El Calafate Perito Moreno Bus - January 15th

Our extra day in El Calafate has played havoc with our travel schedule.  Getting out of here isn’t as easy as getting in, the main problem being that going north, as we are, the next town, El Chalten, is a trekking paradise akin to Torres del Paine, and with the fire there, everyone has flocked to El Chalten.  So instead we are skipping it, and going further north, but this is where the long gaps between towns really begins to kick in.  And so buses are infrequent, and journeys are long.  All of which conspires to see us on the next available bus out, at half past midnight tonight.

As we have a day to fill we go to a little known part of Parc National Los Glaciers called Lago Roca. This lake is actually part of Lago Argentina, but that lake is so big that all of its bays have their own names.  However we are not actually going to the lake, we are going to attempt to climb our biggest peak so far, Cerro Cristal, which is 1280m high (from a 180m start).  I’m a bit worried because the time on the maps to do it is 4 hours up and 3 hours down, and there are only 7 hours to the return bus.  So there is no margin for error.

We set off from the bus stop which is unfortunately 1.5km away, but we make good time, going up the first 480m in an hour.  That has been fairly steep, but now it gets steeper, yet we still make another 400m in the next hour, so it looks on course.  At this point we see our first fellow hiker of the day, a German guy, who after a brief chat powers on ahead of us.  We go on but only 80m from the top it gets too steep and gravelly for us, especially as we don’t have trekking poles, so we have to turn around.  It’s a pity too because we would have made it inside 3 hours, well faster than the guidebook says.

The whole point of the climb was to see the Torres del Paine mountains again, as at this point we are only 50 km away from them and they can be seen from the top.  So instead of going up we work our way around the mountain to see them from the far side.  The descent is easier, and as we are now looking forward we have great views of the lakes and the Perito Moreno glacier, so it is a lot more enjoyable.  We stop for lunch in the forest and again we meet the German as he comes down.  We start talking to him as we descend and it is only he goes ahead of us that we realise Dorota left her camera at the lunch stop. The man is a jinx.  So we have to trek 100m back up the mountain to get it back.  Still it means we can say we did climb over 1100m on the mountain.

Due to our speed we get down early so we take the chance to visit some prehistoric rock art nearby but this turns out to be very disappointing, there was something there, but honestly I couldn’t make out what it was.  We actually end up having to wait for our bus, and then it is a long ride back to town.  The good thing about our new hostel for last night is that it is right next to the bus station, meaning it is an easy place for us to leave our bags and change for the night bus journey.

El Calafate - January 14th

Part of the reason yesterday was a hang around day in El Calafate is because we couldn’t get the trip we wanted to the local highlight, the Perito Moreno Glacier.  We could have been boring and got a bus and boat trip to view the glacier, but we wanted to walk on it.  The trekking trips are a bit more booked out, so we had to wait an extra day to get it.  Bad and all as that wait was it wasn’t as bad as the wait for the bus to pick us up from the hostel, which seemed to take an eternity to arrive.  It was a small minibus of about 14 people, which looked like a nice small group for trekking, until it pulled up next to a bus of about 50 who were all going to be doing the trek with us.

It took just over an hour to get to the boat dock inside the national park.  The glacier stretches across Lago Argentina, and so you can sail on the lake and look up at the cliffs of ice.  This is quite impressive, and even more so as you have to navigate through icebergs to get to the other side of the lake.  This is the side from which the glacier comes out into the lake, and therefore it is the point at which we start trekking.  The transition from rock to ice was easy, and walking on the ice wasn’t too hard as we had been given crampons.  Walking on the ice wasn’t too bad although one or two parts were steep as we climbed quite a bit above the entry point.  After an hour’s walking we descended into a valley where we were greeted with the sight of glasses and a bottle of Jameson’s.  The ice naturally came from the glacier itself.  So we had Irish whiskey and ice on a glacier in Argentina.  Honestly that part alone made the expense of the ice trekking worthwhile.

After we got back down onto solid land we had our packed lunch at a little picnic spot built for the tour groups.  Here we could see and hear the glacier ‘calving’, that is producing new icebergs, as bits of it fell off into the lake.  This is an amazing experience, as the sound is really loud, but like thunder and lightning it happens after the event.  So unless you are lucky enough to be looking directly at the place cracking up, you don’t get to see the splash, only the after effects.

After lunch we got the boat back to the shore.  This time we got even closer to the glacier and the ice so it was even better.  Then we went by bus up to a headland overlooking the glacier.  Here the national park has constructed a series of boardwalk balconies overlooking the glacier which give very good views.  This time we are looking at the north side of the glacier, where before it was the south side, so we get to see a whole new set of views, and hear a whole new set of icebergs being created.

Afterwards we returned to El Calafate, but not to our nice hostel.  Instead because this trip forced us to stay an extra day we have had to find another hostel.  But our original hosts have been so kind to transfer all our bags for us so it is an easy check-in.  This gives us time to go out to have a big pasta and pizza dinner in a restaurant on main street.

El Calafate - January 13th

Because all the trips we wanted to do were booked for today our first full day in El Calafate consists of not much more than hanging around town.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as we have had a lot of travelling so far.  To put it in context we have travelled the length of England in 10 days on some pretty poor roads (Ushuaia is as far south as Newcastle is north, and El Calafate matches Plymouth).

Because we are not under time pressure we start the day fairly late, and we head off to the local bird sanctuary at about 11.  This is the extent to which being in South America has turned us into bird watchers (and it happened the last time, I remember searching for pictures of Toucans and Condors before).  This time it is the Chilean Flamingo which is our primary target, and we do get to see a few of them at the lake, although from a bit of a distance.  However we do get close to some other birds, including a few birds of prey which try to swoop on a dog that is hanging around.  But as with all bird watching there are more failed photos than successful ones.  As well as the two small lakes that the bird reserve is built around, we also walk along the shores of Lago Argentina, the biggest lake in Argentina.

Other than that we just hang around the town all day, going up to a mirador (viewpoint) overlooking the town (which didn’t really have much of a view because of all the trees lining the streets), eating ice cream (made from Calafate berries, the town is named after a type of blackberry) and shopping for food for our upcoming trips (where we have to supply our own lunches).

In the evening we ate again at our hostel, although this time we learnt our lesson from the previous day.  Instead of having a shared salad to start and two massive main courses, this time we had two soups to start, and we shared a massive main course.

El Calafate - January 12th

Today we leave Chile and go back to Argentina.  Like the last time I left Chile back in 2008 I still feel there is more to see there, but it’s unlikely our schedule will see us back there on this trip.  The journey today to El Calafate is a 5 hour trip, so we have some food to eat on the trip, including grapes.  We assumed we had a couple of hours to the border post near the Torres del Paine park, but unbeknown to us this bus goes through a border post that is very close to Puerto Natales, so we have to eat our grapes quite quickly to get rid of them before the border.  Of course when we get there this time they do not bother looking for contraband fruit so we could easily have got through.

The rest of the trip is uneventful, and the view from the road is pretty boring, flat and quite brown.  Except for one viewing point just outside El Calafate which the bus stopped at.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a public bus stop for photos before.

When we arrive in El Calafate we head straight for our hostel, which is a very nice one just off the main street.  The woman running it used to be a tour guide so we get a lot of information about the area and start planning our stay here.  Unfortunately the fire in Torres has meant a lot more people are staying here, and tours and transport options are harder to work out.  Eventually we work out a travel plan which suits us, and only requires us to stay one more night than we had planned to stay in El Calafate so it’s not too bad.

After this all we really had time for is a quick look around town, which is basically a single main street and a few roads leading off it, and then we went back to the hostel for dinner.  The husband of the lady running it is a former chef, and cooks for guests if they order before 5pm.  So we ordered and we were not disappointed, the portions of the food he gave us were massive and it was all very tasty.  We were late to dinner though, as we fell asleep while waiting, the stress of travel and arranging it proving a bit too much.

Puerto Natales - January 11th

We decided to give ourselves a day off after our two days of trekking, so today is just a hang out day in Puerto Natales.  So we had a nice lazy morning hanging around the hostel doing very little (except organising laundry – one of the tedious tasks that has to be done on the road periodically).

We didn’t see daylight until after midday when we left for lunch in the diner we went to on our first day here.  This time Dorota went for the crab salad, as locally caught King Crabs are a speciality around here.  I went for salmon a la pobre, which means poor man’s salmon.  In this case, as with all pobre dishes in Chile, it means with onion and two fired eggs on top.  I wasn’t sure about it, but egg actually went ok with the salmon.  Dorota’s crab salad was very good as well.

After that all we did was hang out in a coffee shop blogging and reading about upcoming destinations in both Argentina and Brazil.  There really is nothing else to do here.  There are a few day trips other than Torres del Paine, but they sort of pale in comparison, so we didn’t do any of them.  Anyway we need a time out now and again.  Sitting on buses for long periods isn’t actually as relaxing as it could be.

In the evening we went to a restaurant called Afrigona.  This is a Zambian-Chilean fusion restaurant, which sounds strange, but it was actually really good.  Although it cost about twice what our budget allowed.  But we enjoyed it, and as they were playing African music during the dinner we even got to hear the Kilimanjaro song which we had both heard so many times when we did our treks there in 2010.  Of course this encouraged us to get the Kilimanjaro chocolate cake desert, so there may have been an ulterior motive for them playing it.

Puerto Natales - January 10th

Despite noise of water over rapids outside the window, it was actually a pretty good night’s sleep in the refugio.  Breakfast was also not too bad, and we set off about 09:00 for a second days trekking in the park.  Our plan, after consulting with the guides, was to go as far as we could alongside one of the big lakes in the park, but we would have to backtrack on ourselves at some point as there was no way out at the other end due to the fire.

To get to the lake we took a ‘shortcut’, although it was an official path, there seemed to be nobody on it.  This was in contrast to the previous day when it seemed like the world was trekking in Torres del Paine.  I think it is because so much of the park is closed that everyone was concentrated into one area, and also it is the showcase trek, so even day trippers are doing it.  Today’s trek is not very high, never going above 300m once we descended from the refuge, but it is quite up and down.  The ups do reward us with some great views though.

Eventually our shortcut took us to the main path, and we encountered more traffic.  This path takes people to another refuge, but we decided to stop before the last slope down to this refuge and turn back.  This was about lunchtime, and we weren’t sure how long it would take us to get back if we went any further because it looked pretty steep back up.  Our bus back was at 20:00 so we didn’t want to miss it.

As it happened we would not have missed it.  We got back to the main hotel in the park at about 17:00, enough time for a tea and then to find out that the only shuttles to take us back to the park entrance were at 19:30.  So we had to wait for 2 hours in the sometimes quite warm sunshine, sometimes quite cold wind, as the crowds built up waiting for the bus.  It was a bit stressful hoping there would be enough bus places out, and there were, but only just.  Still we made it back to Puerto Natales for 22:00, enough time for a quick burger before heading back to our hostel and our bags.

Torres Del Paine - January 9th

Today we are really going into the wild.  Yesterday’s arrangements saw us booking a night in a refuge in Torres del Paine national park.  This is Chile’s most famous national park, a trekking mecca, although due to its remoteness only a few hundred thousand visit each year.  Unfortunately one of them recently lit a camp fire that burnt down more than half the park.  So only a small area is open to us.  Of the parks most famous route, the ‘W’, only about 40% is still open.  So instead of a 4 day trip, we are doing a 2 day trip (to be wholly truthful we probably wouldn’t have done the full trek anyway).

After our transfer to the park, which was almost two hours, and the usual messing about at the park entrance (although this was cheaper than in Argentina, and they do keep records of who goes in an out so they can find lost trekkers easier), we finally started trekking about 11:00.  Our first trek was up to our refuge, the refugio chilenas, which took a couple of hours.  As it was raining when we got there, we decided to check in and use the facilities to eat our packed lunch rather than having an outdoor picnic.  This was a good idea as we also offloaded some gear and by the time we were finished it was sunny again.

Then we started on our trek up to the highlight of the park (luckily not affected by the fire) the view of the Torres (towers) themselves.  This was a much harder trek, alongside a busy river, across many little tributaries joining into it, and finally up a very steep slope to a mirador (viewpoint) of the Torres.  However when we got there it was all worth it, because the view was amazing, especially because there was a lake in front of the towers that was fed by some waterfalls running directly off the glaciers underneath them.  It was awesome.

The strange thing about this famous hike is that there is a lot of backtracking, so our trip down was the same one as up.  It’s funny because you do get to see the same faces on the trek over and over.  We reward ourselves after 6 hours of trekking (about 15km, but almost 900m ascent and 500m back down) with a couple of beers at the refuge, and then what turns out to be a really good dinner, although for slightly more than we are used to paying.  The truth is that although this is a place where everything has to be brought in by horses (including our turkey for dinner) it is actually quite a comfortable place to stay, with hot showers and comfortable beds.  We are sharing a room of 8 with a Dutch couple, and a Swiss couple and their kids (6 and 10!), and we have a very nice chat with them and other guests before we retire to rest for tomorrow’s even longer hike.