Big towers, ickle tent: 8 days of Paine

A shared Blog.
by: Amy and Ari

so, similar to erica, but with a bit more time on our hands, we began in a hurried fashion the first night in puerto natales to rent a tent and stove and boots for amy which she is forever grateful for. by 7pm we had finished most of our shopping but felt we still lacked a few necessities. (vegetables, olives, wine, etc) so, instead of the 8am bus erica bravely boarded, we took the more leisurely 2.30 bus all the way to the very end of the route. there are 3 stops in the park. we got off at the furthest and the last and I think we were the only ones to get off there. yes, it gave us 7 additional hours of hiking to get to the best part of the park, but the views from afar were awesome.
highlights of the 8 days include:
-every nite in a freezing cold, small semi-leaking, non-functional zippered, ugly 1.75 person tent -the time when some idiot at our first camp, 3 hours from anything, decided to puncture his used gas cartridge with a can opener in front of his burning stove igniting a fireball which toasted his eyebrows. he then proceeded to drop the canister, ignite the woodchips at his feet and for good measure kick the can into the bushes. so, to save the day ari ran to get the canister, stomp out the bush while holding the damn thing well above my head as gas continued to pour out, stomp out the woodchips and then place the cartridge on a rock far away from flames. what did he say? quote: "that was stupid" fucking hell! you bet it was!
-nite next to the glacier. we kicked a few beached icebergs
-making tea with the residue hot water after cooking pasta. not to be recommended although it tasted better at the end of the week than the beginning.
-every official we met telling us the full circuit route is closed and almost every trekker we met telling us "nah, its open. a bit muddy/snowy/windy, but open
-a night in a deserted camp well up in the French valley hemmed in by yuge towers, monstrous snow capped mountains, and slow moving glaciers. avalanches reverberated through the hills. 3 seconds of contact with the river water causes hypothermia. a bit of snow fell on us as the sun shined well above us on the rock faces. just incredible. INcredible!and even better because there was virtually no one else there. its off the tourist route.
-lots of long days. strolling into camp at 7. which is cool because last light is at 11pm!
-2nd to last nite, amy challenged me to make a fire in the bbq. i dont want to brag, im a modest fellow after all, but the fire i made was brilliant. a bit smoky at the start but the trees they provided were just not high quality. she burned hot and bright for hours on hours till we had to put it out for fear of burning down southern chile. good times.
-and finally on our last day, tired and weary despite the considerably lighter backpacks (which by the way at the beginning weighed more than our bags for this entire trip), about to ascend the final couple of hours back to the bus stop (and avoid paying the extortionate prices for the shuttle laid on by the park) , after 5 minutes a German couple drove past and /insisted/on driving us there. Would have been rude to refuse and needless to say our poor feet were pretty happy :) and they were so jolly!