That Condor Moment

Day 30-33: Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine, Chile. Nothing really prepares you for this. OK, so they tell you that this is the best National Park in South America. Some even say it's the best National Park in the world. But still, nothing really prepares you for this place

As the park's closest town, Puerto Natales exists to service Chiles' most famous natural attraction, 70 miles to the North West. A pleasant enough place with its colourful corrugated tin roofed buildings and granny-style lodgings, this former fishing port is now a Gore-Tex mecca: Whatever you've forgotten to bring for the park you can but it here; from a Swiss army knife to the latest in Antarctic survival tents - they've got the lot. Come to think of it, an Antarctic survival tent is not a bad thing to have in Puerto Natales either – with its bone chilling winds, never again will I complain about the bleakness of British sea-side resorts in winter. Believe me, a summer day in Puerto Natales makes Scarborough in January seem almost tropical by comparison!. Like most of the people in Natales, we were there to stock up on provisions before catching the early morning service bus to transport us the couple of hours across the Andean desert to reach the 1,000 square mile wilderness.

Words can not accurately describe the full rugged beauty of this place which gives you the feeling that that you've just ended up in a scene from Jurassic Park (without the T-Rex of course!). Almost without warning, the Patagonian Steppe gives way to the Andes which soar almost vertically 6,000 feet above you with the granite pillars of Torres Del Paine dominating the landscape. Llama, rhea, flamingo and the magnificent Andean condor with it's 10 foot wingspan patrol the wilderness. Azure lakes, trails that meander through emerald forests, roaring rivers that can be crossed on rickety bridges and radiant blue glaciars complete the picture.

Taking the 9 hour hike to 3,000 ft base of the towers it made me think that God Himself had personally designed this place so that generations of Adam's children could wonder at the diversity of His creation: “I know”, says God, “I'll build three enormous pillars, I'll make them all different sizes to keep things interesting. I'll put a jade green lake in front of them so that people can rest here whilst eating sandwiches and into the lake I'll cascade a multitude of glacial waterfalls because that'll look great on the photos. I'll make a beautiful trek up through the forest from the desert below – that way everybody will stay fit and healthy and I'll put a few animals here and there. Llamas. Everybody loves llamas!”.

But the Lake District this is not. This is a wild, harsh and remote environment, something that became very apparent to Karen and I after we had decided to spend our time in the park camping. Night-time temperatures dip to well below freezing, snow falls in the middle of summer and 80 mph winds howl across the desert plateau. (On one particular hike coming back from Laguna Amarga, there were times that despite all our efforts, we were physically unable to make any headway against the phenomenal strength of the wind whilst, to make matters worse, from time-to-time roaming whirlwinds would pelt us with dust and grit from the desert floor stinging our eyes and cutting our frozen faces). With our little two man tent tied to the nearest tree to prevent it flying off to Argentina, at night we huddled together in our sleeping bags. By wearing our thermal underwear, thick socks, trousers, top, fleece and woolly hat to bed and by drinking half a bottle of £2 Chilean brandy, we were just about able to nullify the effects of the night-time cold. Now I know why they call this land Chile(y)!

And even as the sun rose we still needed to keep our wits about us. For apart from the cute critters that live in the park, this is also the home to the deadly black widow spider and so a morning ritual of shaking our clothes and checking the inside of our boots became part of our daily routine.

Despite the environment though, the park infrastructure is second to none with eco-friendly refugios catering for the hard core that make it this far. Powered by solar and wind (the very elements that make this park so hostile) and with glacial melt-water pouring from the taps these low level log buildings made a great place to escape the harshness of the conditions. And I'm still not sure whether they cooked the best food that we had ever tasted or whether after our daily exertion we would have eaten our own hiking socks with a bit of bread and butter but either way, we never left a morsel.

After four days fully clothed in the tent though, and after 40 miles of some of the most strenuous hiking we had ever undertaken, by the end of our stay neither Karen nor I nor our little two man tent was smelling that good. It a good job we're good friends!