TDP Day 6: The Towers
Despite going to bed last night with a sore throat and high fever, today began at 2am - when me and 4 friends set out on a two hour hike in the darkness up to the Mirador Las Torres.
Our plan was to set out early and make the ascent to the Towers in a race against the sun. Sunrise was at 5:19am - but really the "show" starts about 45 minutes before that, when the first sunlight hits the top of the Towers, creating magnificent orange and red colors.
We made the hike up safely with our headlamps, including the last 30 minutes or so which entailed significant "bouldering" (jumping, climbing, stretching from boulder to boulder). Then we sat in the cold for a couple of hours watching the sunrise.
About 7am, we headed back down to Refugio Chileno to pack up.
I got down there around 11am...no buses until 2pm. So I hung out with the other backpackers and reminisced about the experience we just went through. Wow. Such a great trip but I am wiped out.
After getting back to Puerto Natales that evening by bus, I checked back into Erratic Rock and back into my little single room. Feeling completely miserable, I was delighted to have a private room, not a bunk, and was looking forward to a nice long sleep. Oh, and a HOT shower!!
I did the shower, but before hitting the sack, I met up with "the gang" at a pizza joint for dinner. (Peter, Claire, Alex, George, Steve, Jane, Nikki, Hannah, and Jorg (?).
I withstood the urge to have a beer, and due to my ailing health, I had a water, a raspberry juice smoothie, and a chirrimoya smoothie. Yes, you might say I was a little dehydrated.
Then I excused myself from dinner and virtually ran back to my hostel to hit the bed....hard. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
(Side note: One frustrating thing about Torres del Paine and this part of the world is that the sun sets at like 10pm, and it stays light until 11pm. Because I was so tired all the time, I could never stay awake long enough for the utter darkness so that I could check out the stars! Today, because we WERE up in the middle of the night, we did have an opportunity to check out the stars, but there seemed to be some cloud cover blocking the view. Bummer. It would have been a great night because there was no moon - it was totally dark! Though we sure could have used some moonlight or starlight on the hike...)
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