Las Torres (W Trail: Day 5)

Word of the Day: Po

Adverb. Chilean filler word that appears to be a contraction of the word “pues” that normally means “well,” but can be adapted to suit a variety of social situations. Also, the name of the red Teletubbie.

Hotel breakfast has never tasted this good. And since we have returned to relative civilization, I had wasted no time learning about my new surroundings. My favorite discovery so far were the slang words I had learned from the Chilean staff; specifically, ”po.” After moving to the East Coast, I may or may not have been told that I need to ratchet down my “Valley Girl”-like accent, which I do think has been successfully suppressed. But, of course, quicker than thought, the Chilean equivalent of “like” has infiltrated my already-eccentric Spanish. Talk about reverse psychology.

Observe a very short conversation with a hotel employee dishing out deliciousness:

Huevos? (eggs)

“Si, po.”

Tocino? (bacon)

“Si, po.”

Mermelada? (orange marmalade … yuck)

“No, po.”

But now, back to breakfast. Perhaps my taste buds were skewed by days of eating mass-produced refugio breakfasts or a perfect night’s sleep in a non-bunk bed. Or maybe it was the fact that from our table you could see a perfect pink dawn was marching steadily over the mountains as horses galloped across the meadow. But I could unequivocally say that Day 5 was off to a good start.

After packing our daypack and leaving the heavy packs behind, we set off on the final leg of the W trail. Las Torres, here we come! The first part of the trail consisted of switchbacks pretty much straight up a hill until reaching the river valley. From there, you wander along the side of a truly incredible valley past Refugio Chileno, until reaching the forest. This is followed by a steep, rocky uphill climb. A long one. The final switchbacks were punishing yet starkly beautiful, and it somehow feels like you are so far above the rest of the world. All of the world, except for your destination which, due to a recent snowfall, is only a half mile of pure ice slick away.

Patagonia is fascinating because the weather is entirely unreliable. Over the past few days, we had heard stories about sudden winds throwing people to the ground, tiny clouds racing across the sky before bursting on people’s heads for only three minutes, and unforeseen snowfalls–all things that happened a day before our arrival–but we had yet to see any evidence of this ourselves.

In fact, Patagonia had been positively balmy the entire time we had been there. Then, as we ascended Las Torres, the temperature dropped by 20 degrees in under 10 seconds, the wind started gusting, and all of the sudden we were stomping through snowdrifts. Undeterred, we kept climbing and the sun returned. The iciness of the terrain definitely slowed us down, but soon we were standing at the top of a stony embankment, staring directly at Las Torres silhouetted in front of a flawlessly clear sky.

And of all of the sights we saw this trip, this one was by far the most incredible. The craggy towers plunged into a turquoise lake of incomparable clearness and calmness, illuminated by increasingly softer sunlight. The water quickly deepened to cyan, followed by cornflower, and ultimately a dark sapphire. We captured the last in our hastily-taken photos that raced the gray clouds that had begun scuttling across the sky.

Our intent was to picnic in front of Las Torres, but then an errant gust of wind almost knocked me to the ground, giving us a warning of what was to come. The temperature dropped, the wind whipped, and I made Boyfriend unpack everything in the daypack since I was suddenly ravenous. As I nibbled a granola bar, the gray clouds veiled the Torres and finally cloaked them. The water turned a purple gray color that gave lie to the optimistic blueness “paine” of their namesake.

By the time that we left, only the base of Las Torres was visible and disappointed fellow hikers were filing in through the snowy path under a slow drizzle. We slid-scrambled down the icy rocks, and the rain stopped 10 minutes after it began. However, from what we heard from the other hikers, the tops of Las Torres never reappeared. We had been incredibly lucky.

We then snapped our fingers (at least that’s how it felt) and we were resting on our laurels with chacarero sandwiches in our hands. We had completed the W Trail and it would only be months later that I would realize that it was my favorite trip of my life so far.