Puerto Natales, a small town five hours north of Punta Arenas, is known as the gateway to the famous Torres Del Paine National Park. National Geographic has made it out to be legendary, so I was more than a little curious...
I had one thing on my mind when I got to Puerto Natales: to find a trekking partner to do the Torres Del Paine circuit with. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I ran into Ben at the Erratic Rock talk, and we decided we would team up to do the "W"--a five-day trekking circuit.
Erratic Rock is a hostel that hosts free Torres Del Paine trekking lectures every day at 3 PM, whether you stay at their hostel or not. I heard about the famous talk through the traveling grapevine from as far north as Santiago.
The talks are given by Rustyn (originally from Oregon) who is part owner of Erratic Rock and editor for the English Patagonian publication, Black Sheep. Not only is the lecture wildly entertaining, it's packed with good information for the seasoned backpacker/camper and beginners alike.
Patagonia's unique weather pattern and special conditions mean that it's different from your typical backcountry camping. Rustyn was more than happy to pass down his experience. Rather than answer the same questions all day, he decided to do one comprehensive talk that addressed everything and opened his doors to everyone.
There were about 40 of us who had turned up for the Erratic Rock talk. That's how I met my trekking partner, Ben (England).
It might seem strange to go off and do a five-day camping trip with someone you barely know, but traveling has a way of accelerating friendships, and you kind of start to develop an instinct for who you can trust. Actually, Ben and I had met before in a hostel in Santiago, and again at a hostel in Valparaiso where we were roommates. So when we met again at the lecture, it was a natural decision for us to team up.
After the talk, Ben and I finalized our plans over pizza and beer.
Puerto Natales is perfectly set-up for backpackers and trekkers, so we were able to rent everything we needed. We rented sleeping bags and mess kits from Erratic Rock. The mess kits came with a small mountaineering stove, small cooking pot, 2 plastic bowls, 2 mugs, and 2 utility spork/knives. Then we headed over to Victor's to rent our tent. It was a tiny 2-person tent but we were happy because it was light-weight.
Once the big stuff was out of the way, we went around town looking to buy cooking gas, matches for the stove, ziploc bags, and other supplies. Then we raided the grocery store. I could tell that Ben and I were going to get along great once we started doing the supermarket shopping.
We picked up some packets of soup for our breakfasts, cookies and granolas for the grab and go lunches, pasta and bolognese packets for dinners. We also brought little juice packets and a couple extra treats. The dried fruit market was where we did the most damage. I think we spent the majority of our food budget on dried fruit--almost $20 U.S.
We took everything the erratic rock guy said seriously. He suggested we bring a set of wet clothes and dry clothes--one set to wear during the day to get rained on, sweated in, and another set to be comfortable in around camp.
Rustyn's other big piece of advice was on how to waterproof your stuff. Raincovers don't work in Patagonia. His solution was to plastic bag everything--garbage bag for the sleeping bag, tent, food, clothes, and ziplocs for all of the food.
We were able to find garbage bags at the grocery store, but apparently all the gringos (according to the store clerk) cleaned out the entire stock of ziploc bags earlier that day. We were too late. Ben and I spent the remainder of our time trying to steal plastic bags from the fruit section of the grocery store. Then we found one small supermarket that was still open that late at night, and they actually had ziploc bags!
Later that night, Ben met me at my hostel so we could plastic bag all of our stuff and divide the load. A bus would pick us up at our hostels at 7:15 the next morning, and if we weren't on the same bus, we'd meet up at the park entrance.
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