Torres del Paine...and other Adventures

Ok.....so, Torres del Paine was fantabular!!! But i´ll start from the beginning (this will likely be a fairly long entry......so much to tell!) Wednesday night, when I arrived home from my first woman´s Rotary meeting (very nice...i plan on going often) Braulio told me that my trip had been postponed... I asked if he was joking, and he said no and Mema went along with it as well. I was a bit bummed...but we still made lots of jokes about things. Then about 20 minutes later, just before I went to bed, Mema told me it was indeed a joke and that I was going the next day. Yay.... 6:00 am was early the next morning (having gone to bed around 12 30ish...) and I ate a bit of food before hopping in the van with Braulio and a girl who lives down the street (Tatiana). The bus ride was long.....I tried to sleep but was unable to. We stopped 3 times for stretch breaks. I talked with the people around me, many of whom I hadn´t really seen at school before or hadn´t talked to. We walked around Puerto Natales for about 10 minutes (about the size of Owen Sound...) and noticed a lot of signs in English and tons and tons of signs for the glaciers and Torres del Paine (PN is the closest city, and thrives on tourism from about november to march). The day was gloriously warm as we drove into the Park and I caught my first glimpse of the Torres. We saw some flamingos in a lake...but my camera was too far away in time to snap a picture. We saw lots of the animal here that is kind of like a deer (but not a deer.....) and therefore I have tons of pics of them. When we arrived at the main entrance to the park, we switched from our coach bus to smaller van/bus (15 person) with trailers for our backpacks. (Mine about half the size of my body....or more). We went over a river on a bridge that looked kind of like the Golden Gate bridge, but very skinny (pulling in the side mirrors...). We didn´t actually have to walk very far with our big packpacks to our campsite (we could have driven straight to it..but walked for about 15 minutes..crossing another little river and staring in awe at the gorgeous Torres and all the nature.
Our campsite was about a 10 minute walk from a gorgeous hotel, the hosteria del torres (not like best western style...all wood, low, very classy....) My group set up our tent near the brook in the campsite with one other tent near ours (the others were about 3 metres higher). There was bathrooms and showers as well. After lunch and tent set up, we got ready to work. Torres del Paine is expensive for most Chileans, so the way to make it affordable for us was that we worked the first afternoon and the second day. My group consisted of the people in my tent and 2 other tents as well, we walked for about 15 minutes or so, getting shovels along the way. When we arrived at our destination, the other girls were sent to pick up garbage, while the boys and I started to work on clearing the rocks out of a trench that went from the top of the hill to the bottom (my guess is about 30 metres or so...maybe more). Hard work, but lots of fun. Thursday night we went to the hotel for a presentation that showed the possible excursions from the hotel (done in both english and spanish for the benefit of the english tourists...I understood the spanish). I was talking with someone from the hotel and my class headed off for a bit of a hike. After I was done talking, the man told me where he thought my class was, so I headed off and when I saw them started running (which felt amazing!!) Later, when we arrived at camp we cooked a bit more food and then had a campfire before going to our tent around midnight. In my tent, they started to get me to say hard works in spanish. They succeeded in finding many that I cant say (basically any word with a rolling r). I then told them the longest word in the english language (antidisestablishmentarianism). We were up past the silent hour of 12.....laughing and such. Friday morning, we worked again...this time shoveling dirt from the huge pile to fill the trench...again lots of hard work, but tons of fun as well. We were working near some permanent canvas tents which we toured later in the day. The idea is that people can come stay for however long they want in the nicely furnished dome tents, a comfy living room/tent, a kitchen and so forth. It is low impact on the environment..they use composting toilets, solar heat for the water and so forth. (www.ecocamp.cl) Gorgeous view too!! Lunch was bowtie pasta and cheese (noodles and cheese with either salchichas (hotdogs) or a type of sausage was pretty much the favorite meal of the weekend. I changed into shorts for the afternoon when we worked again, and was actually decently warm...almost fell asleep when we were finished more shoveling of dirt. Friday afternoon, we relaxed at camp.....the case of our pots flew into the brook and was going downstream...I saw it and went to the rescue. The first time I went in the river I was a little to late..so I ran along the bank again and went in with enough time..but the water got a bit deeper than I expected and I slipped.....now being wet up to chest level instead of knees. I missed the bag.....but did catch it a bit farther when it got stuck in a whole bunch of sticks. Two people in my class followed my adventure and we all had a good laugh when we got back to camp. In the night, we went to the hotel again, this time for a special presentation just for us done by a guy who has lived in torres del paine since he was little, an amazing rockclimber (he actually went to punta arenas for high school..studied at contardi, and went on exchange as well..) Afterwards there were some prizes given out, and I won a white baseball cap with a torres logo, very nice. One girl won a jacuzzi in the spa, and 4 people got to share a plate of pachanga (not sure I spelled that right) which is meat, fried eggs, french fries, and tomatoes (actually really good..ive tried it) Another campfire and star gazing at the amazing clear, southern sky and then bed. I was on the outside of the tent (another girl arrived inmy group in the afternoon....so we were now 5...warmer but more cramped..) I woke up kind of wet in the morning, and due to the rain our 6 30 wake up time was pushed back until 11. I didn´t sleep much more tho due to the wetness factor. Our hike saturday was gorgeous, despite the bad weather at the beginning. The lake we could see for most of the hike was turquoise...reminding me a bit of Lake Louise (altho i´ve never seen it for real...) Lots of gorgeous pictures taken. About halway through the hike...my endorphins kicked in and I was full of energy!! Our lunch break was taken at Los Cuernos, ie.. a gorgeous view of mountains where there is a cabin, camping space and so on. I went in to the cabin to go to the washroom, greeted in English by someone working there. Lots of hikers in the cabin, eating their lunches and cooking.
We cooked our lunch outside..having brought our campstoves and such. My group had 2 kinds of soup...one with some rice, corn, meat etc (maggi variety, powdered, but tasted good). The next kind was supposed to be cream of chicken..but we added a bit too much water...so instead called it "water with a bit of chicken flavor" (which by the way sounds better and is more fun to say in spanish...) The hike back was again lots of fun.....one girl and I sang disney songs, her in Spanish, me in English. Then we did some english classics like britney spears, back street boys etc oh the laughter. We didn´t arrive back at camp til after 8 (long hike....) and started cooking soon after. My group unfortunately ran out of gas as we were cooking, so borrowed from other groups. One of the guys in my group had won the pachange...so only 4 of us were eating that night. We headed to bed earlier..the weather not ideal for another campfire. And by headed to bed..that means we talked for a long time in the tent....me wearing a tanktop, sierra designs shirt, another cotton long sleeve, and a sweater that a guy in my tent lent me. (I had lent my fleece jacket...actually my host sisters... to another girl who had only 2 dry shirts....both not very warm...) Sunday morning we were up at 6 30, ready to go by 8 in order to get to the base of Torres del Paine. Breakfast was a bit more substantantial (Saturday morning everyone in my tent was a bit lazy, hence my breakfast was a cup of hot chocolate, which I drank about 2 minutes before we started the hike.....).
The hike was more climbing on Sunday...I loved it!! Again lots of gorgeous pics and good conversation. We stopped briefly at a lodge about halfway in distance for some snacks. The final leg of journey was the toughest....picking our way through huge rocks and going at a fairly decent steepness (wow my grammar is bad). We stopped fairly regularly for some of the ppl in my group, and refilled water bottles in mountain streams (beautifully cold and tastes wonderful) The higher we got, the more snow. When we reached the top..it was snowing enough that we wereen´t actually able to see the Torres, but the lake at the base was still beautiful, as was the snow. A few of us went down right by the water, and took some pics there as well. Going back down was a very slow affair..taking lots of precautions because the snow made it more dangerous. Everyone made it down safely. We had to walk back with more rhythm...not having tons of time because the morning was more leisurely. I was walking at the back, and every once in awhile we would run to catch up.
When we were about 25 min from camp, I was walking with 3 other ppl and then said i wanted to jog abit...so I did. Then as I was walking later..quickly, and admiring the view I tripped and fell. My hands stung, and my knee a bit, but I got up and continued going along...just slower. A few minutes later i felt warmth on my leg and realized I was bleeding. A guy ahead of me stopped to wait, and we walked together.... When we arrived at camp, I lifted my pant leg and saw that I had indeed bled a lot....I changed into my pyjama pants and the prof looked at my leg and said there wasn´t much he could do but clean it and cover with bandaids (altho they weren´t really sufficient to do much, the cut being of a decent size...). A few minutes later, I was down by my tent, starting to pack things up when I didn´t feel so hot so went to sit down..One moment I was sitting on the bench..next thing there was ppl shaking me and carrying me onto a mat....giving me water, juice, and sweet things to raise my blood sugar. My amazing new friends packed up all my stuff for me, and carried it to the vans waiting to take us to our coach bus. I sat near the front with a friend of mine and we talked most of the way home......trying to sleep but not being able to. We arrived back in Punta Arenas around 10 30, and I was greeted by my host father. I limped off the bus.....he got my backpack and my prof talked to him about my cut. Back at the house...Mema took a look, put some new bandage on it, and we headed to the hospital. Turned out that I was extremely lucky...because you could see my tendon..but I had not torn it! Nevertheless...I had to go into the operating room for anasthesia and stitching up. Mema stayed with me until 1....when she left so I could sleep a bit. I was woken up at about 3 15 and taken to the operating room. It´s a weird feeling to have the lower half of your body asleep....with a bit of feeling (I didn´t feel any pain..but I could feel that they were working on my leg...). I was then taken to a recovery room where I was until about 11 this morning. The dressing was changed on my leg and such.
I am not allowed to shower until tomoro......when we got home, we washed my hair in the sink because I hand´t showered since Friday (I was camping......) The water was disgusting from all the dust in my hair. Washing my face with warm water also felt amazing. I had some food, and unpacked my stuff....all very dirty, some wet, and some bloody. Mmmm .....
Despite the whole knee thing, i had an amazing amazing amazing time...getting to know new ppl in my school, making awesome new friends, and enjoying the beauty of Torres del Paine. I was extremely happy, and so many ppl yesterday were so surprised that I was still so happy after I had fallen. Life is good!
Oh...other things that I forgot earlier...I tried Mate (a type of tea.....full name Jerba mate) which is quite traditional here.......even more so in Argentina. Also....we had a joke in my tent because I can´t say "Porky porky nuestro reye" everytime nething happened, they would make me say it and by the end I couldn´t finish porky porky without laughing. Before bed, before eating, I was told to say it and when i couldn´t was told that there was no food for me, or that i was going to have to sleep outside. of course..this never happened. I was also given marks for the words that i said....and had a lot of negatives.
It´s a friend of mine´s birthday here (Claudia). Since I have to stay in my house, she is going to save me some cake :) I have orders from about 50 or more people to be very careful with myself.....and have been told by many that its best to not go to school tomoro. I wonder how many ppl from the trip went to school today, because many were thinking of not going, being extremely tired (with good reason).
And now I think I will end this blog entry and let you get back to your daily lives. If you ever have the chance to come to the south of Chile......you haven´t really been until you have been to Torres del Paine. I joked that my journey was complete and could return to canada...but sorry mom..you cant have me back for 8 months or so...
I could write so much more....about the horses that were free to wander the park and near our campsite...about the misunderstanding between my prof and the girls picking up garbage (they couldn´t find any garbage, and in the misunderstanding...understood that the horse caca (poop) was garbage...so picked up 3 bags of horse crap. Lots of laughter about that incident as well....Seriously...I´m done now!
Chau
hasta la vista....