There still is some untouched beauty in the world. Torres del Paine in the Patagonia region of Chile is one of them. The area is a National Park that features an unique mountain range at its heart. There is one road through the park and many opportunities to hike. Some hikes last for hours, while others take days to complete. We opted for the hikes that took hours and chose reasonably priced lodging about an hour and a half drive south of the park. We made two trips to the park over a three day period. We skipped the second day to avoid some of the weather that comes with visiting these mountains.
The drive to the park was beautiful indeed and somewhat challenging on the winding, pot holed road. One of the highlights along the drive to the park was the wildlife. We encountered may herds of guanaco along the way.
We had read that the feature mountains, Torres del Paine were not necessarily visible on any given day as they were often covered by clouds. They were visible from a long ways off and we held our breath that we might get a good look at them.
After a couple of hours spent in the park this was our best unobstructed view of the Torres del Paine.
Of course there were all kinds of diverse, beautiful landscapes to view inside the park. This spectacular waterfall was called Cascada Rio Paine.
The road through the park was unpaved gravel. It was dusty and windy but did offer turnouts at key vistas. The combination of turquoise glacial lakes, green mossy hills and snow-capped mountains was stunning.
Our second trip to the park focused on Lago Grey. Lago Grey is a glacier lake with an active calving glacier at its northern end. It was a great opportunity to get up close views of some fresh water ice burgs.
A very windy hour hike took us to a lookout where you could see the glacier at the opposite end of the lake. A view looking across the lake below.
Of course, no tour would be complete without a photo of some birds. These handsome devils were a pair of crested caracara.
One last view looking back at the Torres del Paine range having ascended the boardwalk in the lower right hand side of the photo.
Overall, Torres del Paine is an amazing destination if you enjoy nature's beauty and are willing to withstand some cranky weather. Over all we have very fond memories of our visit.
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