"Presumably only 500m more. Why are the last meters always the the most difficult? We started very early to see the mountains in good light and are on our way for more than four hours. Now it
is really steep again, I'm sweating like hell, breathing is difficult... one step, another step..."
Than I reach the ridge, cold wind blows into my face and a panoramic view of breathtaking beauty. I see the end of a valley, on its bottem a deep blue lake surrounded by mountains of
different colours and shapes touching the blue sky, fields of snow and ice flowing into the lake. The sun brightens the picture. I take a deep breath and tears fill my eyes, because my little
human heart cannot cope with that much of beauty and perfectness. How could I ever doubt that this might not be worth the pain.
During the last three weeks since Christmas we spend our time in the two big national parks of Southern Patagonia: Torres del Paine in Chile and Parque National Los Glacieres in Argentina. Both
are definitely highlights at least if you like mountains and trekking.
Torres del Paine was very impressive because of its blue glacies lakes directly connected to snow covered mountains. On our tours we could see huge blocks of ice swimming in these lakes, on green
hills guanakos that close, that we could nearly touch them and we climbed up to the "Base de Torres" so that we were very close to these remarkable towers. These mountains are called "torres" the
Spanish word for towers and they are like towers.
Back in Argentina we drove to El Chaltén, a village just founded in 1985. It is a very touristic place, every house either seems to be a hostel, a restaurant or a souvenir shop. But this can be
understood if you see the view on the mountains of the Fitz Roy range and Cerro Torre, which have challenged the best climbers and mountaineers because they are so difficult to ascent. They
are outstanding when it comes to mountaineering.
For us beautiful day treks were enough and brought us into forests, which looked like coming from a fairy tale, to blue lakes and at least to the foot of Cerro Torre and the "Laguna de los Tres"
directly opposite of Fitz Roy or "Chaltén or Mountain of Fire" how the indigenous people called it. And in deed it always looks like fire or smoke comes out of its top. We could have sat there
for hours just to observe the clouds changing their shape all the time.
And we were so lucky with the weather again. We talked to people how stayed in El Chaltén for eight days but saw the mountains only for two hours. But we, besides all the beautiful views we had
already, could see the whole panorama on our last day here again. A present...
