We arrived in Rio Gallegos about 5:30 AM on Saturday. The overnight bus was not too bad, less the 2 year old stretching his legs into Charlie’s face every hour or so. The bus terminal was fairly dead at that hour, but open and warm. Once the busses started arriving from all over we ran into a buddy we’d met in Puerto Madryn. Suzie from Birmingham, England. Suzie introduced us to another mate she met on the bus, Ralf from Australia (originally Germany). Ralf then introduced us to Ilona from Holland who he met in his last hostel. So the 5 of us ended up traveling to El Calafate on the same bus and spent the next few days together.
We arrived in Calafate Saturday afternoon and got settled into our hostel, Hosteria Patagonia. It is a cross between a motel and a B&B, quite nice actually. We wandered down to the center of town and met up with our group for the evening. Ralf rented a car and invited everyone to join him on Sunday at Parque Nacional Los Glaciares outside of El Calafate. We headed to the supermarket and picked up lunch for Sunday then headed out for a massive Parrilla dinner at a great spot up on a hill overlooking the Lago Argentina (largest lake in Argie). Sunday morning we all met up and headed out in our Chevy Corsa (yes, the same make as the one we didn’t break in P. Madryn). The Perito Moreno Glacier is the main attraction for this part of the park. It is 30km long and has a surface of 195 square km. It’s front, about 4 to 5 km, extends into the south end of the Argentine Lake and rises 60 meters high above the lake water. The weather could have been better, but we got some amazing photos in spite of it. Morreno is a stable glacier, and is known for almost constant calving. We saw some amazing calving, but the most impressive part is the cracking. It’s almost eerie; imagine that sound you heard when you were a completely careless little kid walking out on thefrozen neighborhood pond in winter. Now multiply that by a million! After doing the loop trails (spankin’ new metal steps and walkways actually) along the lake we warmed up with some of the best hot chocolate we’ve ever had. Who knew that Patagonia was such a chocolate mecca. There seems to be a chocolateria on every corner in el Calafate. For another 50 Ar Pesos we took a boat ride to get even closer to the glacier. The color and texture are really phenomenal. The ice is so old yet has the color of blue topaz. Some of the small glaciers look like they could be semi-precious stones. Insert Cliff Clavin factoid: the ice absorbs all colors of the spectrum except for blue, hence the intense blue reflection. Who knew?
Wow, that was cold, back to El Calafate. We got cleaned up and met up again with our new friends for drinks. Suzie was coming down with a cold and decided to take a rest that evening and the departed the following morning. Farewell for now Suzie, see you in San Francisco! The rest of us headed to La Lachuza for arguably the best pizza in S. America, so we had been told and have to agree! Our buddy Jonathan from Dublin joined us for dinner as well. Ralf had the car for another 2 days and invited us to join him in El Chalten for some hiking. So Monday morning bright and early we headed north to El Chalten with Ralf and Ilona, or “Smurf” as Ralf took to calling her. Only a 6’5” German can call a 5’5” Dutch girl a smurf. El Chalten has 600 permanent residents, but you can already see the making a true resort town with lots of construction of small pensions. They must all service the trekkers in one way or another. It’s an emerging town at the base of a fantastic mountain, Fitz Roy (some 3300 meters high with stunningly jagged peaks). We settled in at the Notofogus B&B (named for the birch trees that predominate the Patagonia region)and hit the trails from an afternoon hike. Our destination was Laguna Torre. The scenery is truly stunning, towering mountains, glaciers and today, lots of sunshine! The round trip trek took us about 5 ½ hours. We were ready for a beer! El Chaltan has several brewpubs with fantastic beer, at San Francisco prices. The cervezaria seems to be the happening place though. After several pints and some awesome empañadas, we headed back to the B&B to rest up for day 2, Fitz Roy. Ralf was heading back to El Calafate to catch a flight to BA and then back home to Sydney. Tuesday morning we had a farewell breakfast and saw one another off. The three of us took a taxi, if you can call it that, to a quaint B&B at the base of our hike, 35 km north of Chalten. Taking the taxi didn’t really shorten the hike but to allowed us to do a through-trail instead of an out-n-back. The first 2 hours were along the southern bank of the Rio Blanco. The hike was mild up to the base of the real trek; the climb to Tres Lagunas from the Poincenot camp grounds. From there it’s an elevation gain of about 1000 meters over mostly rocks and boulders over an hour and half. Needless to say we were all exhausted once we finally reached the windy top. We sat next to the lake in awe of the natural wonder of Fitz Roy. We had perfect weather and were able to see the peak clearly, which apparently can be challenging. None of us wanted to leave this fairytale place but we had a 6PM bus back to Calafate and needed time for a beer before we left. So we headed down, down , down. The view from the top of the trail almost looks like a skydiving launch pad it’s so steep. The hike back was a little longer than we thought but we completed the entire hike in 7 ½ hours, whew! Ilona’s legs were shaking they were so tired. We were all pooped! Our path into town passed right by the Cerveceria, how’d that happen? So, we felt obliged to stop in for a well deserved cerveza, then headed to the bus for our 3 ½ hour ride back to El Calafate. We said hasta luego to Ilona, but she’s likely meeting up with us in 2 weeks for more Patagonian adventures.
After 3 weeks of hostels, we’re making our next stop a well deserved pampering at Estancia Cristina, a 5 star ranch on the opposite side of Lago Argentina from El Calafate.
Hasta pronto!
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