I awoke at dawn in Puerto Natales and ran down the street to get some pics of the sun rising over Ultima Esperanza Sound.  When I returned to the hotel I had some breakfast and met our local guide, Cahit.  A Turk who relocated to South America, Cahit has been guiding hiking and sea kayak tours in Patagonia for the last five years.  Seems like a great guy and, from what I can tell so far, very knowledgeable.  

As we entered Torres del Paine we were afforded excellent photographic and birding opportunities, driving alongside lagoons frequented by Chilean flamencos and black-necked swans.  Also caught our first glimpse of guanacos, an extremely photogenic member of the llama family.

Once in the park we began by hiking up the Rio Ascencio Valley, which winds its way up to the base of the Torres (Towers) de Paine, one of the highlights of the park.   Our hike up this valley was along a trail that hugged, and on many occasions crossed, the glacier-fed Rio Ascencio.  We stopped on more than one occasion to fill our bottles with the sweetest water I've ever tasted.   

I was a bit surprised, and mildly disappointed, by how many people there were on the trail.  I was even more surprised, and extremely disappointed, by how many of these folks were wearing iPods...come on people!  And I chuckled as I passed one guy in particular who, in addition to sporting the distinctive white ear buds, was chomping on a Blow Pop.   Hey buddy, ever hear of trail mix?!?!

At hard turns in the trail, or sections where you are required to hold on to a nearby tree limb, I noticed something very cool.  The sections of the tree trunks that were a little below eye level were slightly discolored and as smooth as a freshly waxed car.  I quickly realized that over many, many years, as thousands of people have walked these trails and relied on these very same trees for leverage, the bark has been smoothed over.   Trees smoothed by the greasy hands of a thousand men...

The last 45 minutes of the hike was spent scrambling, often times on all fours, up an extremely steep boulder field. The heart-pumping hike was rewarded when I crossed over a line of boulders and revealed to me was a green alpine lake at the base of three massive granite towers rising 3000 vertical feet.  I found a flat rock (a granite slab actually) and propped myself up against my pack, reveling in what stood before me.  Less than a week ago I was in New York City surrounded by man-made skyscrapers designed by names like Gilbert, Van Allen, Johnson and Foster.  Now it was Mother Nature, the most famous architect and builder of all time, who I had to thank for these vertical delights. 

I had a half hour to myself before the rest of the crew began to arrive.  In that time I took a lot of pictures, a nap (seriously) and listened to two distinct sounds.  The first was the constant hum of waterfalls cascading down from several hanging glaciers that reside at the base of the Towers.  The second was the sound of at least five different languages coming together - french, german, spanish, english and japanese.  The Towers reside in Chile but their beauty belongs to the world.

I was on the hike back down to the refugio and from about fifty yards away, over the sound of the rushing  Rio Ascencio, I heard what I thought was a thumping baseline. The closer I got I realized it was a reggae beat and as I opened the door to the refugio I was greeted by Peter Tosh's "Comin' In Hot."  Pretty appropriate given the sweaty mess I was at that point.  Turns out the guy that runs the place, a Chilean with dreads, is a reggae freak and the lead singer in a band called Natafari, Puerto Natales’s only reggae band.  Over dinner I was treated to songs from The Green Album or Album Verde, a Beatles reggae tribute that I highly recommend.  I understand there’s another one out there called Mellow Submarine, and no, I’m not kidding.  Reggae is all they played and it went on well into the night, long past this kids bedtime.  It was nice to have such a familiar, soothing sound lull me to sleep that first night.

Side note that deserves mentioning is my introduction to a Japanese hiker; you will see some photos of him in my albums.  He was doing the W sans guide and didn't speak a lick of english or spanish.  Totally alone, but seemingly content.  So I go to take a shower and he wiggles his index finger back and forth as if to so "no."  I see that he is using a washcloth to wipe himself down and deduct that there is no hot water.  Now there is no way in hell that I am not going to take a shower as this point I have taken on the aroma of a feral pig.  So I strip down, turn on the water, take a deep breath and step under what was basically a stream of ice water.  I yelp, I whimper, I scream like a little girl.  And when I’m not hearing myself make these embarrassing noises, I hear my new friend laughing hysterically.  Every time we saw each other after that, and I saw him a few times over the next several days, he just laughed at me.