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I blushed and darn near swooned.

I’d never been asked by three handsome Chilean cowboys right out of Hollywood central casting if I wanted to come on down to the estancia and watch them work with a stallion.

Our group of city-slicker hikers was just finishing lunch at the quincho, a picnic shelter and wilderness tack shed for trekkers and horseback adventurers just outside Torres del Paine, one of Chile’s most spectacular national parks. That’s when the three handsome huasos (Chile’s version of gauchos) galloped up from the grassy plain below on skittish, snorting horses to confront us. They wore their pants gaucho-style, tucked into high boots. They peered at us darkly from the shadow of wide flat-brimmed hats as they dismounted, adjusting the rifles slung over their shoulders and hitching up the long knives they wore sheathed across the small of their backs.

“They’re just wondering who you are and what you’re doing here,” our guide, Christian Sanchez, said after some discussion. “It’s OK. They’re my friends, and they know this is my uncle’s quincho.”
We were there to experience wild Patagonia—first by sailing the wicked waters off Cape Horn, at the very toe of South America, on a cruise ship, and, now, by hiking in and around Torres del Paine, a wind-scoured wilderness that boasts some of the most inhospitable but gorgeous scenery in the world.

So naturally we said “sure” to a huaso adventure and lit out for the estancia.

My husband, John, and I didn’t really bank on seeing ranches and corrals in the midst of the grandiose wildness of Torres.

The wind that rips around Cape Horn at the bottom of the continent hardly diminishes as it sashays around the craggy peaks and rocky horns of Torres, some 250 miles north of Punta Arenas.

Almost one-fifth of Chile is set aside in national parks and preserves, and Torres is perhaps the most dramatic. Its ragged spires are half as old as the 60-million year old Andes range, which peters out before it gets this far south. We went to Torres to hike and experience the “ecocamp” run by Cascada Expediciones, a campsite of 16 geodesic-domed tents set up just outside the park but still in the shadow of its granite spires. Tent-camping is just about last on my list of fun things to do. But as accommodations go, these are both “What do you mean the toilet is out back?” and “Wow, fleece sheets!” The domes are modeled after igloo-type huts used by the Alacalufe Indians native to the area. Theirs were covered with the skins of guanaco, the llama-like animal that runs free by the thousands in the park.

Ours are built of heavy coated canvas-like material with a thick quilted lining and lashed to wooden platforms to withstand the 100 mph winds that buffeted us at night, causing them to groan and creak.
We watched the stars through clear plastic “windows” and from the cozy confines of those fleece covers.

The goal of the camp is to make as little impact on the pristine wilderness as possible. That means everything brought in is taken out, including the remains of the candlelight dinners served every night in the large dining dome. Wind generators and solar panels provide only what electricity is necessary—which means none in the sleeping domes. Campers share two toilet stalls, three showers and what hot water there is with 15 others of the same sex. And the crew of cooks and trekking guides washes the dinner dishes by hand.

The hiking is spectacular.

The doe-eyed guanacos treat trekkers with gentle diffidence. They share the trackless hillsides with gray foxes, shy and ungainly rheas (relatives of the ostrich), big-eared hares and pumas, which campers rarely encounter.
 The rocky spires provide sanctuary for eagles, hawks and condors, which vie for soaring room overhead. And the lakes below—which come in every shade of blue, depending on whether they’re fed by glaciers or springs—are home to upland geese, ducks, oystercatchers and flamboyantly pink flamingos.

Just outside the park, but still in full view of its spectacular spires, are the sheep ranches and estancias that provide a living for the extended family of Sanchez, our guide. A condor was soaring over the collection of sheds, dilapidated bunkhouses and corrals that made up the estancia the huasos took us to. “He’s beautiful,” one of our fellow campers murmured nervously to no one in particular as the cowboys entered the corral and began cooing and clicking their tongues to settle a dappled gray horse—even as they twirled the lassoes meant to subdue him.

The men prevailed, conquering the big stallion in minutes. The men did their thing and let go of the ropes. The horse, a beautiful gray stallion, found his feet and loped off into the grassy meadow for a snack. And we picked up our daypacks, waved at our handsome huasos and turned our attention back to the more natural wonders of Torres.
 
Sally Macdonald is a retired Seattle Times reporter; John Macdonald retired as Seattle Times travel editor.