Torres Del Paine, part II

I´m back ladies and gentlemen, and so, we have arrived at the Dickson camp by the dickson lake. While sitting and resting on a bench outside the camp keepers´cabin, I looked at the window of the cabin,and suddenly I saw Che Guevara looking back at me. Of course it wasn´t the real Che hiding in the woods of Torres Del Paine park, but it was very close. The whole camping was a very strange place, inhabited by ¨The Dickson Gang¨ how Roman called them. The Gang, consisted of an ärs¨, a ¨kusit¨, Che Guevara and Sancho (know to his family as Iglesio). Very funny guys. There were a couple of australians that came a bit before us, and they didn´t want to pay on the grounds of ¨we-didn´t-know-it´s-a-pay-site¨. So israeli of them. Anyway, by how it looked, we thought the gang was going to kill them. At first, sancho went to persuade them. When he miserably failed, he sent the ars and the kusit (while operating something in the garage that sounded like a chainsaw) who failed also. Finally he fired the dooms day weapon - Che Guevara on a horse. Fun to watch, but nothing came out of it. The australians just didn´t pay. Sancho told the authorities, but we don´t know if they did anything. Next day was avery nasty one. It was supposed to be fairly easy - only 4 hours walk, without much elevation to camping Los Perros (The Dogs). We even though to go see the glaciar Punta Puma, an hour walk from Los Perros. But, someone had other plans. In the morning it started raining. While we were walking in the woods, we didn´t really feel the might of the rain and the winds, because the trees were shielding well, but 30 minutes from the camp, i suddenly felt that i´m about to be ill. Worry not, because i always have in my backpack the perfect kit against all sorts of illness - advil and fine argentinian brandy. Feeling better, i continued walking, and found out that i was only 50 meters before the end of the forest. Coming out of the forest, i suddenly felt the rain and the wind, but after climbing a hill in front of me, i stood up before a nice glaciar, ¨Los Perros¨ and the lake to which it melted (including small icebergs swimming in the lake). Nice view, and i continued to look for the camping. Coming down from the hill, i found myself on a bank of a river, which always pisses me off because everything is rock, and it´s hard to find the trail. Anyway, i continued in the direction i thought was correct, and after 10 minutes walk, i started seeing the path again. After 5 more minutes, i entered the Campamento ¨Los Perros¨.Camping Los Perros, was usually a pay site, but it was abandoned for this season. We armed our tent and went inside to get warm and play cards. This night was one of the worst. Because of the rain, we were cooking in the tent, and the fumes, by morning, made all our stuff wet. Besides, my sleeping bag stopped closing so i was a bit cold all night. Of course, we didn´t go to Punta Puma... The morning surprised us with the pirfect weather to climb the paso John Gardner. Sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, and so, after breakfast we started our accent. The first part of the accent was through a muddy wood, and we needed to be very creative not to step in the mud, which was up to our knees. After the woods, came the part of the rocks. It was a hard, but very fun accent, with a lot of wind, snow and nice view.Rising to the paso, was (and untill now i think it still is) the most beautiful thing i ever saw. Underneath us, we saw glaciar Grey, like a river of ice, coming out of Campo Grande de Hielo Sur - the largest piece of ice outside the poles. You saw the picture, it´s an amazing view. After smoking a sigaret, and taking a lot of pictures - vova with campo grande de hielo sur in the background, campo grande de hielo sur with vova in the foreground, glaciar grey and us and more - we started the descent. The accent from Perros to the paso was about 650m, and the descent to camping Paso was supposed to be something similar. The first part of the descent was nice - rocks and nice view. But after 15 minutes, we entered the forest and the not-so-fun part of the descent started. All you can see is the stupid woods, and the descent goes on, and on, and on... After a couple of hours, we made it to Campamento Paso. We left our mochilas there, and headed down for the glaciar. After an hour descent we made it to the glaciar - a large and dirty piece of ice, and with that pretty amazing. There was a crack in the ice (10 points to whoever guesses the conotation) and you could see the glacier from inside - gradient colours of blue and white. Amazing. But, after 10 minutes we got bored, and went back up to make food and go to sleep. Next time, i hope i´ll manage to finish this story and move on the Parque Nacional Los Glacieres. But meanwhile, peace out, cska sucks. Vova, Cochrane, Chile. P.S. Pics in the mail