The hotel has a winning formula. It has incredible views of the Paine Massif across the lake and is all- inclusive: food, drinks, guided hikes and horse riding (we had a lot of the first three but left the horses alone). But the clever bit is that you can only book four night stays and therefore all the guests arrived on saturday and left the following wednesday which creates a really good atmosphere.
Predictably we ended up in the fastest of the walking groups with four other couples from various parts of the world: Peter (Brit living in New England who builds luxury yachts) & Rosemary (New Zealand), Gillian & David (Irish living in London), Sasha & Esther (Swiss and Korean living in New York) and Amanda and Camp (Boston).
The best and longest walk was on the longest day of the year here, 21 December. We covered 26kms, climbing from the lake shore just above sea level to 700 metres among the mountains of the Paine Massif, passing glaciers, rivers, lakes and waterfalls. We began in rain and thick cloud but, as we climbed through the forest, the rain turned to snow before the sun emerged to give us close-up views of the mountains and a panorama of the park.
The walks are well-organised (i.e. they provide essentials such as beer at the end) and after a hard day trekking we relaxed with a (very) quick dip in the lake, whose water is glacial and therefore less than 5 degrees, and a soak in the outdoor hot-tub drinking champagne with our new friends Betsy and Katie, two sisters from Chicago who are great fun. It was their idea to get in the freezing lake but it was great for tired legs and amazing how many people followed us in once we had set the example.
All too quickly it was time to move on from Explora which really is in a world of its own. We shall miss the facilities and the landscape but especially the people.
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