Torres del Paine - Day 2

Waking up to more snow and clouds all around us, we decided that it did not make sense to attempt to go back to the towers for a better view in the morning, so we packed up and headed down the mountain to start our anti-clockwise circuit of the Torres. It was a quick decent going down and soon we were hiking through rolling grassy hills with pockets of trees as we started the loop, very reminicent of the hiking we did from Robinhood´s Bay to Saint Bee´s in England. We ended up hiking around 13 miles and gaining only 1,500ft.

We made camp outside of a refigio on the lawn. In the refugio there was a shower and flush toilet as well as an option to pay someone to make your meals if you wanted, much more plush than we were expecting. We were very lucky and were able to come in and make dinner on their stove while learning a new card game from a couple from the Southwestern portion of France. It was funny because they had just learned it from an American girl and were now playing it, (didn´t get the name) but the rules are everyone starts with 3 piles of two cards, one face up and one face down. You also have 3 cards in your hand at all times till the deck is gone. The goal of the play is to get rid of your cards, and the special features of the cards are; the 2 resets the pile, the 3 skips you, the 7 you have to play under, the 8 allows you to go again, and the 10 clears the pile. It´s quite a fun game and we´ll have to play it more when we are home, if anyone knows the name (Keith, Jake, or Louie?) it would be great to know.

After very nice cooking and cards inside we went to eat in the tent as it was time for the host to cook dinners for the people that had paid. One of the qualms of the trek at Torres was the wind -being quite windy again we hunkered down in the tent and ate a very tasty bean soup while playing more cards.