December 2014

You need to be in good shape to get the most out of Torres del Paine National Park. It is a hikers’ world. Backpackers extract the most out of the experience because they get into and around and through the extraordinary beauty of this craggy massif of granite and sedimentary rock. Limited in time and youth, I did not do the seven-day circuit of the massif, but I hiked two challenging day routes, including what is generally considered the most difficult, the trail to the foot of the torres, or towers in English. It’s a nine-mile trek with a total 4,000-foot gain. The last kilometer is steep and hard, but the payoff is worth it:

Like everything that pokes above ground level in these parts, a couple of hairs north of the fearsome Roaring Forties in latitude, the massif is blasted by gale-strength winds. It is so impressive that experiencing the gusts that can knock you over is worth a visit in itself, and far better than a roller coaster because its nature in its

joy. I was there in December, the southern hemisphere’s June, and gusts of 50 to 60 mph pummeled us. Guides and hotel staffers told me it was nothing compared to the winds a little later in their summer. “You get lifted right off your feet and blown over,” one guide told me. “Sometimes we can’t even go outside.”

Torres del Paine is a dance of light and shadow, of rainbows and glaciers, of guanacos and pumas, of soaring buzzards and eagles that surf the storm. It is erosion and change and elemental forces. A human feels small on this stage. Where it’s flat, the pampas feels like an ocean, as U.S. pioneers in stagecoaches described the Great Plains. Beret-topped gauchos in heavy parkas come and go on horseback, providing color. But they don’t ride like our cowboys nor do they look like them. More like Andalusian horsemen I know from Spain, a riding style that seems more a part of the horse rather than a rider on the horse. Like mythical centaurs. I wondered if they ever dismounted. Whenever I saw one, wind whipped his clothing. Dressed in so many layers, he was shaped like an egg. Or maybe the gauchos just eat and drank a lot, which is understandable in this climate.

Dark rain clouds threatened all morning as we hiked over lush green hills, through forests of wind sculpted trees, and past exotic ferns and flora that reminded me of Tasmania. As my guide, Carlos Toledo, and I crested the summit, clouds parted, the sun shined through the last hint of mist, and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean arced around us. To the north and south, long windswept beaches and rocky bays stretched to the horizon and, from a craggy islet several hundred feet below, rose the barking of sunbathing sea lions.

As I discovered over the next several days of exploring Chiloé, Chile’s largest island, and some of the surrounding archipelago’s waterways, this spot is about as dramatic as the island gets. Compared to the rugged peaks and glaciers of Patagonia, the lunar landscapes of the Atacama Desert, or the steep ski slopes of the Andes, Chiloé is subtle and soothing, with rolling hills and meadows where sheep graze and wildflowers bloom. It has echoes of Ireland or Nova Scotia, and of Oregon’s coastline.

The island feels anchored in another, more bucolic era, a place apart. The Spanish first populated it in 1567, but isolated from both the capital and the mainland, the Spanish and indigenous people intermarried and developed into hardy, independent-minded seafarers and sheep farmers. They developed a unique way of speaking, a distinct cuisine, a credo of self-reliance, and a religious mix of myths, fanciful tales and Catholicism.