Torres del Paine Day 1: Rainbow on the jewel

For the past 6days and 5nights, I spent my time in the toughest trekking I ever had in Torres del Paine in Chile. It is such un forgettable experience that I want to share at once. We did the trekking route from west to east, from day 2 onwards, which is the route people usually called "The W".

Date:26.12.08/From Administrativa to Acampa Paine Grande/17.5km/ 12.30pm to 7.30pm

The beautiful seaside of the city, Puerto Natales, Chile.

We took the bus from Puerto Natales to the National Park of Torres del Paine. The weather was so cloudy and when our bus entered the Park, it was raining. I was quite disapointed, but I believed that good weather would be coming after bad days.

Once arrived the administrativa, we waited for half an hour for the rain to get lighter, then we set off to our first night camping site, Paine Grande.

Although the weather was not perfect, I was still excited by the fact that I had started the trekking in Torres del Paine and could be once again, enjoyed the wonders of nature.

Walking in the wild, I could only hear the wind roaring and the wild birds flying. As the other trekkers usually pay 11000CP(chileno pesos, about 17USD) for a 30mins boat trip to reach Paine Grande, and I am the kind of backpackers who want to save every penny if I can. So I chose to walked 7hours to reach the camp site while enjoying the scenery, rather than pay for the boat. And we didnt meet a lot of trekkers on the road.

The trekking of Day 1 was easy, while enjoying the greenery and singing of birds, we also encountered the amazing invisble hand of nature, which shape all the trees into fantastic artpieces.

Every tree which was reshaped by the strong Patagonia wind was a piece of sculpture.







Sometimes, I found some beautiful flowers survived in the Patagonia environment under the shelters of broken trees.

After a continuous raining, sunshine, raining condition, when we reached the Lago Pehoe, which was not so far from the campsite, we encountered the most beautiful rainbow on this jewel-like lake.

This was definitely the highlight of our first day.



Paine Grande, the campsite of first night, which is situated besides the beautiful Lago Pehoe and in front of the snow mountains.