Blue’s Clues

Question: What renowned national park is named after its most iconic feature—a name whose English translation is "blue towers"?

Answer: Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.

Set in the heart of Chilean Patagonia at the southernmost tip of South America, Torres del Paine is consistently ranked among the world’s most beautiful national parks. The name refers to its three granite peaks that pierce the sky—Torres translates to "towers" in Spanish and "Paine" is derived from the indigenous Tehuelche word for the color "blue." When the park was officially established in 1959, the name was chosen both to highlight the park’s most striking geologic wonders and to pay homage to the region’s indigenous heritage.

While the scenery is the big draw at Torres del Paine, it’s not just a pretty face. The diverse ecosystems of the park—a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve—support a remarkable variety of wildlife ranging from guanacos and pumas to Andean condors and Chilean flamingos. But really, it’s the park’s stunning scenery that steals the show.

Covering an area of about 700 square miles within the much larger Patagonia (about 400,000 square miles), Torres del Paine features a breathtaking number of postcard-worthy vistas. Hiking through the windswept countryside reveals rugged mountains, towering rock spires, waterfalls cascading down cliffs, turquoise lakes, and iridescent glaciers—often framed by grazing herds of guanacos (llama’s wild cousins) or a mighty Andean condor with a 10-foot wingspan circling in the sky. For unspoiled nature, this is the place to go.

Cowboys and Andeans

If it feels like you are at the ends of the earth, it is because you are.

The Andes—the world’s longest mountain range—are responsible for the dramatic landscapes of Patagonia and Torres del Paine. They stretch some 4,500 miles from Venezuela in the north to Chile and Argentina in the south before spilling into the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean—and even then, when you gaze out at the myriad islands off the coast of Ushuaia, what you are really seeing are submerged Andean Mountain peaks.

At a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, much of Torres del Paine was submerged underwater, which allowed layers of rock to accumulate. As they compacted over time and formed granite, erosion caused by wind, water, and glaciers took over, sculpting the massive rock formations into the towering "Torres del Paine" structures we see today.

While there is evidence of human population in the region for some 12,000 years, let’s fast forward to 1520, when Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan became the first European to set foot in Patagonia. When he encountered Tehuelche natives, one of the several indigenous populations of the region, Magellan considered them giants that were "so tall that the tallest of us only came up to their waist." Well, they may have been six inches or so taller than Europeans at the time, but that didn’t make them giants. Nevertheless, since the "giants" must have had equally large feet, Magellan called them patagónes, or "big feet," and the name for the region stuck. Ironically, real giants did live in Patagonia at one time: The fossilized remains of one of the largest dinosaurs to ever roam the earth were discovered here.

But it was really late in the 19th century when the world became interested in Torres del Paine and Patagonia. Baqueanos (often called Chilean cowboys) were horsemen from southern Chile who began exploring the region more extensively in the 1870s. Several of these baqueanos accompanied Lady Florence Dixie, a Scottish writer and war correspondent, when she visited Patagonia in1879. Writing about her experiences in a book published in 1880, Across Patagonia, Dixie provided the first known drawings of the area and one of the first descriptions of the region we now know as Torres del Paine—referring to the three granite monoliths as Cleopatra’s Needles. Here is how she described seeing Torres del Paine for the first time: "...now, as if by magic, from the bowels of the earth, a grand and glorious landscape had sprung up around us... jagged peaks were cleft in the most fantastic fashion..." She and her party are usually credited as the first "foreign tourists" to travel through this magical region.

Baqueanos in traditional costume can still be seen riding on a sheepskin saddle steering the occasional herd of sheep to graze in Torres del Paine. But estancias (cattle and sheep farms) are few and far between since the region became a national park and earned World Heritage status in 1978. But something that’s not few and far between in Torres del Paine is the wildlife …

Elusive pumas, rare birds, and wild, wild horses

In spite of the harsh winters near the bottom of the world, an astonishing amount of wildlife lives quite comfortably in and around Torres del Paine—even some found nowhere else on earth. The vast park is home to 25 different mammals and more than 100 species of birds, including 15 birds of prey. Trekkers often run into calm and curious guanacos, those wild ancestors of llamas, who graze in herds of up to 10 females, a dominant male, and perhaps a few chulengos, their adorable doe-eyed young.

The puma likes to keep a low profile in Torres del Paine (maybe that’s why it sometimes goes by the name of panther, cougar, or mountain lion), where it can be found in pretty fair numbers. The largest and southernmost of the 27 recognized puma subspecies is the one found here, inhabiting territories of up to 40 square miles in the rocky slopes and forests of the park. A solitary, nocturnal hunter, it feeds on small mammals and guanacos—and the occasional sheep owned by local ranchers. What the puma doesn’t finish, the Patagonian Grey Fox will take care of the leftovers, supplementing its normal diet of hares, rodents, and scraps it can find at campsites.

Rare bird species found here include the crested cara cara and black vulture. You can also see black-necked swans, flamingos, ibis, pygmy owls, austral parakeets, and southern lapwings. South America’s largest bird, the flightless Rhea (known locally as ñandu) is also often seen roaming the grasslands of Torres del Paine.

What’s really special in this region is that it’s home to one of the world's last and largest remaining herds of wild horses. Called baguales, this unique breed are descendants of Andalusian horses introduced by Europeans in the 16th century. With no direct contact with humans for more than a century, the horses evolved to survive in the region’s harsh environment—something that has intrigued scientists. Of the few hundred remaining in Patagonia, about 100 of these remarkable equines still reside in Torress del Paine.

"... nowhere else are you so completely alone. Nowhere else is there an area of 10,000 square miles which you may gallop over, and where … you are safe from the persecutions of fevers, friends … telegrams, letters and every other nuisance you are elsewhere liable to be exposed to."
—Lady Florence Dixie, Across Patagonia

Five more fascinating facts about Torres del Paine and Patagonia

• Look away, look away, Dixie—The Lady Florence Dixie we just mentioned was also an early advocate of animal rights and hated seeing them suffer. But during her travels in Patagonia, she accidentally disturbed—and was forced to shoot—a jaguar (puma). She decided to bring the orphaned cub with her back to England, where it enjoyed climbing trees and swimming in the Thames.


• There’s an awful lot of tuxedos around here—There are almost as many penguins as people in Patagonia. With a human population of about 2 million, there is an estimated 1.7 million Magellanic penguins living in the region—and that doesn’t include all the gentoo and king penguins.


• Talk to the hand—One of the most significant archaeological finds in the region was the discovery of the Cave of Hands, whose handprints and hunting scenes provided confirmation of human habitation in Patagonia dating back to 8,000 BC.


• Wales watching—Seeking a remote land because they believed their language and culture were under threat, about 150 people arrived in Patagonia from Wales in the mid-1800s. Fortunately, they were welcomed by the indigenous Tehuelche people, who taught them to hunt and gather. The newcomers did manage to preserve their culture, but with no contact with their original homeland, their Welsh language evolved in unusual ways. It is estimated that about 5,000 Patagonian inhabitants remain, all speaking a rather funny Welsh dialect.


• And whale watching—The coastal waters of Patagonia are home to some of the world’s best whale-watching spots. Marine species found here include orcas, southern right whales, and blue whales. But the most sought-after whales are humpbacks due to their penchant for showing off with their above-the-water acrobatics.

Hike through Torres del Paine during O.A.T.’s The Wilderness Beyond: Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords adventure.