He then began to wish me well with my studies and travels as he poured some of the beer out of the window onto the ground to sacrifice the beer to the Pacha Mama. I did the same through my window for his family and work. We then proceeded to split the beer and then he sent me in my way. Gotta love Bolivia. 

The giant lily pad farm just outside of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. 

My couch surfing host in Santa Cruz 

Just hanging out in Samaipata

The ruins of Samaipata

Camping out just under the ruins

The green endless valley around Samaipata

My family in Santa Cruz just so happened to have some friends in a tourism agency so instead of buying a 40$ Sixteen hour bus ticket south to Sucre, Bolivia, they found me a 35$ flight that was about 35 minutes. Ummm... Awesome! Haha. Not only was it an amazing flight but I met a gorgeous and incredibly friendly Argentinian family traveling throughout Bolivia for the next few days. They happened to be going on the same route as I. Together, we went through Sucre, Bolivia's white city, then down to Uyuni. This was my second time going to the Salar de Uyuni and boy was it worth it! The first time being here was during Uyuni's dry season where you can explore the endless expanse of salt flats as far as the eye can see. This time though, was slightly different. It was now the wet season meaning that there was about 4-6 inches of rain water across these same expanses of salt flats. This transformed the flats into an endless mirror making perfect reflections of the picture perfect blue bird skies to the east and gorgeous purple and blue thunder clouds to the west. 

When we had arrived in Uyuni I was planning on renting a bicycle and riding out to the flats but then the three Argentinian daughters and their mother invited me to go with them on a day tour which would cost about eight dollars. Already this sounded much much better. Then they informed me that they had met four other Chilean girls traveling and they were going to join as well. Well sure I guess that sounds okay... Then we made it out to the salt flats and they were so stunned by the beauty of the reflections and the constant panoramas that they decided to take some topless shots to add to the beauty of it all. I was pretty content with my situation as a whole. They even inspired me to take an artistic nude shot as well within the salt flats. Pictures to come...

Here's a thunder storm coming in from behind the train car cemetery 

Bluebird reflected tigons on the Salar

Perfect mirror on the Salar for the sunset

Pano of our group and land cruisers

The topless beauties

My freeing moment on the Salar. 

So let's see. That brings us up to about the start of February. About a month more to go... 

After my surreal time in Uyuni, I said fairwell to my Argentinian friends. For now at least. I plan to visit them when I make it down to Buenos Aires! 

So I hopped on an obnoxiously early bus at 3 am headed towards chile. Next destination: San Pedro de Atacama. Making it through the border crossing was no joke. There were three busses ahead of ours. Each bus taking about an hour and a half to get through due to intense searches through the bus, luggage and carry on hand bags not to mention the 30 minutes zigzagging line through customs. But of course with every drag that happens while traveling tags along a major bonus. While waiting for the bus to finish all the inspections, I met Danielle. She was from the states and just finishing up a year and a half long travel throughout South America starting in Colombia. She had also lived in Santiago for a year a few years back and had made a few Chilean friends. We ventured into chile and at last made our way to San Pedro de Atacama where we met up with one of her Chilean friends, Pancho (who she met in Ecuador). Right off the bat I liked this group. Pancho came down the road greeting us with his single pan flute and a straw hat looking happier than ever. He brought us back to were he was staying which was his camp setup behind his friend's pottery shop. After spending a little time there instead of wandering off to find a campsite, the owner of the pottery shop invited me to set up my tent in the back as well. It was perfection. 

Each day in San Pedro we ventured into the incredible desert surrounding the little pueblo. The first day, we hiked back into these mountains that had slowly been weathered away by the elements leaving some surreal sandstone walls marking their way through the surrounding mountains. Continuing the following day I rented a bike and started off at the crack of dawn taking in sights of winding sandstone corridors that sucked into the side of a mountain leading to a perfect single track for about 15km called Quebrada del Diablo. Coming back in for lunch, I met up with Pancho and Dani and my good friend Paloma. Pancho Dani and I took our bikes another 40km or so up to Valle de la Luna. The eerie yet surreal feeling that you get from riding through this lunar landscape throws you into the shoes of an astronaut instantly. Mars or the moon never seemed so close. 

For my final day we went big. We drove out to a salt lake with just about the same amount of salt as the Dead Sea. Swimming around like bobbling buoys has never felt so strange. I tried to swim below the surface and it was nearly impossible. I felt like I had a life jacket wrapping me from head to toe. After showering off all the crystallized salt, we pushed onward to two random perfect circles in the middle of the desert filled with fresh water. We had a nice little ledge to jump off into the blue depths below. After having swam in the salt lake for a few hours, I was not accustomed to having to support my weight in water at all. I nearly sunk to the bottom with the first leap... Not cool. After that first scare I got my normal water legs back and used thes perfect pools as a second rinse from the salt. 

That night when we go back to camp, Fernando (pottery shop owner) had started to prepare an amazing evening for us all. He had a platter filled with steaks, chicken, lamb and pork surrounded by fresh onions and potatoes just waiting to be grilled up. He threw it on into his handmade ceramic oven until all the juices were sizzling perfectly. As Dani, Pancho, about 8 others (that Fernando had met in the ceramic shop the previous few days) and I were chatting over wine underneath a perfect starlit night, Fernando pulled out the platter and placed it in front of all of us on the table and followed by handing each of us a fork and a glass of delicious Chilean wine. No plates were to be used here, just stabbing, cutting and eating. I don't know if it was the atmosphere at the pottery shop or the fact that one of the guests was serenading our group with his violin under the stars, but the taste of the wine, the perfect fatty flavor of the meats and the conversations could not have been more decadent, delicious and enticing.

Destination of the first days hike

The pottery shop that I camped behind for a week. 

The sandstone corridors winding their way through the mountains 

The single track at the end of Quebrada del diablo

Part of Valley de La Luna

Full moon in the Valley of the Moon

Atop coyote rock looking over valley of the moon

Chile's Dead Sea 

One of the two perfect pools of fresh water in the middle of the desert (Ojos del Desierto)

The amazing platter of meats. Unfortunate too much wine had gotten into me by the time that I should have been shooting the final product and the violinist. 

Fernando working on a piece of pottery. (Taken by Pancho)

Enter Argentina! Paloma and I hopped on a bus straight from San Pedro to a northern Central town called Salta. All along the bus ride we made our way through wild Wild West desert mountains and plains covered with cartoon-like cactus, deep canyons and Martian-like territories. At last we made it to our hostel titled seven dwarves at about midnight. The bus didn't have much of a dinner. Unless you call cardboard bread with frozen cheese and ham much of a dinner. So by the time we got in we were starving. Seeing that it was midnight we were expecting everything to be all closed up and we would have to wait till breakfast. Ha! I had entered a new land of night life. We made it down to the corner where we had heard of a great Parilla (meat grill). As we rounded the corner the sound of laughter conversation and high spirits filled our ears. The place was packed!!! Not one freaking open table out of about 45!! We had to wait... At midnight... What?! After finally getting settled in I devoured my filet and French fries. As we were leaving at around 1:15 in the morning people were still shuffling in to grab a bite to eat. Needless to say, I had no trouble with any waits for the rest of the time in Argentina as I would arrive to the restaurants when they were dead at 7pm. Score! 

Day two of being in Salta brought forth some good adventures. As I was organizing my things in my dorm room, a group of Argentinians and Tatá, a Mexican girl that Paloma and I had met on the bus, asked if I wanted to leave right now to go to a town called Cafayate about 300km out of town. I dropped everything I was doing and hopped in the car that the Argentinians had rented. We wound our way through gorgeous valleys and mountain ranges ending our tour in the Vinyard town of Cafayate where we stopped to have lunch and explore a bit. The return trip took us back through the valleys during sunset which cast some amazing lighting on the already multicolored mountains to our side. 

View of salta from ontop of the cities closest hill after taking the tram. Here, a group of us enjoyed some Yerba Maté and conversation for a few hours. 

Part of the valley taking us to Cafayate

A strange mini canyon that opens up just inside the mountain shooting up at a 45° angle. 

Well that just about brings us up to present day. From here I shot down to Cordoba, Argentina for a day and sorted out a few things and realized that there were too many things that I needed to get done  to get ready for my schooling in Costa Rica this summer. Along with wanting to say hello to some family and friends and to get some scholarship information completed, I decided to take a mini vacation from my vacation back home to the good ol' 775. Friends, family, Reno and Tahoe took me in with open arms. Especially after I surprised the hell out of everyone. After a quick 13 days back in Reno, I hopped back onto my return flight down to Buenos Aires and the following day down to Punta Arenas in the Patagonia. I just finished my trek throughout the Torres del Paine National Park but that's a whole different story on its own. I'll get a different blog started for that one in a bit! 

Cheers!

Coop

Somehow made it to Tahoe on a perfect sunny winter day while back in Reno. 

It felt amazing to get back on my baby and take her for a spin around Tahoe.