A 7.7-magnitude earthquake rattled the desert 780 miles north of Santiago yesterday morning, but we felt nothing down south in Torres del Paine. While the plates shifted under Chile’s second region, injuring hundreds and killing at least two, they remained really quite still under its twelfth. Oblivious to the news, the people in Paine appreciated blue skies behind the often-clouded rock towers and thought to themselves, ‘I wish those damn gulls would quit their squawking.’ Now, as Navy seals unearth the laborers trapped in a collapsed highway tunnel and relief workers hand out food to those left homeless by the quake, the people of Paine check the news, but strap on their boots and hit the trails anyway.
