My fellow trekkers were three married couples traveling together from the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, all of them social workers or psychologists; two retired investment bankers who had been friends since they were kids; a scientist and park developer from Boulder, Colorado; a young woman from the Czech Republic currently working at the National Institute of Health in Washington, D.C.; and a young physiotherapist from South Australia who was on her first leg of a South American tour. With the exception of the Czech and Australian woman, we were in our early 50s to early 60s, and we had the mileage to prove it. With injuries ranging from bad backs and knees to flat feet and blisters, plus a breast cancer survivor in her first year of recovery hiking with a broken foot, you could almost call us the Walking Wounded, although our spirits were high and we were determined to experience the giants firsthand—come hell or high water.
From Puerto Natales, it was a three-hour ride to the park and EcoCamp, a cluster of dome tents that looked like a space colony in the bright moonlight. Our dome tents were painted with animals (mine had a skunk—were they trying to tell me something?) and had zipped doors and large, round windows. Inside were two tidy beds made up with flannel sheets, wool blankets and down comforters, and a small bath towel I would use for a … week? OK, so it wasn’t that other W, with its 500-count Egyptian sheets and turn-down service. But never having been a happy camper, I was delighted at not having to spend all night squirming in a sleeping bag (although I would get to do plenty of that later in the week). Outside the sleeping tents were two bath houses with flush toilets and hot showers, and dome dining tents with sofas, wood stoves, and long tables where we’d crowd together for Argentinean feasts. With 34 different cuts of beef alone, this was one country that promised not to starve us.
In the morning, I could see the park’s three namesake towers or “torres” rising like monuments in the distance. We’d be hiking toward them later in the week; for the next three days, we’d be leaving EcoCamp for the boonies of the W, where the only accommodations were refugios or your own tent.
