Torres del Paine, Fire and The Eco Camp



Eco Camp and the Torres del Paine



Torres del Paine is the main National Park in Chile and covers an area of around 935 square miles.  It takes its name from its most famous mountain peaks, the Torres, or Towers, of Paine.  In addition to the four peaks that make up the Towers, the park has at least a further thirty peaks of over one thousand metres high. It has eleven large lakes and many smaller ones, with connecting rivers and waterfalls.  It also has glaciers and Magellanic forests.

Tourists come here in their thousands to see these sights and trek around the park, in particular to do the famous W circuit.  Whilst most of these tourists are welcomed with open arms, there is sadly the odd one that the park wishes had never crossed its path.  In December, an Israeli tourist was rather foolishly burning his toilet paper in very windy conditions, and managed to start a forest fire that, driven by winds of over 60 miles per hour, burned for weeks, destroying 18,000 hectares of Magellanic forest and other parkland.  The park had to be evacuated and it was thought that it may not reopen for the whole of January.  Luckily for us it did reopen early and we have been able to take the trip we had booked.

During our trip we saw some of the burned areas and it was quite shocking how much damage one careless person can do.



Our Eco camp dome

Rather than doing a multi day hike and camping, we have decided to stay in one place and do day hikes.  Our home for the six nights that we are spending in Torres del Paine is the Eco Camp.  The camp, like most of the lodge accommodation in the park, is in a privately owned area near to the start of the main hikes.  Whilst most of the accommodation is on the flat, the Eco Camp is on top of a hill, which makes for excellent views over the surrounding area and up to the Torres themselves.


The rooms here are individual domes.  They are metal frameworks covered in insulation and plastic, on a wooden base.  They are based on a combination of safari lodges and the nomadic constructions that the indigenous people of the area used to build.  They are apparently built to withstand winds of over 130km/hour, so they clearly could cope with the comparatively low winds we had, but it still did sound like the wind was going to tear right through them a couple of times.  Still, with our experiences so far I had made sure I knew what we were supposed to do should we need to evacuate due to strong winds or fire.



Eco camp bathroom



The camp has dome suites which have a stove to heat them and an ensuite bathroom, but we just had a standard dome and used the shared bathrooms.  But our dome was quite warm enough and the bathrooms were nicer than many of the hostels we have stayed in, so we were very happy.  The entrance is hobbit size, but once inside it is nice and roomy and you have a proper double bed and bedside tables.  And the window in our dome looked directly onto the Torres, so we had a fabulous view even without leaving the room.  This is a kind of camping that I could get used to.



Eco camp dining room

As well as the dormitory domes, they had three core domes for communal use.  There was a dining room, a small lounge, and a bigger lounge with a bar in it.  All of these areas were great and as I decided that I was not going to kill myself walking when Nic had plenty of other people that he could go with instead, I made this a very nice home for myself.  It was fabulous just being able to lounge around in the warm and dry, have a few cups of tea or beer, and read or draft a few blogs, knowing that everyone else was struggling up some hill or other in the wind and occasionally the rain.  And I didn't get any blisters either!

Life in the Eco Camp



View from Eco Camp



Those of us staying at Eco Camp and not doing the multi day treks were put into Safari Group.  The members of the group changed as people left and arrived each day, but most days there were between eight and twelve people.  The age bracket tended to be a bit older, because the younger and more energetic people were all out in the Refugio's and campsites, but there was an interesting mix none the less.  The good thing about a place like this is that the people who go are interested in travel and new experiences, so are the kind of people that you can have a good conversation with and make the time enjoyable.



Ecxo Camp core domes

Each day, there were two walks available, a relatively easy one and a challenging one.  Nic generally took advantage of there being people who could walk with him and opted for the more challenging route.  As I wasn't doing these walks, he  has promised that he will blog on them separately, which I personally think will be even more of an achievement than the walking as so far he hasn't done a single blog in the whole time we've been away!  Don't hold your breath!


Being an Eco Camp, we were expecting a lot of rules and restrictions designed to be environmentally friendly, but in fact the camp made it very easy for the guests.  The loos were composting toilets, but these were a nice surprise for being very 'normal' and not at all unpleasant to use.  You had to use biodegradable toiletries, but they provided them so that was easy, and they did all of the sorting for the recycling so that was easy too.  There was no electricity in the sleeping domes, but they provided a little light and we had torches for the night, and by the morning the sunlight lit up the inside nicely.  They used a combination of water turbine and solar power so that we could charge up camera batteries etc, and the fact that there was no internet or phone coverage was actually quite nice for a change.  This was definitely an easy was to be Eco.



Eco Camp lounge



And the food was pretty good too.  Breakfast and dinner were served up in the dining room and as most people we walking during the day, lunch was a DiY job, where you made up your own rolls or wraps from a buffet put out at breakfast time and took it with you.

Overall this was a great place to stay.  It wasn't cheap - aside from the camping and refugios, nowhere in the park is - but it was very comfortable, friendly and in a fabulous location.