A Rave New World (Torres del Paine)

Welcome back! If you’re reading my trip entries in chronological order, we were just about to enter Torres del Paine National Park! (Want to backtrack? Click Here). Part way through our lengthy travel to the park, I vaguely remember thinking we may have been better served going on a trip to a less remote place. The total length of our trip was only about a week, so I started to wonder. Well, any brief moments of uncertainty dissolved into a new world as we arrived!

Our first glimpse of Los Cuernos (the Horns) y Las Torres (the Towers)…my Spanish ability is pretty meager, but it would be impossible to visit and not learn these two at least! Kind of a big deal.
The clouds drifted away from the Horns as we made our way deeper into the park!
The sunlit splendor of Las Torres to the right of the horns.
We also met some of the locals. These guys are called Guanacos and we quickly became incredibly jealous that they get to live in such an incredible place!
Las Torres (The Towers)…I may have mixed the chronology of some of these photos by mistake, but that is perhaps fitting as the drive in was like an episode from a dream.

Our family took an incredible number of photos, so it is very difficult for me to pare the selection to relatively few. Don’t worry, I will be posting many, many more pictures! I simply wanted to take a moment to explain how overwhelming it is to view the magnificent multiplicity of pictures we have. Once we crossed the threshold in the world of Torres del Paine National Park, enigmatic forces shifted our earthly equilibrium. The sun was still the sun, but it was somehow brighter. The clouds shadowed the landscape with pioneering curiosity; hovering with purpose. Patagonian sky pillows drift to paint perspective into the otherwise implausible canvas.

One may accuse me of getting carried away with overly dramatic language or poetic nonsense as I describe Torres del Paine National Park. My response to such allegations is that words will never adequately describe what renders you speechless in life. Perhaps, my immoderate words are simply compensating for this deficit. As we rode through the park, there was very little conversation; only the rumbling of our van. Any attempts at verbalizing what we gazed upon would have been redundant. At most, an occasional “Wow.” or a subtle point with a shared smile were exchanged.

I can say with certainty that I’m thinking of our trip as a whole as I write of my initial impressions as well. I plainly cannot fracture the grandeur of the entirety of the unreal perspectives and scenes we witnessed into its original components. That said, I will attempt to breakdown the time we spent in Torres del Paine into individual episodes in further entries. For now, here are some more pictures from our first day driving in. The true adventure of our trip still awaited us!

Los Cuernos!

The Horns!
Lago Pehoé y Los Cuernos…amazing picture my Dad took.
Lake Pehoe…this picture might be from the following morning?…great picture Dad!
The view from our hotel!
Overview of our home for the next several days!…glad my sister had her camera for some awesome panoramic shots too!