Posts Tagged ‘Scenery’

You might think that a two-day horse expedition was enough. We might have been ambitious to think otherwise, but in fact we began our next adventure on the same day that we had our second horse ride. We decided to trek in the Torres del Paine national park, a very famous place in Chile with some spectacular alpine and glacial scenery. However, one does not simply hike for a few hours in Torres del Paine! The park itself is a 2-hour drive from the nearest town (Puerto Natales) and is too large and varied to see even a fraction in a few hours. So we decided to do a 5 day trek instead!

Before we departed for horseback riding, we made some preparations. Our backpacks are a perfect size for us, but our stuff is more appropriate for sleeping in hostels than for camping. We rented some of the equipment that we needed at “The Erratic Rock”, a hostel run by some Canadian ex-pats that runs an informational talk (in English) and rental shop.

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Check out Part 1 here!

After a good sleep in the tent we had a yummy breakfast prepared by Boris and then set off for our second day of riding. This day we took about a 3 hour ride around the Laguna Amarga which is a large, green, saltwater lake.

The weather was overcast and really windy at times, but we still got wonderful views of the lake. These horses were so steady and we had an awesome time riding over all of the different terrains. A really amazing confidence builder for me since I had a really nasty crash off a horse a few years ago and haven´t ridden much since. The horses were so well behaved and took all of the wildlife and crazy terrain completely in stride. Justin was incredible even though he hasn’t ridden that much and even managed a long trot on one of the beaches on top of about nine hours in the saddle in two days!

Throughout our trip, Hazel and I have been planning a few bigger trips to mix in with our more everyday low-cost hiking and hosteling adventures.  We’ve been keeping an eye out for a horseback ride that sounded exceptional, as Hazel in particular has wanted to get back on a horse again ever since her accident over two years ago.  Well, it took almost 3 months, but we finally found one in Criollo Expeditions.  They advertise a number of different trips on their website, but one in particular struck our fancy: an overnight trek at the fabulous Parque Nacional Torres del Paine.

The company turned out to be a family operation.  We called hoping to come to their office to talk about our possible riding options, and were surprised to be invited to the home of Magan and Boris Radich outside Puerto Natales where we got to see one of their herds and chat about riding.  We decided to depart in two days (Monday the 28th) and raced home to prepare for the other impending adventure – the 5 days of hiking in Torres del Paine known as the “W”.  I’ll talk about that in another post!

Monday morning arrived and Boris pulled up (right to our fabulous hostel “The Singing Lamb“) in his 4×4 truck with our box lunches and a happy greeting.  It was really wonderful that Boris drove us to the park, since he was able to point out the owls, eagles, foxes, guanacos (Patagonian llamas), ñandu (Patagonian ostriches, also known as Rhea), and caracaras that we saw.  This was just on the trip to the park!  We couldn’t believe how much we saw, besides the normal sheep and horses you might expect in a wide open landscape like the one that leads to the mountains.  Boris was raised in nearby mountains at a remote ranch and he knew all sorts of information relating to the history, flora and fauna, and geography of the entire region.

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The national park is just a few kms outside of Ushuaia, and there are plenty of busses that run back and forth throughout the day.  We decided to do a moderate hike along the water, rather than to climb the giant mountain in the park, and we were rewarded with some amazing scenery.  The day started off gray and windy, but wound up sunny and windy with perfect temperatures for hiking!  Click any of these photos to see the gallery from the hike.

We had a beautiful sunny day, so we decided to hike up to the Martial Glacier, just outside of town.  There is a chair lift that goes part of the way up the mountain, which is pretty awesome because the hike after that to get to the glacier is extremely steep and we were glad to sit and watch the views both after hiking up from the town and then after the steep trek to the glacier.

The glacier itself was not as impressive as the ones we saw in New Zealand, but the views of the town and the landscape were just awesome.  Click on either of the photos in this post for more pictures!

This morning we headed out for a bit of an explore around the Plaza de Mayo.  This plaza has been the location of many historical and political events and has some pretty cool buildings.  We saw the Casa Rosada – we have a white house, they have a pink house!

Then we looked around the cathedral for a while.  My pictures really don’t do this justice as it was pretty impressive and the light was tough for photos.

We stopped at a cafe and sat outside enjoying the city and drinking a coffee.  There is a real cafe culture here and it’s fun to sit and watch the city go by.  After that we visited Florida St. which is known for it’s shopping – cool to see, but not of too much interest to us.  Then we walked up to school by way of the obelisk.

One of our most touristy days yet.  All of these spots were full of people with cameras, but it was still nice to see some of the big landmarks of this city.

We have had one negative note, which is that I accidentally left my memory card reader with my camera’s memory card in the computer at school and it looks as though it’s gone for good along with all of my New Zealand photos.  I had a lot that I hadn’t uploaded!  It’s pretty lucky that I’ve been uploading most of the major events, and I’ll be more careful from now on.  We’re also lucky because we have extra memory cards and a second reader and my camera is just fine.  Still really annoying, but of all the things that could go wrong it’s not too bad.

 

 The woman in this picture isn’t just sitting down to rest.  This slope was very steep and very slippery, so everyone pretty much slid down.  She happened to fall just when I took the picture.

 It was hard to take too many good shots because the weather was really questionable and I was mostly focused on hiking.  That night we found a DOC campsite (free!) at a river and got to have an awesome swim to wash all the dirt away.  Such an amazing day.

We were pretty sore the next day though, so no hiking at all.  We drove up a mountain instead – Mt. Taranaki. 

This photo was taken on one of the first “Trig” hikes we ever took. Trigs are little pyramids that New Zealanders put atop their hills so they can tell how far stuff is. I know, weird. But I guess it could work. Hazel is imitating the tree in the background in this photo.

Hazel discovered a gigantic cave at the top of one of our hill climbs. It was filled with stalactites! WoHoo! How far down can you go?!?

This is a sweet pic of the river that flows out from under a glacier. Makes sense, eh?

This is from one of the most beautiful alpine tracks we’ve walked on. A rickety bridge starts it off.

A WC Hut in the middle of the track.

A bright blue stream from glacial runoff in the middle of the track.


The lake at the bottom of the Hooker Glacier, a little less dramatic than Franz Josef. But it had its own serenity.

Here’s what we were outfitted in before we went up to a summit to view stars. Not pictured are our socks-and-sandals.

This was a really remarkable hike starting at the Divide on the way to Milford Sound. We got to the top of the mountain, and here is the proof!

Obligatory “On a Boat” picture

This shows just how alone one can feel out in the boondocks of Fiordland. This picture looks out on the Tasman Sea.

When we were about to start fishing, we were greeted by the friendly neighborhood ALBATROSS! So huge! The picture doesn’t do it justice but it must’ve had an 8 foot wingspan.

Finally. Hazel, after only 5 minutes of fishing in Proper Conditions catches her first fish, a Sea Perch. She was made to kiss it by our friendly captain Fiord — who said we wouldn’t get off the boat until Hazel caught her first fish. Luckily it was a good day!

This was huge. And amazing. And scary. Basically Andre was a hero.

Since we hadn’t had enough of her first fish, we got it out of the “to be dinner” bucket and photographed it again :)





These photos reflect the beauty of the Sounds at sunset. Also how grateful we were to finally crawl into bed after seeing dolphins, pulling up lobster pots, fishing, kayaking, and eating. Did I mention eating?


The infamous Morning After. This one wasn’t so bad!



These photos represent our initial experience of Tongariro — a steep hike up rocky volcanic ground, only to cross a huge, barren crater.

Then we found out what a real crater looks like.

The Red crater was also the highest altitude we attained on the Crossing, a whopping 1886 meters high!

This is the icing on the cake, after peaking Red Crater you get to lope down loose soil to see the beautiful Emerald Lakes.

We had gale-force winds up at the top, and were worried about falling into a crater almost the whole time!

Here’s the view at the end of the Crossing — serene and pastoral. Mission Accomplished.

Hope you liked my Best Of – this is a great selection from the photos I’ve taken so far!