What started as a stroll in the park, became a rough encounter with Mother Nature and her 4 Elements.......

How come? It all started with a busride from Puerto Natales to the National Park Torres del Paine. We were dropped in the pooring rain at the departure of the boat that would take us to the start of our 5 days hike.

Earth: mountains, mountains, rocks, hills, mountains and even more mountains.

Water: glaciers, glaciers, glaciers, small lakes, big lakes, emerald/blue/green/grey lakes, rain, and pisco sour.....

Fire: warmed ourselves at the fires in the refugios where we slept, Joost´s fire-like fever, Suzan´s bad-as-a-fire-headache after pisco sour happy hour....

Wind: from a mild breeze, to a 70 km/h wind, to a blow-you-off-your-socks storm at the Grey Glacier

And last but not least, Quatros Elementos is the name of the hostel where we stayed. Such friendly and helpful hosts, really incredible, who told us a lot about their country and who became friends. A very lovely place in a beautiful, cosy village. We were really sad to be leaving there.

We never hiked 5 days in a row before but really liked it! The adventure started out on a rough patch: really bad wheather, Joost had the flue, I had a bad cold. But it all started to turn for the better after a day: clouds started to disappear, we were getting used to walking many, many hours, and of course there was the one refugio with the pisco sour ( pretty stiff drink, brandy from grapes mixed with sugar and a very small kind of lime). Which tasted incredibly good after hiking, but the next morning.......

Ah well, hiking apparently kills flue bacteria and hangover headaches because from that morning onwards, we felt like superman and walked a 24 km-9 hours-and-1200 hight difference- hike. Really long day but beautiful, with a sqeeking, rupturing glacier, lots of sun, deer, and stunning views.

The next day we understood why the Chilean say, national park Torres del Paine has 4 seasons in 1 day: we started out in a kind of automny wheather, grey, cloudy, windy, followed by hot, sunny summer wheather, then rain and pretty strong winds that almost blew us from the mountains combined with an enormous drop of temperature, so that was winter. And ended the day with some sunrays, warmer again and singing birds, like in spring. It was really impressive to experence Mother Nature at full strength. It makes you feel so humble as a human being.

Also, being away from telephone, internet, email, cars, etc. for 5 days was a nice experience. Pretty rare these days.

Yesterday, we came back to civilization in Puerto Natales. Today, we are back in Argentina. We will visit the Perito Moreno Glacier tomorrow and will continue our travels to Neuquèn and Santa Rosa (also Argentina) to visit Joost´s aunt and uncle there. We are very much looking forward to that!

Hasta luego!

Un beso!