The Dodds Adventure: Chile and Argentina

Paine Massif in Torres del Paine National Park

Over the Christmas holidays while at Duke, we wanted to do a bit of an adventurous trip with Kim and Tom, and since Shawna had decided she liked hiking (other than the blisters) while in Montana the previous summer, we decided to go big. We opted for a 6 day hike in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. Keith's sister Margaret and Kim's sister Kerry also joined us for this adventure.

The route there took us through Santiago for a quick connection. We jumped on a 737 to fly to Punta Arenas on the "milk route" since the plane stopped a couple of times on the way there. It was on this part of the trip that the group started reading the details of the hike in Lonely Planet's Trekking in the Patagonian Andes - a few of the group had not quite understood what they had signed up for! Once we arrived in Puenta Arenas, we then had to get a five-hour bus to Puerto Natales - a long way door to door!

Puerto Natales

We stayed one night in Puerto Natales where there is not much to see -- it is more of a landing stop to get to the park. We went out to dinner and were excited with one place that had a plethora of beer options on the menu. Come to find out, they really only had one beer which was the local beer. We discovered this after we attempted to order about 4 different beers - after being told they did not have that kind, we finally asked what they did had and were left with only the local beer to select.

The following day, we wanted to leave our luggage at the hotel in Puerto Nateles, but oddly a combined 20+ years of high school Spanish left us struggling for the word for "luggage" - which after several minutes we figured out was "equipage"! We then took the bus to Torres del Paine National Park, where we stayed at the Hosteria Las Torres for one night.

Hike to Paine Massif

Before setting out on our trek, we did a day hike from the Hosteria to Torres del Paine Lookout. This is a long day trip - about five hours round trip. The views of the Paine Massif are spectacular, rising out of the plain from just above sea level to ~3000 meters. It was a bit of a cloudy and windy day so not the best weather for a hike, but stunning none the less.

The first challenge!

One of the camp sites

The following day we set out for our six day trek. We had to carry everything for our six days: tents, sleeping bags, food, and cooking equipment. There was much debate (and continues to be so) about how much each of us carried - the boys seem to think that they carried 70+ pounds and that number increases each time the story is told! Our overnights were at Puesto Seron, Refugio Lago Dickson, Campamento Los Perros, Campamento Paso, and Refugio Grey camp sites, with our trek concluding at Lago Pehoe where we took the ferry to the road and the bus back to the Hosteria. The trek was gorgeous, with incredible, diverse scenery -- from green forests, to rocky mountains to glaciers. It was also the hardest thing we had all done - the days were all 8-10+ hours of hiking, so we ended up at every camp ready for sleep!

A few highlights from the hike:

For the most part, the hike was well sign-posted; however, one day, we did get lost which probably added another 2 hours to our hike.
Our food consisted of trail mix, oatmeal, granola bars and pasta. One night, we had mashed potatoes and veggie burgers (from dehydrated packaging) - this did not make some of our stomachs feel to good the next day so we gave the rest of it away to some poor, unsuspecting hiker.
We found ourselves having to cross a steep ravine which was fine until we had to climb up the other side. We had to rock climb up about 15-20 foot with our backpacks on. At one point, Tom threw down a rope to Shawna to hang on - she thought it was a shoe string and thought him crazy to think she would rely on it. Come to find out it was a super strength rock climbing rope!
One evening, we did not quite make it to our campsite so we had to camp on the side of a hill, fighting tiny flies all night.
One morning, we woke up and it was snowing outside so we opted to sleep in to wait for the weather to pass before we ventured out for the day.
We had to hike over a pass that was packed with snow which took quite a bit of time, zig-zagging across to make sure we didn't slip. Kim, Tom and Kerry were not prepared for this with their clothing (they opted to ignore Keith's packing list) so we had to tape trash bags around their legs to protect them from getting wet from the snow. We were so proud when we made it to the top but the hard part did not end. We then had to hike down (or more like slide down) a steep hillside that was quite muddy - so we slid from tree to tree like tarzan as we managed to get down the hill.
We only had one shower during the hike and it was probably the coldest shower we have ever taken since the water was coming from the glacier - we never thought our heads could hurt so much!
The above sounds like it was miserable and at times, it was! But it was also amazing - the scenery was stunning and it was quite a feat for us to finish this hike. And of course, we have these stories and memories to laugh at for a long time.

After the trek, we headed back to Puenta Arenas and got a flight to Buenas Aires where we spent three days living a more sophisticated life! We toured around the city seeing the Plaza del Mayo (including the Catedral Metropolitan and the Casa Rosada) and the Teatro Colon. We also walked around the barrios of La Boca (quite colorful houses) and Recoleta (where we went to the Cementario de la Recoleta where many famous Argentinians are buried).