Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Chile in our eyes Part 1: Torres Del Paine and Glacier Trekking

The decision to go to Chile was made after many discussions . I have longed to go to Bolivia . However Dan already went there with his friends so that I have to save Bolivia for another trip. In addition to Bolivia, Chile was an alternative. After looking for a ticket for so long, we eventually found tickets that was not super expensive.

 Dan and I camped and hiked also many times before but we had never carried our own gear and food .  Thus I suggested to do it this time at Torres Del Paine so that it would become our new experience.  In order to save our time once we arrive there, we shopped most of our food for our 4 day hiking trip in Portland before we left. We bought more bread, deli meat, and lettute later once we arrived in Chile. We tried to pack as light as possible.



After more than 48 hours including two nights sleeping at the cold airport in LA and Santiago, Chile, we eventually got to Puerto Natales around 10.30 p.m where we will depart to Torres Del Paine the next morning. Most of stores and restaurants in this mountain town were closed. We got lucky to find a convinient store where we could buy food we needed Phewwww!!!!

 The trek we did there was the "W", one of the most popular routes in South America.


The lonely planet book recommends from East to West but we decided to do the opposite, from West to East. Our main reasoning for this is that we we wanted to do glacier trekking at Gracier Grey in the second day. I would risk no chance of missing it.

Day 1:
After 6 hours of sleep, we took the early morning bus at 7.30am from Puerto Natales to Torres Del Paine.
Afterwards, we got off the bus at PUDETO and took the RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE 30 minute boat (that cost us $36/ride/one person) across Lago Pehoe to get to Lodge Paine Grande where we started hiking at 1.30p.m. 




The first day went by with gloomy weather. It helped our hike . However the downside of it was that the blue color of the lakes along the hike did not stand out.



Somehow my shoulder already started hurting after some first kilometers. When we got to the place where we could have an overlook of the glacier, the wind started being very strong. For the first time in my life, I felt so fortunate to carry a heavy backpack because it reassured my confidence that the wind could not blow me away


During the hike, we passed by black and dead trees resulted from a fire in the forest a couple of years ago


After 5 hours of hiking, we made it to Refugio Grey camp site at around 6p.m, unloaded, set up our tent, and cooked our dinner (including instant noodles, canned salmon, and some fresh lettude).

We also walked to Big Foot Base Capm where we registed for the glacier trekking tour in the next morning. The first day went by quite peacefully and we quickly fell into sleep to get ready for the second day that is supposed to be a long day with about 13 hours of hiking.


Day 2:
We got up at 6a.m to prepare our breakfast and then quickly grabbed our stuff for our glacier trekking trip that started at 7:30a.m.

When we got to the office of Big Foot Base Camp, they told us that they have to push the trip back to 9a.m because the boat from Puerto Natales was broken. Dan and i first did not have any problem. 

However things did not go as it was supposed to be. About 15 minutes later, the manager of the tour told us that they might have to cancel the trip because the boat leaving from Puerto Natales is still broken. I started raising my doubt because I clearly remembered that the manager told us that we picked up the passengers on the cruise to join us instead of using their boat. 

I told Dan about my doubt about something fishy going on here rather than the fact of the broken cruise. Then I asked him to carefully overhear their conversation in Spanish. Unfortunately people there were not aware that Dan could understand Spanish so that they started loudly talking about their problem. It turned out that they wanted to combine Dan and I with another group on the cruise. However the cruise was canceled so that the trip with the people on the cruise might have been canceled. They thought it was not worth of taking only two people to the glacier. 

After Dan's translation, I could feel my face started getting hot. However we tried to stay silent to see what they wanted to do. As expected, the manager came to tell us that they have to cancel our trip because of "technical" problem. After my series of questions about their "technical problem", the guys there still indirectly refered to technical problems with the boat from Puerto Natales. Their lie hit the boiling point and I started yelling at their face for not treating their customer right. I barely yell at anyone but when I do, I really do it. After a long argument, I told them that if they want to cancel our trip, they will have to pay us cancelation fees. To that point, they agreed to take us to the the glacier. Damn it. If it was not the only company that operated the trip, I would never do the tour with them.

After a rocky start with the company, at 8a.m we eventually left for our glacier trek. Their boat picked us up and dropped us at the bottom of the mountain where we hiked up to get close to the glacier. On the positive side, at least we got an awesome tour guide who shared with us a lot about Chile and Rock climbing. He recently started working for the company.

The glacier came into view from our boat. The glacier is estimated to have the length of 28 kilometers and a total area of 270 square kilometers, starting in the Patagonian Andes Mountains to the west and terminate into Grey lake, what we are seeing. It owns a striking blue coloration caused by the absorption of both red and yellow light and leaving light at the blue end of the visibal light spectrum. 




After almost 1 hour hiking up, we got close to the glacier where we strapped crampons onto our shoes, put the helmet on, and started hiking into glacier

 The site really became more amazing when we walked on it, saw, and felt its solid texture. 





We were completely blown away by its unique blue beauty. We did get some meltwater there to drink. 

Those holes in the glacier are the results of trapped rocks that absorb sunlight, melting ice around it.


Ice crystals inside glacier water



I was trying to walk down to a little stream in the glacier with the aid of our tour guide who held me with him through a rope


We lost ourself in the glacier for about 4 hours. I tried to run with crampons on to see how it felt. 

On the way down

Glacier is lying down on the top of the mountain

On the way back, we were randomly "visisted" by a "dude" who is seperate from his "big mama" and freely floating on the lake


 We got back to the Big Foot Camp Base around 3p.m. Couldnot believe that 8 hours flied by so fast. The tour was overpriced but it was totally worth it. Glacier trekking became no doubt one of the highlights of our trip.

However our joy was quickly gloomed by our 8 hour hiking ahead. At the Big Foot Base Camp,I still kept my very cold face to the manager till he officially apolosized us for what they did in the morning. Given our awesome tour guide, I accepted his apology, gave him a big smile, and then we quickly headed out to our next campt site.

I tried to capture the last view of the glacier before we were back on our trek

on the way back to Lodge Paine Grande



The trekking quickly became much more streneous and exhausting than we expected. My shoulder hurt and blisters appeared all over on my feet. Having blisters while running or hiking is one of my worst feelings. Every step I put down, the pain was expanding to my brain. Dan was not in a better situation. later after 7p.m, the weather stopped favoring us with strong wind and rain. We did not have any alternative option. We had to make it to the next campsite by all means despite how much tired we were . Knowing that but there were many moments, all what I wanted was just to lay down on the road and forget about our hike. We stopped many times because my painful feet and Dan's back.

I thought of what Erik WeiHenmayer, a blind guy who succesfully climbed Everest, said " Some limits were real but many more limits were conceived and imposed in my mind and there was a torturous beauty in crossing them."  Then I thought how I tried hard to push myself to finish the marathon 2 weeks ago with all blisters on my toes. I thought of pure happiness once we push through the pain. I felt energized again. I tried to hupnotize myself onto each of my step instead of thinking of pain and giving up. I tried to encourage Dan that if a blind guy could climb Everest, we should be able to make it at least to the next camp site.

The strong wind and rain kept us company for almost 2 hours. Those hours, in no way, could be describd as fun. Instead, it was miserable for us but we knew that it would make our honeymoon memorable for the rest of our life and the beauty of us getting over our limit.

I eventually found some tree branches that could be served as our hiking sticks. I banged the stick to the ground strongly at each of my steps to release my frustration, madness, and exhaust.  I barely curse in both English and Vietnamese. However at that time, I kept cursing whenever I banged the stick to the ground. Actually it did help me a lot to escape my pain. Little by little, my mind was floating with the sound the stick made on the ground instead of thinking of my pain. Dan also later told me that the sound from my stick helped him too.  He moved his legs according to the sound from my stick and tried not to think of exhaust and pain.

 I had no doubt that Dan felt worse than I did. Dan can beat me at a high-intensity workout but I can beat him at endurance. Also I still had endurance from training for the marathon.

We reached our camptsite at 9:45 p.m, 10 minutes before darkness came. 14 hour hiking that day. My tears almost came out when I saw the camp site. We kissed each other for the huge effort we made.

We quickly set up our tent on the last light of the day. We were so exhausted that we could not afford to put our shoes on to eat outside. We made sandwiches with salami and lettude inside our tent, finished our meal in 5 minutes, and quickly collapsed into our sleeping bag without brushing our teeth or washing our hands. so gross, I know :|

Darkness covered us. Mountains were silent. Only the wind was whispering with the trees. We passed out the second we laid down. My entire body was whining. We were more exhausted than we had ever been but I was happy that we pushed it through the pain to make it.

Continued....


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