CHILE   

    Geographically, Chile has to be one of the strangest countries in the world. Over 2,600 miles long yet on the average hardly more than 100 miles wide, Chile is sandwiched between a rock and wet place: the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The northern part is mostly bleak desert and worlds away from the lush Lake District that begins at Temuco and extends south to Puerto Montt. From Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas near the southern tip of the continent, Chile is a sparsely populated archipelago reaching into Chilean Patagonia.

    I changed planes in the capital of Santiago, but otherwise saw nothing of the city. I went directly to Temuco, where I rented a car and spent the next five days meandering through the Lake District, past massive, snow-capped volcanoes, pristine lakes, lush green farms and fields covered with flowers. I eventually made my way to Puerto Montt, where I boarded a plane and flew almost another 1,000 miles south to Punta Arenas on the Straits of Magellan.

    From Punta Arenas, I started working my way north to Puerto Natales, Torres del Paine National Park, the Serrano Glacier and eventually into Argentina. Torres del Paine was a fabulous experience that I highly recommend for anyone interested in hiking or sheer scenic splendor.

    Compared to Ecuador, Perú and Bolivia, Chile is highly developed, though in the Lake District one still sees dairy farmers making their way along the roads in horse-drawn wagons. The hotels meet a high standard, the seafood is very good and Chilean wines are well known for their quality -- what more could one ask for in the midst of such natural beauty?

Torres del Paine ("Towers of Paine") National Park takes its name from the three "towers" shown on the right. The park can be visited as a day trip from Puerto Natales, but the two-hour ride along ripiado roads made me glad I had decided to spend a couple of nights in the park before heading back.
On the way into the Park we saw rheas, guanacos and a great many birds against a spectacular scenic backdrop. We also visited the "Cave of the Miladon," a huge cave where the remains of prehistoric miladons (sort of giant bear) were found. (There is some indication that these creatures overlapped with humans and may well have been killed off by human hunters.)
We also visited the waterfall shown on the right and Lake Grey, into which a glacier feeds, producing icebergs of fantastic shapes in a surreal blue. A walk along the shore of the lake gave us once again an opportunity to experience the unrelenting Patagonian winds. (Alejandra told us that the climate is too fierce for cattle, except in some sheltered locations. Sheep and tourists, however, are expected to persevere.)
After the tour, I made my way to the Hosteria del Torres, one of the few hotels inside the park boundaries (pictured to the right)) where I would spend the next two nights. The hotel was quite nice and one could hardly expect a better location. Due to its remote location, it had to generate its own electricity, which we were advised would be turned off at night. Because it remained light outside until at least 10:30 pm (the latest I could stay up, what with all the fresh air), the limited electricity was never really a factor.
From the hotel, it is about a four-hour hike to the Torres. The hike was very strenuous, I was told. The first third of it was a relentless uphill climb. Eventually the trail leveled off a bit and undulated up and down through thick forest and along a river fed by waterfalls streaming down sheer cliffs from the snowcaps. The last leg of the trek was a 30-45 minute climb up a steep rock slide where one can never sure which boulders were safe to step on and which were not. We opted to take horses and a guide instead.  Pampered American that I am....The reward, however, was a spectacular view of the Torres, which can be seen so prominently from no other vantage point. Although it was snowing a bit and cloudy when I arrived, within a few minutes the skies cleared to reveal the views seen here. (More committed trekkers can do a six-day "circuit" around the Torres.)
Without a doubt, Torres del Paine National Park was one of the high points of my trip and I highly recommend a visit for anyone who responds to such natural splendor.