Around 9.30 we landed in Buenos Aires. From the airport it was about half an hour to our hotel (hotel Europa). We shared the room with Arjen (yes another Arjen) and Ageeth.
When we woke up there was a surprise: Sinterklaas (a Dutch tradition somewhat similar to Santa Claus) had brought us "chocoladeletters"!
This day we were supposed to go whale watching at Península de Valdez, but because of the weather (strong winds) we went to Punta Tombo which was originally planned for the next day. At Punta Tombo (2 hours south of Puerto Madryn) there's a huge colony (some 500,000) of Magelhães penguins. Funny creatures! In december the penguins are at Punta Tombo with their chicks still at the nests. You can get really close to them.
In the morning it was very clouded and still quite windy, so we first went via Istmo Ameghino to the northern part of the peninsula: Punta Norte. Here we had a good view of a group of sea lions and sea elephants. From there we went to Punta Cantor. Again we saw sea lions and sea elephants, but also some whales! Then we went to Puerto Pirámide. The weather was getting better, so the boat could go to open sea. As the boat got further from the shore the weather improved and the sea got quiet. Within 2 hours in total 8 whales could be spotted! Some got really close to the boat.
We got up and went to the hostal for breakfast. Both of us were exited to start walking and wondering what it would be like to walk with all your stuf in your own backpack (this being our first time). After breakfast we took a bus to the starting point of our 2 day hike through the Montes Martial (the Lonely Planet guide has this as a 3 day trek). The weather was fine when we started walking. We started walking in the sun through a forest. The higher we got, the more clouds we saw.
After breakfast (hot milk with muesli) we started walking. Fortunately the night before Alfred had found an alternative route up so we wouldn't have to take the same path as the one where John got stuck in the mud. The weather was quite friendly. The ground was slippery which caused Patricia to slip and bump her hip and knee quite hard against a fallen tree. We had to cross a few rivers. Fortunately using "bridges" - trees that had been laid across the river, sometimes some wire was put up at arm height to hold on to.
There were lots of dead trees laying around as the woods in this part of the country are infected with parasites which causes the trees to die eventually, leaving them as easy prey for the winds. After quite a few hours we arrived at the highway near Ushuaïa. In two groups we were able to catch a ride to the hostel (Rio Ona). This time there were enough rooms for all of us. We had a quite luxurious room.
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Lonely Planet Trekking in the Patagonian Andes |
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Time Out Patagonia by Matt Chesterton |
In the morning we drove to Parque Nacional Terra del Fuego. Turned out that when you're with a big group, you have to hire a local park guide. After being fined for not having done so, fortunately we could still enter the park. We were dropped off at Bahía Ensenada. From there we started walking. We followed the coastline, enjoying the stunning views from the most southern part of the South American mainland.
Some three hours later we arrived at Lago Roca. Near the lake lies a small restaurant where they have truly exquisit cakes!
We took a tourist bus to the Perito Moreno Glacier. The bus took a scenic route on the way to the Glacier. On the way we saw a lot of Condors and Karakaras. The glacier currently splits the lake it end up in into two lakes. You can see from previous times this has happened how high the water can rise before enough pressure has been built up to break through the glacier again. The glacier is really spectacular to see. The ice has a beautiful blue color on the front side. Every 10-15 minutes a piece, sometimes the size of a car, breaks off and crashes into the lake. We spent about two hours watching it from the shore (there are several balconies that offer great views from close by) and then took a boat to get a view from the lake. Before we were allowed to sit on the deck, we had to watch safety instructions, explaining how to use the life vests - pretty useless when you have about two minutes to live when you end up in the water...
Around 7.30 we left El Calafate for a 4 hour drive to the drop off point outside El Chaltén, near Rio Eléctrico. The road leads around the lakes (Lago Argentino and Lago Viedma), hence the long drive.
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Patagonia: At the Bottom of the World by Richard L. Lutz |
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Patagonia Map Guide by Horacio de Dios |
Patricia was supposed to help prepare breakfast, but we overslept. The rest of the group however did not care about this, since now they had the chance to wake us up by singing "happy Birthday" for Patricia. She got some presents from Kees&Rita and Arjen&Ageeth. Today she could also open the birthday letter from Annekatrien that we brought from home and she was not supposed to open before today. An extra gift was the clear blue sky.
The day started bright again so we had good views of the Fitzroy and Poincenot. In the river, near to Campamento de Agostini we saw a couple of Patagonian ducks. Amazing how fast they can swim upstream under water with those strong currents! The Cerro Torre was free of clouds, even though there were more and more clouds in the sky. When we arrived at the campsite we put up the tents and had lunch. After that we walked to a viewpoint near Glacier Grande. We stayed there for half an hour. Al the time the cerro was free of clouds even though now there were UFO-like clouds in the sky, usually a warning sign of an upcoming storm and rain. Diego said that by 5 it would be raining. When we got back at the campsite, the weather seemed to be improving a bit and by 7 the sky was clear again, allowing a great view of the Cerro Torre.
Again a clear blue sky when we woke up, giving a wonderful view of the Cerro Torre catching its first rays of sun of the day. We were told that about 10 days a year the Cerro is visible against a blue sky and we saw it two days in a row!
We took a bus to the entrance of Parque Nacional Torres del Paine and from there a minivan to the campsite. We put up our tent and after lunch we went up to the viewpoint near the lake at the bottom of the 4 towers. We saw a couple of orchids on the way up. Then we had to go back to a bridge to cross the river. The last climb to the viewpoint was really steep, but again worth the effort. As you can see in the pictures the weather was superb again! After half an hour we headed back for the campsite. It was a long way back and about 7.30 before we arrived. Arjen went to the hostel nearby to buy some well deserved cokes. At the park gate we had seen that the O-trail (circuit) was closed because of a landslide and that everybody was supposed to walk the W-trail (called like that because of the shape on the map). Our guide said we would see how far we could get because they would still have a couple of days to fix the problem before we would arrive at that point.
After the long day yesterday, we started a bit later than usual. It was 9.40 before we headed off to Puesto Serón. A relatively easy and short walk through fields of mayflowers.
The path took us upstream along the Rio Paine. On the way we were overtaken by a group of people who did the same trail as we were doing, but in 3 rather than 7 days and running too! Turned out they were doing this sponsored for a good cause. The weather was dark and sometimes we felt a drop of rain, but again we were lucky that it never was necessary to put on the rain clothes. Just before we arrived at the campsite we had to take a steep path up hill but then had a lovely view of the campsite near the river.
This day was another relatively short day through the woods. Near the Glacier Los Perros it was getting windier and when we arrived at a ridge near the lake we were almost blown away by the strong winds. A rain cape for a backpack from one of the guys in the group was blown away and within seconds hundreds of yards out of reach. Remco, our guide, went down to the lake and walked around the many pieces of ice floating in it.
The day of the pass. We packed our stuf and headed for the pass, expecting strong winds, rain and a lot of mud. Mud there certainly was. The first part of the way up leads through low bushes where there's hardly any solid ground, just mud, mud and more mud. During the second part we were lucky there wasn't very much snow. The dark clouds kept blowing over, being replaced with a few minutes of clear skies and vice versa. At one point Patricia asked me if it was hard going up. I said yes, assuming we were only halfway. 2 minutes later we reached the pass. What a great view of the Grey Glacier. 4km across and over 20km long! Makes you feel very small...
Again a short day. When we had to cross the crevaces we say why the trail was closed. The steps that had been created using logs and wire were good enough to be used by a few people, but not more than that. The trail was mostly close to the side of the glacier and the campsite was at the shore of the lake, a mile or so from the point where the glacier ended in the lake. We put up our tents and had a drink in the refugio. The two of us went back to a viewpoint near the point where the glacier ends in the lake, a short and easy walk that to few people take since it gives a wonderful view of the glacier with lots of icebergs of different sizes floating in the lake.
We started early to make sure we would be at the boat early enough to have a seat. On the way we had great views of the mountains and their remarkable layers.
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Patagonia: Wild Land at the End of the Earth by Tim Hauf, Conger, Jr. Beasley |
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Backpackers' Latin America, Vol 1: Patagonia by Christabelle Dilks, Jani Janek |
We went to Lago Todos los Santos by minivan. On the way we had a great view of the Osorno vulcano. From there we took a boat to El Rincón. This was where we were confronted with the Tabanos for the first time. Tabanos are huge flies that sting. Problem is that there are hundreds of them around. We started walking at El Rincón and immediately noticed the difference in temperature. So far it had been around 12 degrees Celcius, but here it was 25.
A foggy morning with the sun trying to shine through offered a superb site of the lake and hills surrounding it. After breakfast we also had great views of the fog in the hills. We planned to walk to the lake side of Lago Rupanco this day and to El Ponche the next to take the morning bus. But a gaucho that came up to us to have a chat told us we could easily make it to El Ponche and take the afternoon bus. We discussed this in the group and although some people were indifferent (it would mean that we had already spent the last night in our tents) nobody objected.
