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Hola! Quite a bit of catching up to do here. Although this journal entry starts in Chile, in the Torres del Paine National Park, it ends back here in Argentina, in Los Glaciares National Park, where we are now.... We've now crossed the border between Argentina and Chile four times, and expect to another three before we leave!
Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
We arrived in Puerto Natales from Punta Arenas a week last Wednesday (24th) and after a night in a hostel with strange artefacts but a nice owner, and an afternoon in a lovely café with really good vegetarian food run by an English lady... we headed straight out the next morning to begin the 5 day 'W trek' around the Torres del Paine National Park. Knut and Astrid who we'd met in Puerto Williams and sailed up the Beagle Channel with were with us too on the bus to the park but we said our goodbyes as they (far more hardcore trekkers that they are) had decided to do the full 8 day circuit with a different start point.
It was a great five days. It's called the W trek, because you go up and back down each of the three valleys of the W that lie eitherside of the moutains inbetween. It's a popular trek and unlike the Dientes you are passing people quite frequently and the campsites are well used. There are refuges on the way that you can reserve beds and also have all your meals in (for you definite non-campers out there!), so you see a lot of people with just small day packs going from one refuge to the next... but not us! Oh no! We were carrying everything - all our food and camping equipment, although this time Simon had left out his binoculars, 400ml bottles of Pantene shampoo and conditioner, slippers, waterbed and straighteners and the bags were a little lighter...
We really enjoyed it. The first day takes you up the length of Lago Grey (on the left of the W), and you end up camping right by Glacier Grey at the other end of it. It was quite a spectacular approach and a great end to the first day's walking, just sitting at the mirador facing the end of the glacier. The glacier is, although huge, just one tiny part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field which covers an enormous area. (We have since travelled 8 hours or so by bus further north into Argentina, and are still seeing its glaciers.) The other four days of the walk took us right up alongside the very distinctive rock 'blocks' of the cuernos mountains which tower impressive over you as you walk alongside and up towards them - every intrepid climber's dream, no doubt, and then ultimately to the pointed torres, the image of which the park is so famous for.
We had great weather all the time (apparently still making up for our forfeited walk on Isla Navarino) and enjoyed camping and taking in the wonderful views all the time we were walking and when we'd stop for breaks and lunch. The torres are by all accounts spectacular at sunrise and so on our last morning we got up at 4 and set off for the mirador. As we left we bumped into Charlie from Derby(!) who'd tried to set off with his teeny magnalite and ended up knee-deep in mud two minutes after leaving. With our headtorch we were a bit better off and the three of us had no problem following the trail. The sunrise, however, was non-existent. The clouds weren't so bad that our view was shrouded altogether, but there were none of the promised reds and oranges that make the show... Nonetheless, as Charlie pointed out, the adventure had been in the getting there, in the dark, and in the last very windy scramble up to the top to be confronted with the torres. Indeed. And a good end to the whole five days.
So that was last Monday (29th January), when we finished the trek and went back to Puerto Natales. It had all been very worth it. I had completely exceeded my Weightwatchers 22 points a day with all the peanuts and the discovery that the refuges along the way sold crisps... and Cadbury's Fingeres!! Well not quite, but Dairy Milk nonetheless so that proved a bit of a must... but we felt great for all the walking... knackered, really knackered and very sore shouldered, but really good!
Not wanting to stay any longer than necessary in the strange hostel out of a Steven King film (with dolls with lamps coming out the back of their heads and so on!) and time also not being on our side any more, we left on Tuesday for El Calafate, four hours north, on the south side of huge Lago Argentino, and just over the border out of Chile.
Parque Nacional Los Glaciares
We camped again (it's so easy down here and cheap, which is the main thing these days... somewhat of a downgrade from the matrimoniales with ensuites, but what can you do?!) and only stayed two nights. The only reason that people come here is to visit the Perito Merino glacier in this the southern part of Los Glaciares National Park. We got a bus to it the next day and it is an incredible sight. The miradors and walkways take you really quite up close. It's amazing because the end of it is 5km long and its ice wall 50-55m high! You can just stand and watch it for hours and listen to it creaking and crunching all the time. It's an advancing glacier - they're not all receding - and every few years it touches the land opposite and stops the river below which causes pressure to build up and a huge erruption of ice. The next one's not due quite yet, but there are huge chunks of ice falling off the wall into the water below all the time and causing a huge crash and splash. It's great to see.
Just something else to make Patagonia the unforgettable place that it is.
We got the bus out of El Calfate and up here to El Chaltén on Thursday (1st February - so that's 6 months that we've been away now!!!) It's lovely here in this little town - very laid back and very small and although we're sitting in an internet café and there's a supermarket that sells more Dairy Milk (Weightwatchers who?), there's no cash machine, no bank and no paved roads. There's a lovely vibe here, surrounded by mountains and glacial lakes and streams - a lovely place to be.
It's in the northern part of the same national park and the attraction here is the trekking around the Fitz Roy mountain range (Fitzroy was the captain of the Beagle and Darwin had answered his call for a gentleman to accompany him on his voyage to map Patagonia as his father and grandfather had also both been captains and both committed suicide as a result of being at sea for months at end and never ever mixing with any of their inferior officers. This Fitzroy had been determined that this wasn't going to happen to him, and hence had Darwin for company! So there you go...)
Yesterday (Friday 2nd) we walked up to Cerro Fitz Roy and camped near the foot of it (again another popular walk) and then walked up the last bit to Laguna de los Tres, even more at the foot of the mountain and surrounded by three impressive peaks. As we sat in this 'bowl' where the lake was, we looked across to the ice and snow coming down into the lake opposite and could just make out two groups of two or three tiny dots making their way up towards the mountain - climbers... Inspiring... but after that brief thought and wrapped up against the cold we went back down and spent the rest of the night eating Dairy Milk (are you sensing a theme through this diary... dairy... entry!?) and playing Gin Rummy. I wonder if they had any Dairy Milk.
It rained HARD last night and the tent was damp and really muddy this morning. We spared a thought for the climbers. The peaks were covered in cloud and as they cleared eventually this afternoon we could see that they were now also covered in snow. We did a shortish walk to another glacier and then walked back down this afternoon to El Chaltén and our nice grassy campsite here... with toilets and hot showers! Looking at Mt. Fitz Roy this evening, it's all lit up by the setting sun and there's not a cloud to be seen. Every season in a day, is what they tell you to prepare for here. We're having a 'day off' tomorrow and then on Monday will do the other popular day-long trail to see Cerro Torre, the other big peak here, and have booked to do a two hour glacier trek with a tour group at the end of it. Cracking! Not literally, I'm hoping! We've seen so many of them (glaciers) that we don't feel like we can leave without setting foot on a little bit of one!
So that's where we're at now... moving on a long 15 hours north on Wednesday to Los Antiguos from where we hope to cross back over the border and do the last little bit of Patagonia back on the Chilean side and hopefully by boat again. Three and a half weeks left and we're loving it, barely venturing into towns, only to get on the next bus out to see all these fabulous parks and wander and camp along their trails among the lakes and glaciers and moutains. Just great. What a way to round off South America.
Simon's getting ready, his nose in his New Zealand phrase book, so we can get off the plane in Auckland and walk into the first fush and chup shop. I don't think they'll do the Fenham speciality of battered pineapple, mind!
Laters, loves (Missing you) x
(I'll get the photos up of all of this when we get to a café with a faster connection...)
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