What is the most beautiful place you’ve been in the world?
Our first day in the renowned Patagonia did not disappoint! With sapphire blue skies and joyful puffy white clouds, we couldn’t have been happier! Torres Del Paine National Park had on its finest and it certainly impressed.
Knowing we had a pretty grueling hike in store to reach the famed Mirador Torres viewpoint, we decided to break our legs in on a much more gentle hike on our first day.
The Sendero Mirador Cuernos hike was just what we were looking for: a couple-hour in-and-out hike to view the backside of the Torres towering over one of the park’s many glacial lakes.
Golden fields punctuated by twisted black trees lined the pools of turquoise. We felt so alive to just be outside in this stunning show of nature. It was windy, and the sky threatened periodic showers, but we didn’t mind.
The trail had everything we wanted, including the massive Salto Grande waterfall spraying water well above the cliff edge. And as we rounded a bend, we stumbled upon a herd of guanaco! Looking like llamas with kangaroo-like heads, we were delighted to just observe these docile creatures for a time.
When we finally reached the viewpoint, we continued along the hill to get out of sight of the spot where all the other groups would no doubt picnic. Instead, we found a quiet rock to have all to ourselves and ate our lunch in perfect silence, admiring the dark spires before us.
Our day wasn’t through with just Sendero Mirador Cuernos… we also made a point to bushwhack our way down to a river on the east end of the park and overall get our bearings to scope out the rest of our time in the park. After all, we paid for the unlimited (more than three days) park entrance, so we had lots of time to play!
A small flock of rhea bid us farewell as we departed for the day. What a great start!
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