My Pal Murphy

I dont travel alone. I have a close friend who follows me around everywhere I go. His name is Murphy. No, Murphy is not a puppy, though I sure wish he was. Not an animal of any kind. Nor is he a particularly weak-willed person. In fact, he's kind of a stubborn dick. Murphy is a law. A law that states if something can go wrong, it probably will. On my camping trip to Torres del Paine, the two of us became very well acquainted in a one-man tent.

On the first morning, I needed to catch the bus to the national park. I asked the woman who works the hostel where I can find the bus. She takes out a map and points out the bus terminal in town. The nonexistant bus terminal. I hail a taxi and ask him to take me there. The taxi driver is confused, but intelligent, and asks me to show him my ticket. He reads it, and instead of the nonexistant bus terminal, he takes me to the bus company's office, a 2 minute walk that costs the town's flat taxi rate of 5 bucks. There he drops me off and takes off before he sees if everything is alright.

It's not. The temperature early in the morning is flirting with freezing, and I'm locked outside a closed office. A locked door I pace in front of for over half an hour. A woman pulls up in her car, gets out, and asks me if the office is open. I point out the obvious fact that I'm shivering outside. She tells me she'll wait, then gets back in her car and waits, the loud music only partially muffled by the closed doors keeping out the cold. At no point does it occur to her to invite me in.

Finally, someone comes to the office to let me in. I go inside and warm up my rigid fingers, not noticing the time past until well past when the bus was supposed to show. It never did. Turns out the bus was supposed to pick me up at my hostel, and never comes to the bus office or the nonexistant bus station. It's already on its way to the park. The old man who owns the bus company, back hunched from years of stupid kids like me, calls the bus, and has them pull off on the side of the road. Then he takes me personally in his truck 20 minutes to catch up on the bus. The bus driver starts swearing at me when I finally get on the bus, and everyone is giving me dirty looks, except for relieved looks on the faces of the 4 people waiting for me.

Pete, Jan, Martin, and Martin's friend Kristoff are waiting for me. Ben has gone ahead to do the longer circuit, in less time than it takes us to do the short. 6 friends in total.

The bus takes us into the park, stops at the entrance fee station, and drops us off at the little ferry pier half an hour before its scheduled departure. The advice we were given by our respective hostels was to not be first on the boat, as your backpack would just be crushed on the bottom of the pile. So we dont hurry, and leisurely wait to be the last ones on board. Except, the captain tells us he's full, but he'll make a special second trip, so come back in an hour. We deliberate what to do with our newfound free time, and decide to hike to a nearby waterfall. We're starting to walk away and the boat is preparing to sail, when suddenly, the captain stops and calls back "No, we have a little more room. Last call, all aboard!" We barely hear him, and nearly miss the only boat of the day.

Lucky too since the views from the boat were glorious. Glacier-fed eerie blue lakes, multicolored sharp spires and pinnacles, blinding snowfields, you really get a great slice of the entire park. In other words, we could've just taken the boat roundtrip and left, sparing ourselves the ordeal to come.

The park has a famous trekking system known as the 'W', a transect of the park with 3 parallel day trips up into the mountains coming off of it in the beginning, middle, and end. !_!_! essentially.

The first leg of the first trip up to the edge of Glacier Gray was pretty easy and laid back. We're walking along the edge of the lake with te glacier not yet in sight, and as we approach the first glacier lookout, the wind starts to pick up. It only gets worse as we clear the ridge, and by the time we're standing on the rock jetty overhanging the lack, the winds have reached near-hurricane force winds. Standing on that ledge is near-impossible, and frankly-near fatal. I only have the will to do it for a few seconds. It's scary, almost enough to wet yourself.

In fact, as I leave the ledge, I realize I haven't pissed all day and I really gotta go. I try and find some kind of sheltered rock cove, away from eyes and wind. I find what appears to be a suitable spot, and pull it out. I start to piss, and immediately realize my mistake. This curved cove is just acting like a bouncing chamber for the wind. Air is blowing in every direction simultaneously, and takes my urine with it, splattering the wall, my shoes, and my pants. I cut off the stream in just seconds, but the damage is done. Luckily, it's started to rain gently, and if I stand downwind from the group, no one is the wiser.

The going gets tougher and steeper in the second half, and its humid outside with the drizzle. I'm wearing boxers, imagining the hike to be easy. It's not, and before too long, the friction builds, and I'm in red-hot agony. Only 2 hours slog until I get the next chance to unpack my bag out of the rain and fetch some reliable tighty whities.

The hike between this nut-saving refugio and the next campsite is only 4 kilometers, but it takes us forever. Well, most of the group does it in normal time, but Martin's knees are troubling him, and I patiently keep him company. Worse, this stretch is past the traditional tourist W path, a small piece of the longer circuit, but the differences are immediate. The trail is much crappier, much more poorly marked, and the little wooden foot bridges over streams are nowhere to be found. We find ourselves rock-hopping across. Streams 1 and 2 were easy, stream 3 got my right foot slightly damp, but stream 4 had me taking a nice swim from the knees down in the glacial meltwater. My shoes weren't dry until a full day later.

Arriving in camp, I get to work setting things up, but I find my rented tent nearly impossible to put up. I can't figure out how to get it in place. This is partially because I've never encountered this particular type of tent before, and partially because one of the crucial sockets for a tent pole is missing. Oh, and the tent comes with no stakes. We dig in the tent pole, shore it up with rocks, substitute wet twigs for stakes, and hope for the best.

Ben arrives in the same camground that night, but thanks to a lack of coordination, we discover we're going in opposite directions, and he understandably doesn't want to backtrack a full day. We're together that evening, but starting early the next morning, we're down to 5. Well, early morning for him, anyway. The rest of us set out clocks for 7 to be able to see him off, but all sleep through until 10. Oops.

I have trouble getting up because I'm always tired. Martin has his sore knees and Kristoff has been traveling. Jan was expecting Pete to wake her up. Pete doesnt walk up on time because, as he discovers when he finally does wake up, he's become violently sick. Vomiting, fever, chills, shakes, the works. We'd all been told the water in the park is safe to drink unfiltered, and the rest of us are fine, but the word we hear on the grapevine later is that there's exactly one place in the park you shouldnt drink the water, a spot near where the cows graze (and shit). That's where Pete filled up.

Regardless, the obvious fact facing us is that Pete cannot go on. He needs to leave the park, immediately, and we're unsure if he can even hike back. A boat sails on the glacial lake though, and perhaps that boat can get him back to the bus. I give Pete an antibiotic to start him off before rushing back to the refugio to find out. I dont fall in the water this time.

The refugio owner agrees to talk to the boat captain when he makes his daily landfall at 1pm. In the meanwhile, I start to hike back to carry Pete's bag for him. Turns out he's got a porter in the park to do it for him, but I dont mind, as I got to indulge in my secret hero complex while not actually having to carry extra weight. We walk back to the refugio together and wait an hour for the boat. When it arrives, while normal passengers are getting on and off, the owner chats casually with the captain. The captain then comes and tells us that Pete can ride back for free, but Jan, his wife, will need to pay. $70 bucks in cash, significantly more than she's carrying. Jan can't afford to go, and Pete, the loyal husband, refuses to be separated from her, and says he'll walk. Except, he can barely walk 10 minutes, let alone 4 hours. The captain shrugs, and starts to walk back to the boat. Suddenly angry, I chase after him, and start to rant impassioned at him for his cruelty. He shrugs again, and continues walking away. I turn and start to huff off, when the captain unexpectedly calls after me "Ok, both can come free".

Now my hero complex is really satisfied, but we're down to 3, and I dont even like Kristoff that much. He's too introverted, and the two of them spend most of their time talking in German.

We continue our hike, but after not too long break for lunch. My shoes are finally starting to dry, and I take the chance to unpack and change my socks, and put away my warm fleece. I start to eat lunch, when the fast winds push a rain squall into our midst. I dig back into my bag and pull out my raincoat to eat. 5 minutes later, the squall is blown away with the clouds, and the hot sun necessitates a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms. I end up changing 3 times at lunch. This is what Torres del Paine is like.

Thanks to illness and slowness, we dont get back to the end of the first leg until late on the second day, when we intended to walk to the middle spot campsite. We debate whether we want to keep walking past dinnertime, when the ranger interrupts us and removes our choice. The other campsite is full and we need to stay here. In other words, at the end of the second day, we're back where we started walking on day one.

To make up for lost time the next day, we decide to wake up even earlier than we intended to that morning. We sleep in even later this time. Almost immediately, my allergies started acting up, and I began sneezing violently every few seconds until I took an allergy pill. That made my symptoms quickly subside, until the side effects kicked in, and I started becoming drowsy on top of general hiking fatigue. It was a long morning.

Thankfully, I started feeling better by our lunch break when we reached the next camp, where we were able to drop our packs and tackle the next section carrying just a little water. Without the weight, I was spry and energized, bounding my way up. This part, the French Valley, was easily my favorite part. Boulder scrambles, mud pits, windswept barrens, and every other fun part of hiking. Across the river, a glacier hung off the side of the mountain, and every few minutes, a small avalanche fell. It sounded like thunder. Thanks to the river, we were in no danger, but it still startled me everytime; the experience on Villarrica was still fresh in my mind. Only in Patagonia would you be grateful that "Oh, its only an avalanche".

But the clouds were pouring in, and rain was starting to come down. The other hikers on my path started turning around and coming back, since the lookout on the end would be completely clogged up with nothing to see. I however perservered, simply enjoying the hike for the fun and technical challenge, the rain just adding to the authenticity of the experience. And lo and behold, when I finally did reach the lookout, the clouds parted for just a few minutes, and I was rewarded with an absolutely stunning 360 degree ampitheater view of all the mountains and glaciers from the center of the park. This made it worth it.

However, giddily bounding back down the mountain, I managed to re-fuck up the ankle I'd fucked up back in Villarrica. I'd also managed to get lost multiple times, starting at the very top of the lookout. The trail is only well-marked in one direction. I found myself repeatedly wandering around until I found my own muddy footprints, when I'd then trace back along their drunken jubilent paths until I found my way home again.

I managed to make it up and down to the top in 4 hours flat, when even the map suggests you need atleast 5 and a half. My compatriots on the other hand used almost that much and never even made it to the top. By the time they reached the bottom, they were fully exhausted and wanted to once again camp short. I had the option of staying with them or going ahead by myself. Having already gone from 6 to 3, I didn't want to whittle our numbers down any farther and be by myself, so I opted to stay, understanding this would make it extremely hard to reach the final site and the bus tomorrow evening. I stayed out of loyalty, to spend fleeting time with my friends. They passed out almost immediately after eating dinner, leaving me alone anyway.

Later that evening, I go to throw out my trash, and wander over to the ranger booth to ask him where the garbage can is. The ranger - young, undertrained, underpaid, lacking in english, and absolutely clueless - sees me with a garbage bag and threatens to call the police. The ranger has no idea how to respond to my indignant reply (in english), and gets his english-speaking boss. The boss immediately surmises what happens and chews out his employee. When I join in, the ranger sheepishly runs off with his tail between his legs and slams the door behind him like a child. Then the boss tries to be buddy-buddy with me, chummily and inanely asking my name and where I'm from, ect, pretending to be my friend so I dont complain to his boss. Frankly, I'd rather he just call the police.

As the sun drops and the light starts to go to sleep, I set up my broken tent. Except, I discover that the zipper has somehow become jammed, and the door wont open. Struggling with it, I manage to open the door, only to render it stranded open, and the wind is starting to pick up again. I manage to stitch the tent up with duct tape. Satisfied with my ad hoc job and too tired to care, I start to settle in for sleep, only to remember I'd left most of my stuff outside. Fuck it.

And then the allergy meds wear off. And thanks to the winds roaring both outside and from my nose, I couldnt sleep a wink.

We got up the next morning as a team, and ate breakfast as a team, but as I was finishing packing, the introverted and silently frustrated Kristoff suddenly announced "We're leaving, maybe you can catch up." I could not. We'd started as 6, and now I was down to myself, left alone with my pal Murphy. As predicted, I had neither the time nor the energy to do the last arm of the W, to see the namesake towers of Torres del Paine. Instead, I just made a straight line for the exit. My W trek looked more like a sideways F, for fail. Yet, failure was liberating. I was free to go slowly, at my own pace, to dawdle through forest and laze around on soft grass. It was some of the most fun I'd had in the park. Without goals, lacking hurry, things stopped going wrong. When I'd let go of everything, even Murphy left me alone.