On several occasions here I’ve rhapsodized about one
of my favorite places on earth, (subscription) Patagonia. This is a place literally at the end of the earth. I have
only been there a few times (the photo here is one of my
own), but let me tell you it is one of the loveliest, most interesting places you will ever visit. Now, there are more
nooks and grannies down there than you’d expect (really there are a lot of old women). You can expire the region for
months and years and never see the same area twice. And the more adventuresome among us should do just that. Hit the
fjords and the secret places there the roads stop and you have to hoof it in to the wild. But for the less
adventuresome, relatively speaking, there is one place that should be at the to of your destination list: Torres del
Paine. The park is a sprawling and wonderful monument to nature’s beauty. The Torres del Paine, literally the
towers of Paine, rise above the steppe like broken teeth jutting from earthen gums. Guanacos flourish and frolic on the
hillsides…and occasionally spit at tourists. And there are endless miles of hiking trails.
Well, I
could go on and on about Torres del Paine, but I won’t I’ll just post this piece on the park that should
take you a few steps closer to going down there yourself. BTW: here is another link to a piece I wrote on
Torres for Stellar Magazine.