After talking to Dean on the bus journey and reading the Lonely Planet we opted to go and stop at the Erratic Rock Hostel. This hostel was a hang out for trekkers and climbers heading out to Torres Del Paine, so we figured we would be able to rent all the equipment necessary and get any questions we had answered. Unfortunately the Erratic Rock had no beds available at the main hostel, but they did in their annex, so we made our way to there.
At 3pm an American guy called Rustyn (a part owner of the Erratic Rock Hostel) was giving a talk on trekking around Torres Del Paine, which lasted around an hour and covered everything you would need to know when going there. After an hour or so Rustyn had convinced us that what we had planned was not necessarily the best way of seeing the park, so we changed our plans completely!
After the talk had finished Dean approached Mel and I and asked wheather he could join us on the trek, and of course we agreed.
After an couple of hours hunting around the shops of Puerto Natales we had found the food necessary to see us through our five day trek. It basically consisted of porridge and packet soup for breakfast, a huge bag of Trail Mix (dried fruit and nuts) for lunch, and packets of dried ready meal pasta for evening meals, plus a few biscuits each for dessert.
We got back to the hostel in the evening, cooked our last decent meal for a while and had a bottle of wine, before packing the bags for our trek. This took us until 1am as everything had to be wrapped in black binliners and zip lock bags to ensure it was all waterproof, and we had to be up at 6am to catch the bus to Torres Del Paine - not great preperation!
We arose the following morning with a spring in our step, all really excited about what the next 5 days had in store for us. We jumped on the bus and before we knew it we could see the peaks of the Parque Nationale.
As a result of Rustyn's talk, we decided to take the Catamaran across Lago Pehoé and start our trek from Mountain Lodge Paine Grande. From here we heading North for 5hrs towards Glacier Grey and campsite site next to the glacier where we would spend the night. We also managed to add another to our party, a Brazillian guy called Daniel who had also been stopping at the annex.The trek was fairly easy going with only a couple of uphill sections, which were pretty short. After about 3 hours of trekking we come to our first Mirador, which looked our over the whole of Glacier Grey. The glacier was huge and forked into the lake with 3 different prongs. Floating serenely in the lake were huge icebergs which had once been part of the glacier, but had broken off as the glacier continues its journey down the valley into the lake. All in all it was a pretty stunning view.
After another 2 hours of trekking we arrived at the campsite, which was situated on the shores of Lago Grey under a canopy of trees. We set up our tent and after spent an hour or two sitting on the ricks next to lake watching the icebergs gently glide past.
That night we opted to eat in the Refugio, which meant a three course meal, rather than instant pasta. During the meal we met a lovely couple from Manchester, Tiggy and Jess, who we spent the evening chatting to about both of our travels through South America.
Later we huddled around the stove drinking cups of hot chocolate with Dean, Daniel and a really great Brazillian couple we'd met. There were hundreds of mosquitoes and other flying insects in the air as the sun set. Unlike their Brazillian counterparts, these Chilean mosquitoes seemed to be attracted to me rather than Mel, and were taking chunks out of me at will.
We agreed to go to bed early as we wanted an early start the next day. Typically South American, Daniel wasn't too sure about the early rise and swift departure, and so said he'd see how he felt in the morning.
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