More trekking and glaciers - Argentinian stylee

After a good recovery meal and nights’ sleep in Puerto Natales we felt rested enough to continue the journey north. Two recommended destinations further north across the border in Argentina were El Calafate and El Chalten. El Calfate to take in the awesome Perito Moreno glacier in the National Park de Los Glaciers and one of only 2 advancing glaciers in South America. Apparently if you were lucky and visited the glacier at the right time of day, you could see big shards break off and crash into the icy water below. Obviously with a tourist spectacle like this came a pretty touristy little town set up to cater for everyone. But it was pleasant enough and we found a cute little campsite within the town centre, near the creek. You could camp anywhere within the grounds, amongst scattered picnic benches and they even had Wifi (at times!) The adjoining parrilla (specialist meat / grill house) had an all you could eat deal on meat for £7, but with me having scoffed a whole lamb the night before, we opted for a pasta and sauce at the campsite. But with this new town came a new flavour of pasta n sauce - salsa verdes – green veg flavour and we even found some sun dried tomatoes to add, taking it to serious a la carte levels! 

Dinner at camp. New pasta n sauce and statutory beer.

The town was in a gently undulating vastness of shrub land and on our 5hr journey, there was no more to see than the odd guanaco (lama like animal) or nandu (small ostrich) for entertainment. They are quite cute but even these only popped up every 10 minutes or so. The park where the glacier was situated was 2.5hrs further west and only accessible via a slightly overpriced tour bus from town and entrance fee. However, the camping and pasta and sauce kept us within the daily budget and the glacier is well worth a visit. The bus took us there for 11am and left 4 hours later. Within this 4hr window you could walk along one of the built up walkways that give you different angles on the glacier or if you fancied it, you could just sit and watch a single point for the entire 4 hours with cameras poised to get a shot of some ice breaking off. This is what me and Tim did and although there were no epic breakoffs, I captured a few little ones, but unfortunately missed the bigger one that happened after my camera ran out of battery! 

It was really good fun though and the blue tones of the glacier were beautiful. Stupidly though we forgot to put on any sun cream so I spent the day wrapped up like I was on the arctic, even though it was quite warm at times. And even through all of this, I still managed to burn my nose, again. Fingers though are getting much better. The anti-histamine has worked but unfortunately I think the irreparable damage is that I’ve managed to age the middle part of each finger by 30 years or so, and I didn’t like my fingers to start with. But they no longer hurt or burn like they’re in a furnace anymore, so I’m counting myself lucky! 

Here are some shots of my second favourite glacier (my first being the epic Glacier Grey at Torres del Paine. You can’t beat your first glacier). Other news from El Calafte – it’s where we wrote all your Xmas postcards out and Tim bought a new waterproof coat after finding out his old inherited Adidas one wasn’t waterproof anymore.

First view of amazing Perito Moreno

Getting people in the shot gives perspective on just how HUGE this glacier is

Dressed up for the arctic, but it was actually quite warm!

After a 3 hour wait, I got a shard breaking off. Such a loud thunderous sound.

After El Calafate, we took the bus a further 4hrs north to a town called El Chalten. A bit smaller and more chilled than El Calafate and home to the impressive Fitz Roy mountain range. If any of you see Ali (with Star) down the Charterhouse, it’s probably a range he knows about, being a keen climber. The small town, built around one main street is Argentina’s newest town and is where many cool climber types settle to wait for a good day weather wise to attempt the 3500m climb up the biggest peak in the range. The town is situated immediately under this monstrous peak, making it one of the most spectacularly situated places we’ve been to, whilst also being totally at the mercy of mountain weather. Named Argentina’s trekking capital, we were looking forward to hitting the trails, poles in hand and with wet weather gear at the ready! The plan was to do a few day hikes possibly a 2 day hike and then we were going to attempt the adventurous border crossing into Chile, which apparently uses a combination of hiking trails, buses, horseback and boats. Disappointingly however it appeared the boat that was needed for part of the journey was broken and the remoteness of this place meant finding an engineer was a time consuming process, so was the latter process of then fixing it. We held out hope though and at the end of each day went back to the tourist office to check on updates, but uncertainty prevailed and it seemed it was too much to risk 2 days hiking with all our stuff to just be stuck on a shore waiting for a non-existent boat, and what’s more, we realised we only have a month left to get up to Santiago to meet my sis – which I’m crazily looking forward too, so we decided to bus it further north and cross the border at Los Antiguos / Chile Chico, a little town further up to then get onto Chile’s Carretera Austral – the only road, and gravel at that in places, that services southern Chile. In fact, I’m on that bus right now, having endured 9 hours already and hopefully with only a few more to go. 

In regards to the hiking here in El Chalten, I can see the draw and it is pretty special, but obviously very dependent on the weather. In the end we did 2 single day hikes, eliminating the need to take any more than lunch and cameras.

The first day, we hiked up into the foothills on the Fitz Roy range. Being fresh footed, we sprung about in the sunshine. I even just wore a t shirt at one point. However, we soon realised that calm sunny conditions brought forth horrible mountain flies. Not quite sure if this is the technical term for them, but they’re like horse flies but bigger and have an obsession with flying into your face, hair, buzzing and chasing you until you look like a mad person, flapping around and running in circles, sometimes not even looking where you’re going, risking impending death on cliff edges, all due to bloody flies. So I spent much of this walk dressed up with hat, snood, jacket, sweltering in the heat, but safe from flies. The 3 peaks we were headed too could be seen from afar and the mountains and mountain glaciers were beautiful. However, on approaching the peaks, the cloud started to appear and unfortunately we weren’t able to get a clear view of them on arrival. It was still beautiful and the wind at this point kept the flies away. What was weird though was at the foot of the lagoon, the wind dropped to a minimum, allowing us to sit in the peaceful tranquillity of a glacier within a beach like environment. It was still cold, so I kept dressed up, but I snoozed peacefully for an hour or so whilst Tim chucked rocks into the lake and tried to sink the lonely blue floaters. We waited for the cloud to lift but it wasn’t going to happen, so we did the 3 hour return journey and chilled out with a few beers at the hostel for the night. 

The Fitz Roy mountain range in El Chalten

Beautiful glacier lake under the Fitz Roy range

Sink the floater. Good game!

A bit of iceberg

This part of Patagonia is still incredibly windy and that night the wind howled through our dorm window and the driving rain actually penetrated the whole side of the building soaking the gear of anyone who was unfortunately sleeping on that side of the building. We’re not sure if this was commonplace but I think the winds had been uncharacteristically strong that night given the amount of fallen signs and broken doors about town the next day. The weather was a bit better in the morning, the rain had cleared but it was still really windy. We nearly wussed out of our planned trek, but thought we’d head on up and see how it went. We could always turn back if it was too bad. The trek was to another lagoon, but it was a much harder trek in terms of distance and the amount of climbing we had to do. Given a total headwind in places, it was near impossible sometimes but we kept going. I sometimes thought I was going to be blown away, especially when the wind got into my waterproofs and ballooned me out like a parachute. After a 3 hour stint and bit of lunch in a semi sheltered wooded part, we reached the start of what appeared to be a pretty horrendous climb up a mountainside. The path was marked out with little yellow stick markers and came with the warning, only for people in good physical condition and proper walking boots. It also mentioned that risks were increased in windy and rainy conditions. It was now currently raining and windy. I also was a bit perturbed by the fact that it wasn’t clear what they meant by risks. Injury? Death even? 

The path that steeply traversed its way up the slope was combination of gravel and big boulders and steps. Each step took its toll on energy levels and the wind added even more trepidation in places. I was taking no chances. I shortened my walking pole to ‘Gollum’ mode – a mode I’ve made up so I can keep low to the ground in windy conditions. I end up looking a little bit like the hunchback of Notre Dame but it keeps me safer. You can actually hear the gusts coming too. They start out as a faint roar from the top or side of the mountain and usually result in me hitting the deck for shelter and shouting ‘Tim get down, it’s coming’. God, it’s so scary. Basically, we spent 30 minutes climbing like this. We met 2 really nice Israeli guys half way up who just increased my fears even more by saying, it’s pretty windy up at the peak. Hold on tight, keep low and use the rocks to grip onto. What the *uck?! I said to Tim that I was unsure if I could do this and we agreed that he’d go in front and check things out and beckon me on if all was safe. There were 2 peaks to overcome, all made of loose gravel and boulders. They weren’t pointy peaks, more like broad wind smoothed ascents marked with larger boulders in places. Some of which I would hide behind when gusts came. I climbed the last 10 meters on my belly, until I saw out the corner of my eye this deep blue sapphire lake just over the top of the last flat peak. It was mesmerising and I knew we had made it. We’d made it to the high up lagoon in the sky. 

We were now a third of the height of the enormous Fitz Roy peak. We couldn’t see the peak coz the weather was too bad and to add to the scariness of the situation there was also no one else around. But we could see the lagoon and I could feel the wind in my face, together with all the bits of snow and ice is was driving into us from the tops of the mountains. I took 2 photos and hid behind a rock for about 3 minutes and then yelled at Tim, who was a little further down towards the lagoon that I think we had to get out of there. I couldn’t go any further and I was worried that the cloud would lower and we would get stuck. I was in a bit of a frenzy, but I’ve never done anything like this before. Tim held more composure and I only learnt later that this can be the typical kind of weather you can come to expect up a mountain. I however just thought I was going to die. I retreated from my hiding place just below the second peak using a great pose. I was lying on my back but also crawling backwards propelling myself back up the mountain using my arms that were bent and behind me. I don’t know where this pose came from but it made me feel safer and we had soon got back down and over the 2 peaks. Then came the slow descent down the rest of the mountainside. This took a further 20 minutes and was gruelling on the knees, included a few ‘get down’ moments behind big rocks. The only mad person we saw going the other way was some crazy guy all dressed in day glow orange with all the gear you could imagine, 2 walking poles and a determined look on his face. He didn’t even acknowledge us as he glided up across the boulders. I still wonder what happened to him and I hope he was safe. I’m sure he was. He was just a nut job. I kept an eye out for him in the sky nonetheless that night but didn’t see anything!

2nd day hiking. Worse weather conditions. Incredibly windy. We climbed THIS high!

The prize for the climb - the hidden lagoon in the sky

Amazing clouds on the way back down

Photographer in action

At the end, in full on gear!

Once down, I was in a very happy place, so happy to be alive that I didn’t care about the 3 further hours we had to trek through driving rain and wind to get back to the town. In fact, I loved it. I was spurred on by being dressed from head to toe in impermeable rainproof gear and I knew there was beer and chips on the horizon. In fact, even better than chips, I had one of the best steaks I have ever eaten that night in a restaurant we were lucky to have sampled on our first night in El Chlaten. It’s called El Muro and it’s absolutely beautiful. Great mountain kitchen food – locro, typical Argentinian stew, speciality lamb dishes, chicken with wild mushrooms, lovely homemade pasta and a fantastic range of wines. So yes, tonight was the night to sample the steak, rare to medium and it was so soft it was like pate. Served up with half a baked onion and a few other whole baked vegetables, washed down with 2 beers and a great local wine, desert and coffee. Such tasty food and all the better having looked death in the face 5 hour previous. 

Rewarding and well earnt food

Homecooked salmon filled Raviolli. Find.

I’ve since seen photos taken of this lagoon on a sunny day. What a peaceful place it looks. That’s not the lagoon of my memories. And even though I only have 2 photos of this place, the feeling of being so exposed on that mountaintop and trying to hold myself steady in the sustained winds with driving icy rain, 1000s of meters up in the air and looking at this sapphire blue lagoon created from the combination of 3 melting glaciers up in the mountains will never leave my memory. Awesome hiking. Thanks El Chalten and thanks weather gods. It wouldn’t have been the same without the fear of death!

So that was El Chalten and the last time we’ll be in Argentina for a while as the plan is to now travel up through southern Chile for a bit more trekking, adventuring, beers and still the wind I think. It’s now 8:30pm and the bus must nearly be in Los Antiguos up near the Chilean border. We think however that the border is closed so it looks like we’re trying to find somewhere to pitch the tent tonight and will try to cross the border tomorrow. I wonder if during this next border crossing we’ll meet any more Louis-like characters in their Scooby doo vans. I’ll let you know. 

Trekking the W circuit in Torres del Paine, Chile

We set off early Monday morning to head across the border into Chile. We didn’t know what the day was going to entail. There had been border issues and we were still 4 hours from the border on the Argentinian side. We knew of a direct bus from Rio Gallegos to Puerto Natales in Chile but we had also heard of buses being refused entry and sent back. We had also heard that there was another bus that went to Rio Turbio, a smaller Argentinian town closer to the border and from here it was possible to then take a local bus across the border, potentially hitch a lift or even in some cases walk it. So, there were options it seemed. We headed to the bus terminal in Rio Gallegos. We were told by someone from one of the many bus companies that everything was fine now at the border. But the way he said it made it sound like he knew about as much as we did and was just being optimistic. But that aside, there was no direct buses on Monday anyway. So we jumped on a much later one to Rio Turbio. Basically it took us closer to where we wanted to be and if all else failed and we couldn’t cross, we could potentially find a hostel there or pitch our tent! The bus to Rio Turbio was uneventful but unfortunately it arrived too late to catch any connecting buses across the border and into Chile. We had missed the last one by half an hour. This was in a way good news though as it indicated that the border issues had probably been resolved. Everyone was really helpful, the guy in the supermarket asked if we needed help and some random Argentinian guy who had been on our bus also tried to help us out, advising us of potential other buses, but as it turned out there weren’t any until the next day.

By this time though it was cold and quite late. We checked out how much a taxi would be for the 30km trip across the border and into Puerto Natales but it was £50 and we were loathed to pay this much. The guy in the taxi shack was also really helpful though and said we should try to hitch a lift at the gas station up the road because many Chileans come across the border on a daily basis to fill up with cheaper petrol, before returning back to Natales. So we stood at the side of the gas station, with our backpacks pulling the cold dishevelled look. We had a few awkward interactions with people asking us things and us not having a clue what they were saying but within 5 minutes, the sccobydoo-esque van with Chilean plates we had had our eye on filling up, pulled over and told us to jump in. Louis was a short plump friendly faced Chilean fella in his mid-fifties. An older lady sat next to him in the cab and an even older lady sat behind him in one of the back seats in the van. The seats weren’t what you’d expect in a van like this though – they looked more like a swivelling armchairs. The lady in the back was super wrinkled with black hair and dressed in black and I think some of her teeth were missing but she had a sweet smile. Tim took the other swivel armchair and I took the back bench. The whole inside was decked out with musty pink carpet on the walls and ceiling which matched the chairs. There was an automatic papaya flavoured air freshener hinged into one of the top corners of the van that occasionally fragranced the place with a fruity potpourri smell. Louis had tried to explain to us that he had to run a few errands first, but was eventually heading back to Puerto Natales where he lived. I’m not sure what those missions were exactly, but firstly we backtracked 20mins to the town before Rio Turbio, where we stopped for 10 minutes at another petrol station, then we stopped at a police station and finally a radio station all in the same town. Each time, Louis jumped out with various bits of paperwork and disappeared for 10 minutes only to then return mumbling something and obviously joking with the elderly ladies. The radio station was the weirdest. It looked like another ramshackle old house but had a sign on the front with the name of the station and the frequency it can be picked up at. Louis seemed to know all the locals, winding down his window and stopping to chat with some. Me and Tim just sat there relieved that we were going to where we needed to be that evening and just went with the flow of the somewhat weird situation, whilst trying out a few words of Spanish with Louis when he wasn’t joking with the old ladies. We also had the border crossing to contend with, but it was all easy and Louis and the elderly ladies waited whilst we had our bags checked and filled in the various forms etc. 

Tim in the scooby doo van

The festive little old lady hostel in Puerto Natales. She was a little smelly and had a hacking cough and prepared us breakfast in the morning. Nice. 

He asked if we had a hostel booked and took us right to the front door. Such a kind man and I managed to muster up enough Spanish to tell him that my first impressions of Chile were that the people were incredibly nice. He smiled and wished us a good journey from here on in. The wind here made the wind of Puerto Madryn appear like a breeze. At points driving into town, the Scooby doo van almost toppled over as we passed by places where the wind channelled through the mountains. Louis just laughed and it all seemed rather normal. Natales is a small town full of colourful corrugated iron houses, all brightly coloured and it sits 2 hours from the entrance to the Torres del Paine National Park where you can hike the famous ‘W’ circuit. The town is surrounded by fantastic mountains looming up in the distance. We had been keeping a close eye on the weather. Gusts of up to 100kmh, yes, that’s correct and not a typo, are not uncommon here. Winds like that would make the trek too dangerous but it seemed as though they were forecast to lessen tomorrow and it appeared that it might be a good day to start the hike. We had read a lot about good ways to approach it and what we might need to take in terms of supplies. We headed to the supermarket to stock up on pasta and nuts and chocolate and stuff for making lunches. Basically, we had to take 5 nights and 4 days’ worth of food with us, together with our camping equipment and anything else we were likely to need for the entire period, including warm and weather proof clothing. And the worse thing was, we had to carry it all! We made sure we had a good last meal out that evening with some good local beer to set ourselves up for the big trek!

Testing the cold weather gear in the warmth of a cosy bar

Day 1 – Arriving at the park

We got our stuff together at the hostel, went and bought the last of the fresh ingredients we needed and headed to what became quite a local of ours in Natales for a preliminary beer. We were going to head to the park on the afternoon bus and set up camp for the night. The park was still a further 2hrs away but approaching it we saw the famous craggy outline of the Torres Massif. A fantastic view and we were blessed with good weather so it was a stunning scene. The campsite was in the shadow of one of the snow-capped mountains and was fairly basic but clean and cheap and we situated ourselves between a couple of trees for some protection against the wind. It was cold though which made the log fire and hot food of the nearby refugio (a large hostel that catered for hikers with canteen style food and hot showers etc.) a very tempting option. However at nearly £50 compared to our £7 campsite, it wasn’t worth it. Although it was nice to stop in for a quick drink whilst looking over our maps and discussing our plan of how we were going to approach the trek. We then cased out the area a bit, nearly got blown of the side of one of the hills, realised that the wind was going to be pretty strong here, then retired to our camp to make some pasta and get our heads down for the night. 

Prelim beers before the park

Amazing bar at the Refugio

Day 2 – First day hiking

We left the camp early for the first day of the trek. We had decided to do the ‘W’ from east to west so day one was heading up the right hand side arm of the ‘W’ and back down again; 20km in total. Benefits of doing it this way around were it had been suggested that today was going to be sunny and this part of the trek would take us to the most famous mirador point – the craggy spikey famous towers of the Torres del Paine which can only be seen in nice weather, otherwise the spires are often shrouded in too much cloud to be visible. If we had risked leaving this part until day 4, it may have been cloudy and we wouldn’t have seen these majestic towers in all their glory. It was also the biggest climb but doing it this way around meant we could leave our tent and other bits at the camp and return to the same camp for night 2. The scenery was spectacular but Jesus, it really was windy! It was a stunning trek though, past clear turquoise glacier lakes, bright red bushes, twisty turny routes through forest areas, across precarious bridges and finally a 200m climb in no distance at all across huge boulders to reach the finale spectacle of the imposing granite based towers that stretch to the heavens out of a clear turquoise glacier lake. It was too beautiful. I had to laugh at just how beautiful it was. We had attempted the hike on our own but they were quite a few people on the same track as this day can be done as a day hike alone. Everyone was in good spirits though and very friendly and it was good fun. We made this high point our lunch spot. What a place to eat a cheese and tomato sandwich! We then started the 3.5hr return journey back to camp for the night where we had a debrief beer in the Refugio, talked about having a shower, decided it was too cold, ate some pasta and went to bed, hoping we’d be able to still move in the morning!

Start of day 1 looking happy!

Amazing mountain clouds

Our final destination - the famous craggy peaks of the Torres del Paine

The only way of delivering food between refugio camps

Day 3 – Second day hiking

I had been slightly wary of today as it was the first time we were going to have to hike with ALL our stuff. We had 15km to hike right to left along the bottom on the right hand side of the ‘W’ to a campsite that was apparently free. Therefore no services, but we had food and we could drink the glacier water so we didn’t really need any services. Just somewhere to pitch the tent. Thankfully it was a little less windy today and we took it slow with all our stuff. Also luckily for me, Tim had anticipated my need for a walking pole and the previous day had given me one of his that his folks had leant to him. I now love walking poles. My god, they make things easier and I think by holding a stick you feel slightly empowered. Like a modern day Gandalf perhaps. The start of the trek wasn’t too bad and we took breaks often for water or nuts and at one point for what I had thought was a banana, but as it turned out, I had actually bought an incredibly heavy banana like piece of fruit that I had to open with a knife and when I did it turned out to be super brittle and smelt a bit and tasted like chalk. I soon ditched that and went for some cashews instead. I had already carried 2 of these too far. Stupid banana things! 

The afternoon was windier but it took us to some amazing places, which included the granite beach of a glacier lake. I seriously couldn’t believe such a place could exist naturally. There were some big climbs but we plodded on, energised by the ever increasing amazing scenes. We made it to the campsite pretty tired but very proud of ourselves and I ate the nicest mars bar of my entire life! The campsite was free which was great and due to the recent fires in the park, they had built a little windproof shack for you to use camping stoves in. I thought this would be nice but it turned out to be a bit apocalyptic to be honest. There were groups of slightly sinister looking cardiganed people huddled over saucepans of what looked like gruel, and an old wrinkly lady sitting in a corner who would try to befriend single Spanish traveller types in a slightly Gollum-esque way. But she also seemed a little cocky with it, in a ‘I’m mother nature’ kind of way. And she wore far too many headbands and bracelets. And there was a hawk that was perched close by to the shack, waiting for scraps to be tossed aside. Me and Tim sidled our way into the shack when we had the chance and cooked our pasta and sauce elbow to elbow with another couple who just kept staring at our pasta cooking in the saucepan in a kind of slightly zoned out way. I think these zombie tendencies were purely a manifestation of the complete physical and mental ache such a gruelling trek brings on you. After dinner Tim washed up and I went to guard the porch way of our tent from spiders; as I had seen one get fiendishly close earlier. When Tim got back, we jumped in the tent, zipped it up and went through our photos from the day – a ritual now before bed. Considering the campsite was in a really wooded area, it was again far too windy that night. I kept thinking the tent was going to blow away but we were safe and made it to day 4.

Start of a colder day 2

Stunning beach like scenes on the edge of glacier lakes

Amazing colours

Tepid cups of tea, on a beer less night at 'Basecamp!'

Day 4 – Third day hiking

We left basecamp (haha, I’m learning the lingo) and headed up the middle arm of the ‘W’. The aim today was to leave the tent up, hike 7.5km up to the mirador point with only day packs – sun cream and a bit of lunch, then head back down, pack up camp and hike with all our stuff for another 7.6km to the next campsite. It was a big ask on already tired legs but it would leave us an easier last day of up and down the left hand arm of the ‘W’ with only day packs. The initial climb up was tough but we walked alongside an awesome glacier situated up on the mountainside. Occasionally a loud rumble could be heard as mini avalanches cascaded from up high down into the ravine below. Stunning. The walk then took us through enchanted forests and finally after pretty much a constant climb we reached the top point of the trek. In all directions mountaintops soared into the sky, clouds crested the tops of these as the air was pushed up and over them and it really felt like we were on top of the world. The retreat was awkward as clambering down boulders is often harder than the journey up, especially for Tim who was constantly having to ensure his camera didn’t clang the side of a boulder. 

We stopped for a sandwich near the glacier, to watch for any further break offs, met a wild deer and finally got back to camp, took everything down, loaded ourselves up and carried on for the afternoon part. At this point, it was only chocolate keeping us going I think. This part of the walk was beautiful still though with more mountains, more flowers, rainbows created within the spray gusted up by the winds over lakes, turquoise glacier lakes and beautiful colours everywhere. The wind was strong on the more open moor like parts and I once nearly lost my sunnies down the mountainside. The wind literally whisked them off my head. Headwinds like this with full gear is a little sketchy at the best of times and the terrain was really starting to test us now. The sight of the campsite in the distance lifted our spirits and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would be able to get the stone out of my shoe that I had managed to contend with for a few hours, but now for this last leg, it had turned itself sideways and lodged itself under my big toe. I didn’t want to stop though as often it takes more energy taking everything off and putting it on again, than just dealing with things like stones in shoes. We arrived at camp and set up in chronic wind. We had packed the tent in such a way that when you unpacked it, the wind rolled it out for you as you stood downwind. A little technique Tim mustered up to avoid losing the tent to the wind, which really could happen. Again this campsite had an area in which you could cook and after a beer at the adjoining Refugio, we made some grub and headed bedwards for our penultimate and what was to be windiest night’s sleep yet. It’s quite hard to sleep when the wind is so strong that it actually blows the tent sideways and onto your face. That’s what it did and then it started raining and I dreamt I was in Barclays bank and the roof started leaking on me. But at least I got some sleep I suppose. Bloody wind changing direction like that at night. We didn’t sleep much but we knew there was only one more day of missioning left.

Glacier on the top of a mountain on our walk upwards

Some areas have been hurt due to fire, but still look amazing.

Mountaineer stance and gaze!

Deer friend!

Colours. Again. Stunning.

This park had everything - mountains, lakes, glaciers, snow, wind, sun...

Day 5 – Fourth and last day hiking

It was cloudier today but it created more atmosphere and gave the park an eerie edge for our last day. The plan was to hike with day kit to Glacier Grey up the left arm of the ‘W’ – another 11km and back down again. We left a little later today as it appeared it would be a slightly easier trek than previous days and each day it was taking a little longer and ideally a few more coffees to re-energise and for ours eyes to uncross. I had found a place in the inside cooking area to recharge my camera battery so was able to be a bit more snap happy. The route was awesome and it did feel very Lord of the Rings like with the snow-capped mountains in the distance, the ever greyer growing skies and an increasing wind as we climbed higher. Although I knew we were heading for another Glacier, I had assumed it would be something along the lines of that seen the day before. But oh no. This was something else. This park just keeps on giving. With every twist of the path, there’s a new scene and it blows your mind again. First of all a few little affectionately named ‘little blue floaters’ were seen – bits of broken off glacier floating and looking all silly and blue against an otherwise very muted grey backdrop. (These photos are untouched – it really is this blue). Then we rounded the corner and argh…. In the distance it looked like a tidal wave was approaching but had then it had been stopped in time. The wall of what was obviously ice played tricks on the brain that made you feel a bit giddy. Looking at this glacier in the distance was a bit like looking at one of those magic eye images. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing before us. The absurdity was heightened by the sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion, but it was a fantastic. The light was amazing, the landscape and vastness of everything was amazing and it was incredible to actually see a modern day glacier carving out landscapes amongst rocks just like it has been for millions of years. It is strange to still see this happening in our present age, it’s like we had been thrown back in time. Perhaps I was a time lord. I did think at one point a dinosaur might just appear round the corner of the mountain. It’s also weird seeing something like this and then thinking that not far from here people are buying drinks and getting blind drunk on places like Copacabana beach. This juxtaposition of imagery in my head is hard to comprehend. I can’t quite imagine both these things going on at the same time. The earth is still constantly being re-modelled whilst people sip martinis on a beach. Crazy shit! I love it. I couldn’t stop looking at the glacier. I took a ton of photos and am now a fully-fledged glacier lover. True they are a bit cold, but they are amazing. We then headed back to ‘basecamp’ and toasted ourselves and our incredible journey with a few beers and our last pasta dinner and our last and by now very stale bread roll.

Flower friends along the way

The mighty glacier Grey

A lonely blue floater

My favourite tree

So, that’s the story of the W trek. We slept more peacefully that night. Perhaps due to less wind, perhaps due to more beer, perhaps a bit of both. We got the ferry out of there the next morning and back to Puerto Natales and civilization where we were looking forward to a hot shower and some food and had booked back in the hostel for the night. The shower was epic. We noticed we had both lost about 5 kilos. We then went and ate out and put it all back on again. I think I ate a whole Patagonian spit roasted lamb. Mmmmmm!

This is definitely the hardest physical challenge I’ve ever attempted and Tim can vouch as it being the hardest trekking he’s done too, given load and length of time. But it’s definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done and I’ve got to give it to Chile that their park is a magical place. Never have I been wowed so much by Mother Nature so many time in such quick succession. It’s no surprise the Chileans are so proud of their park. It’s peaceful, educational, rewarding and incredibly beautiful and one of my favourite places in the world.

How's that for a slice of fried gold?!

Beer o' clock thanks to beer tokens from my Bud

 And sleep.

South along the Atlantic coast

I’m falling a little behind on the blog front. There’s just too much to write about and now I’m writing even slower because I have had to bandage each of my index fingers and middle fingers together with baby wipes to keep them cool because the bloody Doxycycline I’ve been taking to avoid malaria has resulted in my skin suffering from heightened photosensitivity. I’ve managed to seriously burn not only my nose, which has thankfully now healed but also parts of my fingers which are faring far worse than my nose and have now broken out in some sort of slightly swollen lumpy reddy purple rash and are extremely painful. I’ve heard that although uncommon, this can happen and therefore I’ve ditched the Docxy and am having to loosely cover up my sore fingers, firstly in an attempt to stop any more sun getting to them and secondly so I can’t see them coz they’re mingin. It certainly made trekking in Chile’s national forest fun, clambering round in a tent and continuously having to get things in and out of really small pockets. I think that’s why they are even worse now. Anyway, the trekking is the subject of the next post. I have to cover the east coast first and what we got up to there.

Puerto Madryn was our first stop after Buenos Aires. After 20 hours, 2 breakdowns – one mechanical, one due to a flatty and some awful driving in pouring rain the coach finally arrived at the lovely seaside town which is south of Buenos Aires. We arrived at the bus station in the morning and the three of us headed toward hostel El Gualicho, a hostel that had been well reviewed on someone else’s blog. The three of us being Me, Tim and yet another stray dog that had decided to come along for the journey in the hope of a better life. There are so many what look like strays out here, but most of them look pretty healthy and each is affectionately referred to by us as a ‘rabies’. The hostel looked nice and I told rabies to wait outside for us. If he did he could then come along to the beach once we had sorted ourselves out, but I saw that he didn’t even wait 5 minutes before heading off looking for another opportunity. Oh well, his loss. We left our bags at the hostel whilst they cleaned out the rooms and we headed off to the beach. We got there super early and there was hardly anyone around. We found a cafe for a massively yummy breakfast of coffee and cream cheese and fruits, sitting on white leather sofas overlooking the sea with some chilled out music playing from the bar. Seriously, this was a far cry from the hectic city life we had just experienced and was very welcomed.

A great breakfast spot after an all nighter on a bus

Beach at Puerto Madryn in the morning

The perfect breakfast

We spent our first day exploring the beach and the headland. We flew our little pocket kite – thanks Chuckie and it even soared higher than the Argentinean flag. This place is seriously windy. It was our first taste of the Patagonian wind that everyone talks about. Windbreakers lined the beach and in the afternoon, they erected little windproof plastic cubicles with seating areas for people to sit in so as not to get blown away whilst having a beer.

Our kite flying higher than the Argentinian flag

This is where we are versus you guys

Everyone, I mean everyone takes a laptop travelling these days. Bit weird! 

Thinking back, it was probably in one of these very cubicles that I managed to roast my fingers and nose. The town itself is very pleasant too, although it’s quite touristy and everything you can buy or see has been stamped with a logo of a penguin. 

Me trying to fit in with the locals

This is because this is the place you come to organise your tour to Punta Tombo to see the colony of ½ a million Magellan penguins that flock to the area to have their babies. It’s also the place to spot whales and orcas at certain times of the year, together with other sea life and best of all, one of the best places in the world to swim with sea lions. Of course, all these excursions are expensive, so we thought hard and long, over a few beers as to what our plan might be and what we could afford. Whale watching was a risk because we are really near the end of the season, so rather than paying for a tour out on a boat, we hired a couple of bikes for the day and cycled 20km north to a place called El Dorradillo where apparently if you are lucky you could spot the whales from the coast. It was a stinky ride for the first hour alongside the port outside town and then onto a thick dusty gravel road where cars hurtled past and you had to hold your breath to avoid ingesting stones for the next 5 minutes and finally uphill past a smelly fish factory. But then it got better and after another hilly 45 minutes or so we reached a point where the sea was visible and there in the distance we saw a whale playing about in the water. He was flipping about and crashing back into the sea on his back. He was about the size of a pea as we were very far away but it was really exciting and after watching him for 5 minutes we jumped back on the bikes to get closer to where he was. Unfortunately however, there were no more whales to be seen that afternoon. We watched the spot we had seen him for a further 2 hours but he didn’t surface again. It was quite hard because it was really windy and this was creating little white crests of waves across the entire bay making spotting any unusual movements in the water quite difficult. But we sat on the rocks and scanned from one side of our view to the other, like watching a slow motion game of tennis before finally calling it a day a few hours later. The landscape here was amazing though – very moon like (apart from all the water obviously) and it was great having seen the whale initially but it had set our hopes quite high at seeing more if we persisted. Instead it seemed we had been very lucky to see anything at all. Apparently lots of the tours saw nothing across a couple of days.

Hot rides mean lots of water and turban wearing

Tim watching for whales

After a long ride, beer and chips. Mmm.

A few days later we did one of the most incredible things. By opting to hire bikes rather than do the tour and by cooking our own really cheap food for a few days at the hostel we managed to save the £85 which was enough to treat ourselves to the trip of a lifetime – definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done. We swam with sea lions! It’s a great place to do it because there is a sea lion reserve in the area and each day 4 boats are allowed to enter this protected area, keeping a set distance from the shore and each can spend an hour diving and snorkelling with the sea lions. They are so tame and playful. The males rarely enter the water, they mainly lay out on the shore surrounded by a harem of 15 or so females, but the other females and younger pups swim about and they are so friendly and so inquisitive. They behave like excited puppies when you enter the water. They nip at your fingers in a really playful way and swim all around you. You can stroke and tickle them and at times are totally surrounded by them. They can swim really fast too, but never crash into you. They are so graceful in the water. Me and Tim played with one female who was so sweet for about 5 minutes. She kept swimming right up to our faces and once, out of the water, she planted a big kiss on my face and knocked my snorkel off. They look at you with this curious expression and love to make eye contact. It’s unreal and by being able to touch them and stroke them, you really feel a bond. Seriously one of the most incredible things I’ve done. The guys we went with took a few photos and some video. Amazing!

Working the wetsuit

I have the pink snorkel. Tim next to me. So is a sea lion!

Our crew and other guests

The next few days were spent dong a few more cycles and even a couple of early morning runs to try to work off the beer and chips and pasta dinners and to try to get us in shape for some serious amounts of trekking that were to come within a week or so down in Torres Del Paine in Chile where we were steadily making planes to hike the famous W circuit (next blog post).

However, before heading down that way there was one thing left to do and that was visit the penguins that live at Punta Tombo, another protected area but open to the public and home to over 250,000 penguin couples who at this time of year were hatching their eggs. It was going to be seriously cute. However, we were again looking at having to take a tour to this area as it was off the beaten track and although only £35, this was near enough our daily budget and having already done the sea lion snorkelling, we felt it was too much to just suck up. So we decided to head an hour south to a town called Trelew which was an hour nearer the penguin colony and chance our luck that we could find some other backpackers to perhaps share a taxi with which would seriously reduce the cost. Our plan worked but rather than taking a taxi, we hired a car and shared the driving with a French couple who were in a similar predicament to us. They were a lovely couple, who had been travelling from north to south through Central and South America for 11 months and were heading home very soon, back to France for Xmas. They were able to give us loads of tips of things to see and do along our way and probably saved us a ton of money in the long run by telling us there’s no need to drink bottled water here. The tap stuff is fine. That’s probably one extra beer each day!

The French couple had learnt Spanish at school and after this long stint in South America they were pretty much fluent, which helped out massively, especially when we crashed the car in town on the way back, about 2 blocks from our hostel. Oops! It totally wasn’t all our fault, but whilst faltering at a junction, a young local lad accidently donked us from behind. Luckily, the Spanish speaking French couple were able to phone the hire car company to sort things out and managed to keep the quite scared looking lad there until the car hire guy came along to check out what had happened and take details. Hopefully the young lad won’t be stung too hard, but it was lucky he was sound enough to stick around. Apparently if he had scarpered, we’d be US$800 poorer. Close one that’s for sure.

Anyway, the penguins at Punta Tombo were awesome, as penguins always are. They bumbled about, guarding their nests and weren’t perturbed by us tourists in the slightest. It was a bit weird but they seemed to like making their nests in holes in the ground. I had expected them to nest closer to the sea, but it was up to 1km to the shore for many penguin couples. Some were a bit dozy in the afternoon sunshine but others waddled around. It was a bizarre landscape though with all these holes in the ground filled with penguins. It looked like penguins on mars or a little like that game where animals’ heads pop out of holes and you have to hit them with a hammer? There were definitely a lot of penguins and after a few hours we were pretty much penguined out so headed on back to Trelew, unaware of the unnecessary hecticness of the crash to come!

Awesome graffetti in Trelew

Pingu on a mission

My favourite - a little dude

Same little dude

Penguins in holes!

Baby Pingu!

My being a penguin

The place was feull of these big fellas - guanacos that looked huge next to the penguins

Later that evening we jumped onto another bus and headed 17hrs further south to Rio Gallegos which was to be a connection stop only before changing buses and taking another 5 hours west and across the border to Puerto Natales – our first destination in Chile and the gateway to the National Park, Torres del Paine which is worldy famous for incredible hiking in the mountains. We decided this was a better plan than heading to Ushuaia, Argentina’s most southern town. Although tempting to reach this southern point, it was a long way further south and with temperatures not set to exceed 2C any time soon and biting Pacific winds, we decided to give it a miss.

However, as it happened, there weren’t any buses that day to Chile and everything was a bit up in the air at the border due to strikes at the Chilean side, so we decided to stick around in Rio Gallegos for the night and try our luck at crossing the border the day after. Operation mission to Chile. To mentally prepare for it, we went out and had a few beers with a few guys we befriended at the hostel in Rio Gallegos. A small and almost slightly too bouncy Spanish speaking French girl who loved making friendship bracelets, a German girl who on first impressions appeared rather surely but turned out to be quite friendly and had once been to Winchester, and a quite young but cute looking English speaking German guy who seemed to have been clawed in and taken hostage by the overly bouncy French girl. Not too bad a town for a quick stopover. The German guy and French girl were apparently on route to head to Chile a few days after us. We haven’t seen them since though. We think he might be handcuffed somewhere being forced to make her friendship bracelets. We made some food and hit the hay, ready for our attempt into Chile in the morning.