Lost...in Torres de Paine

So we've crossed the border and are $100 poorer in Torres de Paine National Park in Chile. It's a beautiful country with really dramatic mountain peaks that do not look like the mountains we're used to AT ALL. We're staying at the I would say luxury resort called Explora (Hotel Salto Chico) for 4 days. So we went on our first full day hike yesterday with a great guide named Nicolas. (More about Nicolas later, basically he saved our lives). It was SUPPOSED to be 17 kilometers. It ended up being 24 km, about 4 km. along the edge of a cliff.

The first part, basically everything until lunch went great. It was a walk to Lakal/Sarmiento, which are two lakes in the region. The first part was a little hard, about a 250 meter climb uphill. But they had warned us and we were ready. Then we walked on, up and down these hills until lunch, which we had after Lake Lakal. Lake Lakal was not the best looking lake in the region. Basically, it was formed when a glacier carved out a niche in the valley and is continually evaporating. After all the turquoise, gray, bright blue lakes we've seen so far, Lake Lakal looked like Buffalo Bayou. So we have this picnic lunch the hotel makes and all along the way we've been chatting with Nicolas, he just graduated from a university in Santiago (apparently there are something like 15 universities in Santiago). He loves being down here and exploring these hills. He's been down here 3 months and is just a totally great fun guide.

So after lunch is where our problems occur. We have to cross a valley which in this region means there's a stream running through it. So we get down there and it is like a swamp. We slog through all this marsh grass in our hiking boots (BTW, Nike makes a great pair of hiking shoes, trust me, they got me through this-they have been tested in the roughest conditions. But, they're going in the trash as soon as I leave this hotel.) Nicolas has to MAKE a bridge over the water with a dead tree. Now in reflection, this is where I should have started to be suspicious. How is a bridge going to be washed away in a little stream plus a marsh? So clearly, we've taken a wrong turn, which is going to continue to escalate. Plus we're not seeing any more orange markers, which mark the trail. But I don't notice this yet. Then we climb up this (I call it scree) slope, basically straight uphill--no path, but I'm still not concerned because Nicolas is still pushing ahead and well we're on this sedimentary rock so there's really nowhere to put a marker. That slope sucked-I called it the horrible hill. It was about 200 meters straight up. But we get over it and just go through about 4 hours of climbing hills and circumventing them and we're following a path (more on that later) so we're like, the guy who told us this was the easy day hike is a DEAD man and planning on how to kick his ass. Finally after crossing another marsh, we climb straight up another huge hill and at the top is the MOST INCREDIBLE view of the Grand Paine (aka grand pain) Massif and the Cuernos (the horns) of Pain(e) and in front of us is Lake Sarmiento (yay, that's where we've been trying to get to!) I'm actually going to split up this posting and stop here because the worst is yet to come....