Into Chile

From Torres Del Paine

 In fact we had already set foot in Chile earlier in this holiday, albeit only for 5 minutes to drink a hot chocolate on a mountain top in the Andes.  This time it was for real, with a trip to the Torres del Paine national park, which is located in Chile about three hours drive south of El Calafate.  Our expedition was in a rugged looking 4x4 minibus, which turned out to be an appropriate choice of vehicle, as the paved roads in Argentina turned into dirt tracks as we got close to the boarder, and continued like that pretty much the whole way into the national park.
The park itself consisted of a series of lagoons surrounding the centre piece, which was the towering Torres del Paine peaks themselves.  We had the opportunity to visits most of these lakes, which were each stringing different shades of blue, ranging from turquoise, where the lake contained rock particles from the glacier ment, though sky blue to indigo.  On the way we passed many guanacos, the llama like animal that is native to Southern Patagonia, and is currently undergoing something of a comeback.  Much of the park was still closed following the extensive forest fires that had raged there a few weeks earlier, but fortunately most of these were now under control and it did not affect our itinerary too much.
At the end of the days excursion on we were taken to our hotel, which is strategically placed as a base to tackle the various trails to be found in the national park.