Base of the Towers, or "has anyone told you today, that you look wonderful?"

For my second day at Explora I chose to continue with the all day hiking thing. This time the weather was more than perfect, so perfect even our guides and the local staff were awed by the cloudless and windless days ("never happens"). The base of the towers is 'the' hike to do in Torres del Paine and it takes all day. In my usual way I hadn't done much research so didn't know what everyone was going on about. When we reached the top, after a solid 3.5 hours of hiking, it was an awe inspiring surprise. You turn a corner and come face to face with a glacier lake above which the three towers loom, all solid white granite bleached by the sun and surrounded by a perfect, cloudless blue sky. One of my favorite part of the hike, of any hike it turns out in the park, is the simple pleasure of filling up your water bottle at any of the innumerable little streams running down from the top of the mountain into the lakes. As suspected Patagonian stream water tastes delicious. I will miss that.

The day was also made a bit more special because of the members of the group. It is never unpleasant to be told "that you look wonderful today" by a charming man or to have a great giggle about the fabulousness of terrible British reality television series. Thank you.