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A shuttle picked us up early in the morning, then we rode around El Calafate picking up other passengers who were journeying to Chile. Eventually we reached the big travel bus, and started south in the early dawn hours. There isn't much to see in Argentina countryside, just miles and miles of dry scrub land. It is an arid, brown landscape that is constantly blasted by the wind. Our bus shook from wind gusts all the way down. I couldn't help but think that if a forest of windmills were constructed here, Argentina could power the entire continent - the wind is that persistent and that strong. We did see some wildlife - we saw our first guanacos, which are small camel-like creatures (standing about 3 or 4 feet high), we also saw some flightless rhea birds. Of course, there were sheep grazing on the dry plants too. It was a sunny clear day, and we could see the Andes mountains in the distance to the west. I was surprised that we could make the Torres del Paine spires while we were still in Argentina. Often the Towers are wrapped in clouds, but on this day they were visible from miles away. When planning this trip, I had really hoped to see the Towers and now we were greating such great conditions that the Towers could be seen all the way from Argentina! At the border, everyone got off the bus and got their passport stamped for exiting Argentina. A few miles further on, we got off the bus again, this time to get our passports stamped for entering Chile. The buses are not permitted to cross the border, we were directed to a smaller shuttle that took us on to Torres del Paine. This shuttle was apparently part of an all day guided tour from El Calafate down to Torres del Paine and then back again - it sounded like an exhausting day to me, but if that is the only chance you have of seeing at least at little bit of TDP, then you may as well go. We were given a lunch on this shuttle. The shuttle stopped first at a viewpoint of Lago Sarmiento. This is a huge, beautiful blue lake. From the viewpoint, we could see the Paine massif (including the Towers) in the background. Next we stopped by a guanaco that had apparently died trying to jump a barbed wire fence. There were carrion birds near the carcass - including a young condor. This big bird was sitting right on the ground, so it was easy to see him. We stopped again for a large herd of guanacos. These animals do not fear humans much, they didn't move off far when we all got out of the shuttle van to look at them. One adult did run off later, and it had a strange gliding gait that I wish I had captured on video - it didn't look like a normal stride. Our last shuttle stop was at a nice viewpoint of Laguna Amarga. This highly saline lake has an unusual greenish color. The Paine Massif was still free of clouds, so we had more spectacular views. We exited the shuttle at the Laguna Amarga ranger station. We paid our entrance fee and the shuttle van drove off without us - we were on our own in Chile for the next five days. Of course, there were people all around, so we weren't in an isolated wilderness, but still, we would be relying on our navigation and planning. I hoped all our reservations in the Refugios went smoothly (they did). We had been told that we would arrive at TDP by 11:00 AM, so my plan for this afternoon was to hike to Refugio Chileno, and then continue up to the viewpoint for the Torres del Paine. But because of the long lines at the border crossing, and because of the shuttle stops before reaching TDP, it was already after 1:00 PM, and it was clear we weren't going to make it up to the Torres del Paine viewpoint. (I was glad that our shuttle did make those stops coming into TDP, each spot was an interesting location, but the stops did disrupt the original plan.) We could have waited to hire a shuttle bus to take us the 7.5 km to the Hosteria las Torres, but the next shuttle wasn't due until 2:30, so we decided to walk to the Hosteria. It was an easy walk to the Hosteria. As a bonus, we saw some more guanacos along the way - though this turned out to be the last time we saw them while in Torres del Paine - apparently the more mountainous habit is not to their liking. We made it to the Hosteria just as the 2:30 shuttle pulled up, so we didn't lose any time by opting to walk. It's supposed to be a challenging hike from Hosteria las Torres up to Refugio Chileno, and it is indeed uphill most of the way. But it wasn't too hard. I think if conditions had been tougher (ie: if it had been a lot windier at Windy Pass) then the hike could be a lot more of a challenge. It was windy going through Windy Pass, but I think in Patagonia the weather can get a lot more extreme than what we experienced. A couple drops of rain came out of the sky as we approached the Refugio, but it was not enough to get anything wet. It took us from 3 PM to 4:45 PM to hike the 5.5 km up to Refugio Chileno. We checked into the Refugio and were assigned to our bunks (Melanie was assigned a bunk on the third level, ten feet up in the air). At the Refugio we met a group from Seattle called the Mountaineers. It was a group of about 12 people who were planning to hike the full circuit of TDP - they were going to do the "O" route, while Melanie and I had planned only to do the "W". It was fun to meet other Seattlites here at the far corners of the earth. We met other Seattlites throughout this trip. Dinner was cream of pumpkin soup, pork with rice, followed by a desert of chocolate flan. I could hear it raining heavily outside as we went to bed, and I was disappointed by that - it meant we probably would not be able to see the Towers from the viewpoint tomorrow. I was glad we had seen them today! It was the end of our first day of trekking. Panorama Photos
MapsThis map shows the route our bus took from El Calafate to the Torres del Paine. It is a drive of approximately 400 km. 
Our route from the Laguna Amarga ranger station up to Refugio Chileno. 
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph First Day in Chile Photos
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