Any love-struck Romeo out to tell the girl of his dreams that she is the eighth wonder of the wonder should now recalculate his claim, for Chile’s magnificent national park Torres del Paine has been voted as the eighth wonder of the world by 5 million visitors on VirtualTourist!

A popular destination among adventure-seekers, Torres del Paine is Spanish for ‘Towers of Paine’, where ‘Paine’ is an old word for ‘blue. The park falls in Southern Chilean Patagonia and is replete with granite towers, glaciers, lakes, valleys and mountains of extraordinary beauty. Indeed, one is greeted by a burst of colours, from the royal blue sky to the emerald trail of forests to the azure of the lakes at the base of sparkling white mountains!

The hiking trails at Torres del Paine lead one to a beautiful expanse of snow-covered mountains and massive glaciers. What makes this place all the more special is the seventeen hours of daylight it receives in the summer when the Paine massif, which is a part of the Andes mountains, gets painted in a variety of colours, from red to purple! If this prospect has nature-lovers beaming from ear to ear, animal lovers will not be disappointed either, for there is a good chance of catching sight of flamingoes, foxes  and pumas! Plenty of campsites are scattered around the place, catering to the more adventurous visitors.

The contest that led to this selection by VirtualTourist was launched earlier this year and had over 300 entries from as many as 50 different countries.