2nd April 2008: The Torres del Paine National Park is one of the main reasons why we traveled to Puerto Natales. Torres del Paine is a Chilean National Park consisting of mountains, glaciers, lakes and rivers, and it spans an area of 2,400 km². It was declared a Biosphere Reserve by the UNESCO in 1978. To get there, we went on a day trip with a guide and several others in a van. Since this park is located 112 km north of Puerto Natales, it took us around two hours to get there. Most of the way there we drove along unpaved roads, and every so often there would be a herd of guanaco blocking the road.
A huge portion of the park is made up of Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles. Glaciers in the park include the Dickson, the Grey and the Tyndall. Most of the rivers and lakes of the park drain into Última Esperanza Sound via Serrano River.

This is one place you must visit at least once. It is unspoiled and truly amazing. We felt as if we were in a different world. Even once is not enough. If we do go there again, we’ll definitely rent a car, and spend at least a week exploring the park ourselves.

 

Shrubs, lakes, mountains in Torres Del Paine National Park

Snow-capped mountains

A beautiful green lake behind

Light-emerald colored Lake Pehoe

The whitish part is actually made up of calcium deposits

Pebbles, calcium deposits, green lake, snow-capped mountains

The guanaco (Lama guanicoe) is a camelid animal native to South America, and can be found in high altitudes. We saw so many guanacos here.

A stop sign with the majestic mountain behind the cabin which marks the entrance to the park

Curious and gentle guanacos turning to look at us

You must see it to believe it…

We got lucky and saw some Andean foxes here!

This magnificent setting is surrounded by high mountain peaks. Here you can see the impressive Paine’s famous horns (known as Cuernos del Paine).

A hotel in the middle of the lake..and the mountains and glaciers

 

 

Magnificent dreamscape

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 12:07 am and is filed under Chile, Patagonia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.