We wrapped up our Patagonian adventure with a 1 night 2-day camp out at Torres Del Paine before Joel departed for his 3 day airport tour / flight home to Canada. Our plan was to hit up the park´s highlight - four torres (rock towers) that glow pink in the sunrise. We managed to get two sunny and rain-free days which is not common this time of year. The trek up, again, reminded me greatly of Canadian landscapes; tall slender trees swaying gently, golden afternoon light dancing on the trail, meadowed valleys and clear waterfalls passing by. It was heavenly. The weight of our food (enough to feed a family of 4 for 3 days) plus camping gear seemed heavy and awkward at first. That is, until we saw a solo hiker with gear and food for a 5-day trek. She looked like a drunk giraffe at high risk of cardiovascular disease.... she was so red I thought her face might explode. We had it pretty easy.
We arrived at our campsite much earlier than expected, around 3 PM and discovered that we had brought little to do other than eat and nap. The relaxing turned to restlessness around 7PM when we aspired to climb the last 45 minutes of the hike up to the Torres before dark. That lasted about 8 minutes and by then we had shaken off our ambition and the laziness returned. Thank goodness.While it seems like a slap to nature, I was actually pretty thankful Joel had brought his Ipad (strictly for alarm purposes, as I demonstrated my inability to properly set my alarm last time). So in typical Vervaeke camping fashion, we had a rivoting game of Words with Friends, or Scrabble on the computer (it actually consisted of one person napping while the other stared at the screen for 10 minutes).
Up at 6 30 am for the final ascent, nearly an hour scramble in the dark up a bouldered mountainside to the lagoon and Torres. If I hadn't already done permanant damage to my knees, I now have. We watched the sun cast pink and gold light on the Torres with a mid-rise champagne pop to top. That´s class. At one point, I looked up and realized there was a rainbow stretching across the vista. It was too good to be true. Our travel has been highlighted by rainbows at key moments of peace and appreciation of nature.
Or maybe they just have a lot of rainbows down here. Either way, we took it as a blessing. I´ve yet to tell this to the 2 or 3 people I´ve met who got rained out (one woke up with her mattress floating in two inches of water and had to turn back the next day). Not sure what we did so right. Maybe it was petting stray dogs and making people laugh with our ridiculousness.
I said goodbye to my bearded dear friend Joel, the condor whisperer, parkouring legend, always silly and vibrant. Sad to see him go but we´ll climb more mountains in the not-so distant future. Thanks Patagonia.
