January 22, Sunday – Torres Del Paine, Chile

Today we are transferring to Torres del Paine, Chile by bus.  Unfortunately that meant we had to be up by 4:30am to catch the 5:30am bus.  Exhaustion!!  The first driver was a bit manic, driving like a man possessed.  And after picking up several groups he drove to the edge of town and stopped…for quite a while.  Turns out he was waiting for the actual bus that would take us to Chile.

We both napped part of the way.  We had one bathroom break about half way through the four+ hour drive.  We then had to clear customs at the Argentinian border, drove a few miles and all piled out again to go through Chilean customs…including getting all of our luggage scanned.  Then it was back onto the bus for a trip of a few hundred yards to a stop we had been at three weeks earlier on our first trip to Torres del Paine.  There we changed our Argentinian money for Chilean and were greeted by our driver…and we were off on another drive, of about an hour, to our hotel near the park.

First View of the Mountains in Torres del Paine

Our new hotel is in an absolutely incredible location, on a rise overlooking Lago Sarmiento and only 400 yards from the park boundary.  The roof-line of the hotel is low and long and if you blink you might miss it as it blends right into the hillside.  

Once inside the far wall is a solid wall of glass overlooking the lake and the iconic mountains of the Torres del Paine. 

And they had a spectacular pool that also had views of the mountains.

After lunch we headed out on our first tour.  Today is a bit cloudier than our previous visit but we still had good views. 

We saw dozens of guanacos, including several herds of females with young that were approximately two months old.

We had great, up close views of rheas...

and some not so close up views of Argentinian Flamingos.

Even got a reasonable photo of a large rabbit.

Our tour is a drive through the park.

Along the way we stopped to see the Cascada Paine...

with the Torres in the background.  Pretty awesome.

The drive ended at Lago Azul (Blue Lake).  At the end of the road we walked part of the beach along one end of Lago Azul.  

Then it was back to the hotel for a bit of relaxation and dinner before heading to bed.