Torres del Paine (Cloud World)...Come for the water, ohh and the glaciers, mountains, and stuff!

WOW!!! I really don´t know how to begin. I just finished my 4 night, 5 day, 58 mile, backpacking trip through Torres del Paine National Park. Here you can drink all the water from all the streams and lakes or rivers, you could probably even lap the water right out of a muddy, stagnant, puddle (I was tempted, but I did not do this :)) When we drove in on the bus I was a little nervous, but more excited than anything else. The first picture I took was an image that reminded me of the cloud world in Super Mario brothers, if only I had remembered to raid Mario´s closet for his helicopter hat or fox tail, shoot!

Day 1: After taking the 7am bus, to another bus, then to a catamaran to our starting location, Grande Paine, we started our assent to Glacier Grey! I chose to walk 4

more km to the next camp site, which was all up-mountain, to camp and get a better view of the glacier.

It was definitely worth it! In total we hiked 15 km or about 9 miles. Here we illegally made a campfire and I met two friends from Romania and Switzerland. We sat by the fire, listened to reggae (courtesy of the Romanian, I did NOT bring any electronics), drank whiskey (courtesy of me, of course), and shared stories about ourselves. What a great night, uh-emmm, not quite... After retreating to my tent, I realized wow, I can´t sleep. I tossed and turned all night, clenching my clammy hands, and trying to figure out how to get warm. It must have been about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, I did not sleep more than 45 min at a time for the entire evening. At one point, I did hit REM, and I had a nightmare that it had snowed 4 inches when I got out of my tent. I had to actually peek out and make sure this was not true!! (P.S. this is just the beginning of the crazy dreams of which I will not go into too much detail on)

Day 2: I get out of my tent after a restless night and begin the descent back to the start site, where I would quickly eat lunch, take my shoes off my already aching feet, and head to the next campsite. Today I hiked almost 25 km, thats about 15 miles. I found myself in good spirits, grateful to have hiked 7 hours by myself, but anticipating the city, where there was pizza, and beer. OHH, so when I ate lunch I ran into a Swedish girl that I had previously met, her ankle was swollen. She borrowed shoes from the hostel that had part of the back of the shoe cut out of them and it was rubbing against her Achilles tendon. I gave her my keen sandals, not without any reservations, but I did. She in turn have me some shitty flip-flops so I had a different pair of shoes to wear when walking around the campsite. Fair trade? I think not, but ehhh...I am sure someone would have done it for me!

And if you care to know, all I eat is pasta with tomato sauce at night, tortilla and salami for lunch, cereal for breakfast, nuts, raisins, and snickers for snacks, that´s it, every day, same thing!

Day 3: Today I get out of my tent after yet another restless night, it was sooooo cold, and instead of sleeping in my -9 celcius bag with only bra and underware like a smart camper, I put on more and more clothes, until I am sweating, my bag is getting humid, and there is no way I am sleeping. So I get out, and start my assent into the French Valley. WOW!! What a tough hike, the first hour was all up-mountain, yikes, and not only that but up these very large rocks. The sights were beautiful though and I did enjoy the hike. However, after being sleep deprived I decided during this hike that I could not possibly endure more. I would skip the last day of the hike and go home. I then wrote some pathetic post cards to my sisters and mom, since I figured they would not mind hearing me complain a little. This day I hiked about 20 km, thats about 12 miles. It was really sad, because I was mentally defeated, I had no belief that I could make it through the rest of the hike after the difficulty of todays. On my way back down the French Valley, I ran into a few people, my friends, Stefan and Louie that were solo travelers hiking together. They tried to get me excited and to sleep on it (HAH), Okay, I will see how tomorrow looks.

Day 4: I SLEPT!! 3.5 hours straight, and it really made a difference. You may think I am exaggerating when I say I am not sleeping at night, but seriously, I am not sleeping, or I wasn´t! On this day, I thank whatever is higher and mightier than myself for giving me the strength to get to Las Torres campsite, a mere one hour from the towers, the highlight of the trek! We went to sleep this night early, in order to get up for the one hour assent before the sunrise.

Day 5: I awoke this morning at exactly 6 am, after a nightmare where I had gone back to my moms house in Highland and Jerry had pointed out that the sun was rising, I freaked out and got in my car to drive to Chile, because I thought that I would be able to make it there before the sun rose (hehehe). So I got out of my tent threw on wayyyyy too much clothes, under armor pants, hiking pants, tank top, long sleeve shirt, my fleece, and a wind jacket. The hike up was extremely challenging and I was on sweating like crazy. In fact, the entire way I down, I was so grateful that it was dark on my way, for if I had seen what lie ahead of me when hiking at 6 am I may have surrendered to the steep incline (NOOOO, maybe not I had come too far at this point).

Sooo, I made it up and I saw what was the most brilliant colors against the Torres del Paine.

It was magnificent to say the least. Everyone should witness what I saw. I was so grateful for the beautiful weather, my pèssimistic Swiss friend said ehhh the weather will be shitty, I will not hike in the morning if its bad, but I made him get up declaring that I scould see the stars, I told him that I knew the sun, whihc had not shown its face but once in the last 5 days, had been waiting for me to get here. Anddddd, it was waiting for me, it was the best day of the trek. Ahhhhh....

I am back now in Puerto Natales to quickly get this message to whom ever cares to receive it, and now I am having dinner at a vegetarian restaurant with the Swedish girl who I gave my keens too, we then will go out to the bar and have a bon voyage of sorts.

Cheers, keep it real, I love and miss you all!!!

Andrea

P.S. If you made it this far I will tell you, something strange happened, my pee was orange, like bright orange... not sure what that was all about :/