Day 87: Thursday, December 27th
W-Trek Day 2
Paine Grande —> Campento Frances
Stayed at Campamento Frances

Dear Obiwan,
Today we hiked from Paine Grande to Campamento Frances. Our breakfast was the same as yesterday, some loose scrambled eggs, toast, cereal, fruit, and tea or coffee. Having eggs is so important for me so even though they were always runny, it was great! The toast here was deceiving, it looks amazing but ended up being very dry, but it was okay. Also, I accidentally got cold water for my tea, which I didn’t notice until I drank it, Kelsey said she saw me do it and just thought I wanted iced tea, haha!

Today was so much easier than yesterday, I also wanted to push myself to walk faster when it wasn’t steep, and I could do it! While this hike was shorter and mostly flat the whole time, my body was in agony from yesterday. My feet and legs were both hurting badly. But the worse was…my back, it hurt SO BADLY in my upper back and shoulders and neck. I was taking ibuprofen but it still felt as if I just carried a giant on my shoulders for a week. I never felt that pain before and I just…felt so helpless…and I just had to accept it.

We stopped 3 hours later at Campento Italiano. It was a gorgeous camp site in the middle of a forest, but, I’m so glad we didn’t sleep there…I stopped and used their bathroom and it was grooooosssssss. The other places had such cleaner and nicer bathrooms! Also, it looked like the sewage pump was right by some of the tents…and it did not smell good 😫.

It was here where we saw piles and piles of hiking bags, we investigated and Kelsey discovered that people leave their heavy bags here and then do the 5-8 hour hike up Valley de Francés.

With no hesitation, I made the decision to not hike Valley de Francés. If I wasn’t in excruciating pain head to toe, I probably would have…but I was 30 minutes from our next place of sleep, and it just had zero desire to hike for another optional 8 hours.

I also felt full-filled from everything I’ve seen! Kelsey assured me she was okay to do it alone, and we parted.

Then I was on my own on this quick 30 minute hike that was… beautiful! There was high grass, flowers, and amazing views of the mountains and lake around me.

Once arrived at our next camp, Campamento Frances, I was so grateful to see a big thick mat in our tent! The tent was smaller than the other ones but it was cozy and comfortable on these risers. This camp was nestled in the woods and was beautiful as well.

I then took a 2 hour nap, wrote a little, and watched some ‘You’ve Got Mail’ on my phone and started to feel like Carly again, phew! I was still in pain, but it was less, and I was also proud of myself for listening to my body and my gut, I could have pushed myself but I would have regretted that for the rest of the trek! The next 2 days are supposed to be tough, and I’m feeling better about them after resting today.

I met some extremely nice and warm hikers, most of them were hiking East to West and they comforted my fears about the Torres hike and said the beginning is tough and the end is really tough but the rest is supposed to be okay!

Kelsey returned about 6 hours later and said it was beautiful! We had to walk down this really steep hill for dinner, which yes Obi, means we have to walk it back up. Dinner was okay, I honestly don’t even remember, I was so exhausted. Then we went to bed.

Day 88: Friday, December 28th
W-Trek Day 3
Campamento Frances —> Refugio Torre Norte
Stay at Refugio Torre Norte

Today we hiked from Campamento Frances Refugio Torre Norte. The day started off cold and rainy. Kelsey and I have been SO LUCKY and our first two days were sunny and beautiful and not windy!

We ended up eating breakfast with a really nice American guy, William, who loves his pets as much as me and Kelsey love our cats and also eating with the people who Kelsey hiked the Valley de Francés with. This one woman first spoke to me about her living on Melbourne and how she did the visa and how it all worked and it was…so exciting to hear about!

But MORE IMPORTANTLY, right before we left I made a comment about how badly my shoulders and upper back hurt, and one of the women said, “it shouldn’t hurt your upper back, do you have your waist belt on tight?”

And then she fixed it, AND I HAD MY BACKPACK ON WRONG OBI. I thought I had it on my waist and tight, but it was just a few inches too tight to low, and after she raised it I could tighten it SO MUCH MORE and suddenly it was lifting up off my shoulders, she told me it shouldn’t be tight on my shoulders, but I had no idea BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING OBI!
But holy crap.

Cue Aladdin’s “A WHOLE NEW WOOOORRRRRLD!!!” I literally had that in my head for the next 3 days. I’m so grateful for this woman!

After leaving the camp site we hiked from 10:30am- 7:30pm in total with our bags. That’s 9 hours. Today was pretty flat…but, just LONG, Obiwan Kenobi.

We first hiked from Frances to Cuernos and stopped and ate our apples provided in our lunch bags. We ate on this beautiful BEACH looking at Lago Nordschlong (not the correct name, ;)) ! The scenery is NOT REAL, just endless beauty.

We then hiked a little more and had lunch on these beautiful huge stones over looking the lake. Lunch was so much better today! It was a chicken sandwich with some yummy sauce.

After lunch, we hiked from Cuernos to Refugio Torre Norte. The hike was gorgeous, amazing views of the lake, so many waterfalls from melting snow, endless river crossings, and bridges!

The landscape also kept changing. I, being SO ignorant, just imagined Torres del Paine as rocky mountains and that’s it. Both me and Kelsey were agog with the vastly changing landscape! The rocks changed from grey stones to red-ish rocks, grasslands to desert, gravel roads of dust to rolling green hills! There were also an impressive amount of bugs today? And when we reached Lago Inge the lake was surrounded by beautiful yellow and green bushes and plants everywhere! And at some points there were condors (we think) in the sky!

Finally, after 8 hours we could see the hotel in the distance, which we thought was our Refugio…but no…our refugio was 30 minutes further. And for some reason, this is when my body gave up today. I think seeing the hotel in the distance for an hour gave me hope… but then, 30 more minutes, and I just was dragging my lifeless body up this gravel road.

But finally, 9 hours later, we were at Refugio Torres AND OBI- here we were staying inside the Refugio, not camping. Which means BEDS. We showered, and showers were so hot and had amazing pressure!

They messed up our dinner times, which meant we had to wait, standing, watching a room of people joyfully eating…for an hour…till 915. But it was fine…kinda, they also some how ran out of food?! We knew this due to us watching everyone eat for an hour…and instead of a big piece of meat they gave us tiny pieces of meat in a soupy sauce with mushrooms, WHO LIKES MUSHROOMS?! There was also a chives cream soup and a caramel creamy dessert that was covered in chocolate syrup…and that dessert was all I needed to be happy at that moment.

Alright tú Madre needs a great night sleep for our final HIKE TOMORROW!

Love you,
Carly