15th Feb 2015
Well that was like being at sea last night – I have never
rocked and rolled so much in a car before.
I was awake most of the night because is seemed the car would tip over,
it was rocking that much. I should have
parked more head on into the wind, but the car park was limited, and I had
thought that nestled up beside Steve and Gilly’s big truck I was better
off. Not so ! And talking to Steve this morning, they
hadn’t fared much better ! Ho hum, the
joys of Patagonia. So I was up, dressed,
ablated, breakfasted and on my way by about 8.30 am – The wind was still so strong
that I could hardly stand at the back of the van to make my breakfast – The
cornflakes were blowing away ! And when
I got up in the morning, not only had my little plastic footstool blown about
100 yards into the scrub, but even the toilet, which is not that light, had
blown about 10 metres from the car and was resting against a bush !! So as soon as I could I headed round to Hotel
Lago Grey, only about 500 metres down the road, to try and get some shelter
from the howling and non stop wind blowing off the Grey Glacier and down the
valley.
I found a bush to hide behind in the hotel car park, and
had a couple of hours to kill before I would know whether my 3 hour boat trip
up to the glacier would go ahead or not – Although with the way the wind was
still blowing, I was not optimistic. I
managed to obtain the hotels wifi password by nefarious means, and sat in the
car trying to update my blog – Although it was awfully slow. By 11 am I had
about half of it uploaded, and then went in to check on the status of the boat
trip. Cancelled due to high winds – Next
available space was not till the 6 pm cruise tomorrow. Well, I’m not waiting around in this
windforesaken place at the far end of the park for 2 days – Much better things
to do !! And I have seen enough glaciers
already to know what they look like – Shame not to get a good look at Lago
Grey, but after Torres del Paine, I guess it was my turn to have a few green
wine gums. Not a problem.
I must say I haven’t yet seen a hotel in the Park which
stuns me and makes me want to stay there, especially at the prices they charge. This Lago Grey Hotel is just like an Aussie
outback motel accommodation wise – small rooms in weatherboard buildings, with
a loo and a shower. Half of them don’t even look over the lake and the
mountains. The view from the dining room
and bar is very nice, but no better than the view from my camp sites most
nights ! If I did this trip again, I
would fly in, hire a camper, and enjoy the wild life and the views and the
walks that way. Much more exciting, IMHO.
After chatting with Steve for a while, I headed off back
through the park, taking the side turns that I had yet to explore. First I drove out to Lago Serrano to have a
look at the camping and the hotels out there.
Beautiful views over the river, back towards the Cuernos del Paine, but
the camp site was more for tents, with no way of getting your car to close to
the camping area, and the couple of hotels were OK, but once again kind of
motel-ish, although once again with great views. Even though they charge full tourist prices,
they just don’t maintain their facilities very well at all – Even at the Hotel
Lago Grey this morning, the wooden decking out in front of the bar was rotting,
and sticking up in places – What we would call a serious trip hazard ! They
just paint over it, and move on. Their
general facilities are just allowed to fall apart, and it reflects on their
infrastructure. Doors don’t shut
properly, taps and toilets leak everywhere, nothing is cleaned very well or
very often. Even in the camp site I am in tonight, which is really quite nice,
there is litter everywhere, and one of the two toilet blocks is closed because
it is not working (and this is their 3 month high season !) This
really could be gorgeous here, but they haven’t quite got it all together yet. It
will come, and I am not complaining about it – Just telling it like it is.
Coming back into the park from Serrano I stopped for
lunch at a bridge called Weber. It
turned out that where I pulled off the road used to be the old bridge, built in
the “80’s” (1880’s ??), but now replaced by a modern bridge. But the old bridge was a pretty special place
to have a picnic, with a view up the turquoise lake to the Cuernos del
Paine. It was then up beside Rio Paine a
short distance till I came ot the camping site at Pehoe, on Lago Pehoe. I planned to stop here because there is a one
hour walk up to “Mirador Condor” from here, which I want to do in the
morning. And by stopping at about 3 pm
it gave me a chance to upload some more of my blog as they have good wifi
here.
The wind has dropped a bit, although as I type this at 8
pm it seems to be picking up again, so I have to make sure I am ready to drop
the pop top at a moment’s notice. Once
again some local vicuna sausages for dinner – Getting rather partial to them
! Maybe one more night in the park, a
couple of short walks, and then I will have done all the walks I want (or can
do !), so I will then wander slowly on down to Punta Arenas, the southern most
city in the world, and on to Ushuaia.
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