The Hotel Las Torres and the Paine Massif
The forecast we saw yesterday was definitely wrong. It called for clouds, and high winds of 60 km/h. Instead it was a beautiful sunny day, with hardly any clouds, and the wind was never too strong.
Torres del Paine from the campground
We asked at the reception desk if there was a way to see the Paines Towers without hiking all the way up. The desk clerk said we should go back to the area of the Refugio and Eco-camp which is about a km from the hotel, so we did that. From there you do get a pretty good view of the towers, and since it was a nice day the view was grand.
Torres del Paine from the Seron campground trail
We kept on hiking uphill on the trail which actually circles the park, though we only went about 7 km up the trail before stopping for lunch, and then turning around. It was not too steep, gaining a bit over 250 m of elevation, before levelling off. We saw a number of backpackers, heading we supposed towards the campsite at Seron.
As we were nearing the top of the hill we heard a lot of shouting below us. At first I thought it was some dogs barking, but soon realized instead that it was two gauchos on horseback rounding up a herd of horses. There must have been close to 50 horses, and they drove them up the hill along the trail toward us. The walking trail goes through a bit of a draw, and they pushed the horses up over the top of the draw, rather than through it. We could not see the horses until we reached the end of this draw, at the base of the next hill to climb, but we could hear the thunder of their hooves above us. It was very, very quiet where we were walking, except for the noise of the horses as they galloped by.
Not too much further we came to a fence and gate with a style. We walked through and a few hundred metres on came to a rather muddy area of the trail. This is because the horses walk along the fence line, so they have chewed it up. We came across the horses standing in the middle of the trail, and a single male backpacker who looked to be either very tired, or afraid of the horses (or probably both). I just whistled at the horses and they moved off the trail, and we walked by, as did the other hiker.
Small yellow lady-slippers
This part of the trail goes through a forest of old trees. Some of them are quite large diameters, but none of them are tall. We also saw many colorful flowers, and a number of large Patagonian bumblebees, which are about two to three cm long, covered with orange and yellow hair, and very fast flyers.
Laguna Azul
We stopped for lunch, a nice spot with a big old log for us to sit on, some ways along the trail after passing the highest point. To the east of us was Laguna Azul, and we could also see rapids in the Rio Paine far below us. A number of backpackers passed by as we were eating, some carrying extremely large packs. The man that had been having so much trouble at the horses didn’t make it as far as our lunch spot before we left, though we did see him lying in the grass not far behind us as we returned.
There were a few mosquitoes, though generally the wind kept them away. The wind definitely picked up by noon, but we only really noticed it in the spots that were wide open.
Looking down towards Los Torres hotel
As we reached the end of the trail we took a detour, having to walk back a short way, so that we went to the store and office of the refugio. There was a sign saying that you could buy meals, at about half the cost of the hotel, but of course we have no idea how good those meals are. There were a few cans of tuna fish, some potato chips, and some large cans of fruit, but not much else available, so you really do need to bring the food you want in with you.
The camping area is very nice. There were quite a number of tents and backpackers set up there. It is a large area, and I saw tent sign post numbers up to 80, but the sites are not crowded together.
As we arrived back at the hotel we stopped to talk to the Alaskan couple driving in a homemade camper (it looks like much of it is just made of wood with a corrugated fiberglass roof). We thought they had driven all the way, but they had not. They have driven it around Canada and the US, but then they shipped it to Chile on a boat. They did talk as if they were someday planning to drive it back.