Our Chilean adventure started with a much longer than expected bus journey. A strike at the usual border had all the buses diverted through a tiny frontier, which created a sizeable bottleneck. 2h30 later we were let into Chile and shortly thereafter arrived in Puerto Natales.

Puerto Natales is the base for anyone heading to Torres del Paine National Park. It is a small town, full of colorful corrugated iron houses – very much reminiscent of Reykjavik in Iceland – plus a mix of kit rental shops, back-packer hostels and a few large supermarkets, selling stupendous volumes of soup and pasta.

We checked into our hostel Amerindia and duly used every square inch of our private room (upgrade) to layout the contents of our backpacks in order to repack the “essentials” for our five-day assault on the park.

We had decided to “glamp” – essentially glamorous camping – which meant that we would camp where possible but would not take a tent with us, instead relying on the refuges to assemble one prior to our arrival, thus ensuring a good spot at each site and, importantly, saving us valuable weight in our packs.

Further, we had decided to pay (handsomely) for dinner and breakfast in the refuges each day. This would again save us valuable weight in our packs but also meant that we could enjoy an essential hour or so to warm-up pre and post camp, if required!

Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine is considered one of the most beautiful places in Patagonia and can only be accessed by foot or by horse. Hikers (like us) descend on the park year-round to explore the many trails on offer, with perhaps the most popular being the “W”, an 80km, four-to-five-day hike, which takes in the park’s highlights, including Galcier Grey, Valle Frances and mirador Las Torres. Our plan was to hike the “W” west to east, over five days and four nights.

Day 1: Puerto Natales to Refugio Grey:

Our first morning was spent getting from Puerto Natales to the entrance of the park. Another visually stunning bus journey, during which we saw a lot of “guanacos” (the Patagonian version of lamas). We signed-in, paid our park access fee, nodded our way through the safety video and re-boarded the bus bound for the Pehoe lake.

It was at this point, whilst waiting for the boat and staring at the enormous queue of hikers, that we realized how busy the park was and immediately dismissed any romantic notions of our off-the-beaten-track escape, with just a few guanacos for company. Indeed, it seemed as though we would be travelling in relative luxury, with the majority of the people we saw carrying much more kit, including mats, tents and pots & pans for cooking. Clearly, they were inexperienced in terms of weight-saving strategies adopted by more experienced hikers…

As soon as we arrived in Paine Grande, we enthusiastically strapped on our backpacks and started walking the 11km towards Refugio Grey, which was where would spend our first night. The guidebook suggested it would take 3.5 hours…

3.5km down in less than an hour and we stopped for our picnic lunch, staring out across Los Patos lagoon. An hour and a half later, we stopped again to soak-up some breathtaking panoramic views of the glacier Grey, fully expecting to have broken the back of our inaugural hike. At this point we learned not to trust the signposts, since, upon inspection, we saw that we still had 6km to go. Fortunately the scenery was spectacular and once Ed had recovered from the shock of ‘lying’ signposts, we were on our way, smiles fully restored.

Upon arrival Ed did not seem so happy about the idea of sleeping in a tent and practicaly fainted when he saw the queue for the two showers. He muttered something about ‘throwing money at the situation’ (not for the first time) and decided that we should go for diner instead.

At dinner we met Adam, Abby and Amanda – all from California – and soon forgot about the shower and tent situation. Adam and Abby had been doing the W the other way around, so we learned a lot from them, whilst Amanda had, like us, only just started the W, so we exchanged itineraries, pretty sure our paths would cross again.

We ended the evening by taking a mini trek beyond the camp to view glacier Grey from another, closer viewpoint. We then had to settle for a freezing cold “Portuguese shower”, since the hot water had stopped at 9pm. Cold and tired, we retreated to our tent.

Day 2: Refugio Grey to Refugio Frances:

Our second day was going to be our longest, covering more than 20km, so we decided to leave Refugio Grey early after a greedy breakfast. The sun had disappeared and it was raining lightly, which was a fine excuse to don some expensive new kit.

We were on our way, tackling the leg we’d done the previous day, in reverse, back to Refugio Paine Grande.

We arrived at 3.5 hours on the clock (much better pace) and decided to have lunch on a picnic table in the sun. Our lunches for the next 4 days would consist of canned tuna, mayonnaise, a different tetra pack of vegetables (today was white beans) and pitta bread. We sat, for half an hour, blissfully unaware that the weather was about to change for the worse.

Apparently, it’s not uncommon to experience all 4 seasons in a day in the park, and the second part of our hike to Camp Italiano was undertaken in torrential rain, strong gales and the odd hail storm! Expense aside, this was the moment we were delighted that we’d invested in proper kit because it kept us completely dry.

We arrived at Camp Italiano via an Indiana Jones bridge, turned right and marched the final 2km to Camp Frances, clearly motivated at the prospect of sleeping in the refuge (in an actual bed!), since even more rain was forecast overnight.

That night, we had dinner with a very small group. We met Tom and Katie – from the UK – who were doing a very similar tour of Latin America, so we bonded over itineraries (Katie and Laurence) and a mutual love for Chelsea FC (Tom and Ed).

We also met some Americans, who were on a break from their training in New Orleans to become plastic surgeons.

Day 3: Refugio Frances to Refugio Los Cuernos:

We woke up on the third day to lots of dripping and noticed that there was a large puddle of water under Ed’s rucksack. Lolo also found a few bites on her arms, which we learned later were caused by bed bugs, apparently very common in Chile. Perhaps a tent would have been a better bet after all?

After some moaning from Ed and another plentiful breakfast, we set-out in the rain back to Camp Italiano, in order to attack the middle part of the W and the Valle Frances (French Valley).

It was going to be quite a challenge as the weather forecast was for rain and wind all day. We met up with our English and American friends en route, two of whom had put washing up gloves on to protect them from the rain. A move which L applauded, since her hands hadstarted to turn blue.

For the next hour, we scrambled on up the valley against a horizontal wind, slowly climbing the rocky gorge. After a steep 10-minute climb, we arrived to the first viewpoint, completely exhausted but elated.

We decided not to continue on, since it was hailing pretty badly and we could not see 10m in front of us. Also, large chunks of ice had started to fall at our feet, evidently having previously been whipped off the top of the mountain behind us. Invigorated (and slightly scared), we headed back to our refuge, had lunch (tuna with sweetcorn today) and attacked the second part of the day to reach the refuge Los Cuernos, which, fortunately, was only another 3km further east.

We arrived, delighted to see that our tent was up and secured to its platform and that the showers were not nearly as crowded as they had been in Grey. Also, they weren’t rationing the water, so we both enjoyed a hot shower, delighted that we wouldn’t have to cook our own dinner.

That night, we toasted our progress over a 1 litre carton of vino tinto and withdrew to our tent for a well-earned episode of Game of Thrones.

Day 4: Refugio Los Cuernos to Refugio Chileno:

At breakfast we rescued our boots, which we had left by the heater the night before to dry-off. Unfortunately they were still soaked, so L set about fashioning some very smart inner liners, made out of M&S plastic bags (these are not just plastic socks they are M&S plastic socks).

With the sun shining, dry (ish) feet and Amanda alongside us, we set-off in high spirits, looking forward to the next stage of our trek – a 17km stretch that would take us along the shores of Lago Nordernskjold and then up to refugio Chileno.

Over another delicious tuna lunch, Amanda told us about how she had come into possession of her walking stick “Amiga”. It had been handed to her on day 1 by a fellow trekker who was just finishing hiking the W. We agreed that we’d continue the trend and pass it on to a worthy candidate the following day. We won’t bore you with the criteria – they were excessive!

We got our first glimpse of Chileno shortly after lunch. We rounded the crest of a steep hill and there, in the distance, was a small hut with a Chilean flag and a wind turbine. Far below us was a canyon and in front of us was a narrow footpath, which hugged the left hand side of the hill and slowly wound its way down to the refugio.

On the way, we were almost mowed-down by some horses, who had obviously just delivered provisions to Chileno and were now starting their return journey, loaded with rubbish. The lead gaucho offered us a shrug and a grunt as we cheerfully greeted him on the way past.

Clearly fitter and leaner than a few days ago, we had made excellent time and upon arrival at Chileno, we rewarded ourselves with beer and wine.

Amanda subsequently found out that she should have been staying down at the Torre hotel. There were no beds available in Chileno that night, so she sensibly settled for a glamping spot next to ours and proceeded to fund our alcohol habit with her accumulated credit! Very generous and greatly appreciated!

Over dinner, we plotted our 2½ hour assent to the Torres (towers) lookout and decided that, since there was a 70% chance of a clear sky the next morning, we’d rise at 2.45am to get to the lookout in time for first light. Alcohol makes us say silly things.

Day 5: Refugio Chileno to Base de las Torres lookout and home:

It might have been the excitement of using our head torches for the first time but we shot out of our tent at 3am and joined the other hikers en route to the lookout. Armed with our special trail-mix (all the snacks we had left in our pack mixed into 1 bag) and a clear sky, we blitzed the first hour.

After that, the pace slowed as the circa 500m climb began to take its toll on our energy-less and sleepy legs. However, the camaraderie kept us going. The little lamps in the dark were quite atmospheric and by dawn, we had assumed our position on a large cold rock, directly opposite the Torres, patiently awaiting the sun’s first rays.

Sadly, there was a little too much cloud, so we failed to capture the golden light on film, however, we took a few rewarding snaps before the cold and the prospect of breakfast had us quick-marching down the steep mountain face and back through the woods to Chileno.

The descent was amazing, as the sun finally started to blaze through the scattered clouds, illuminating the trees and the streams – stunning landscape that had escaped our attention on the way up. Too hungry to get creative with the camera (breakfast would cease to be served at 8:30am!) L was off like a mountain goat!

Post breakfast (thirds in Ed’s case) we packed-up our things, checked-out and slowly ambled back down to Las Torres Hotel, where we caught the bus to the entrance of the camp and our connecting bus back to Puerto Natales.

On the way down, we nibbled our last tuna lunch and, to our amusement, Amanda successfully passed-on her “Amiga” to someone that met her long list of criteria. The recipient vowed to uphold the tradition and pass it on again once her W was over.

Back in Puerto Natales, we rewarded ourselves with Patagonian lamb, steak, Pisco Sours and an actual bottle of vino tinto, before stumbling to bed in our own (budget-busting but oh so worth-it) private room.

View on the descent to the Torres hotel

Next stop: a quick pit stop in El Calafate before heading north to the lake district in Bariloche, Argentina…

Highlights:

• Torres del Paine National Park – stunning scenery and a wonderful way to spend 5 days
• Sunrise next to Torres – not perfect but we feel as though we did it properly
• Exchanging stories with the friendly people we met along the way – Amanda, Abbey and Adam, enjoy the rest of your travels; Tom & Katie, I hope we can catch-up in Cuzco for Chelsea vs. PSG! Julie, Micha, Pedro and many others.

Gastro highlights:

• Everything but tuna…