El Chaltén (February 2nd to 6th)

The February 2nd 2015

I have decided to start treating this as more of a travel journal, and make an entry every day, rather than try to come up with several days worth of info at the end of our stay in each location. 

We didn't have a hostel booked for today. But we had one for the next day, so initially our plan was to store excess luggage in our hostel and go back country camping for a night. But due to the nature and length of the treks here, that didn't really make sense for getting back to town the next day for our hostel reservation. So instead we stayed at a campground in town for 60 peso ($4.50) per person. It was basically just a place to set up tents in someone's yard, but there was a bathroom shower and kitchen we could use. 

Once we'd build our tents we set out on a 7 hour hike to Loma del Pliegue Tumbado, a high point with excellent views of the Fitz Roy Range. It was crystal clear out, only a slight breeze, and it was blazing hot, but the hike was well worth it! Our lunch at top was an avocado each and 3 packages of raw crackers that I picked up at the vegan food kiosk in Colonia Suiza. 

<Raw crackers that cost about $2.50 package, a good deal compared what they would cost in the US!>

<View from the top of Loma Del Pliegue Tumbado of Laguna Torre and the Fitz Roy Range.>

<Up on Loma Del Pliegue Tumbado looking out over Lago Viedma and the Patagonian Steppe in what we refer to as our doofus hats, they are quite convenient as they fold at the middle of the brim for easy storage.>

Once back in town we walked the Main Street in search of a suitable dinner option. I had looked up El Chaltén on Happy Cow and knew there were 2 options listed, but couldn't remember the names, so I was hoping we would find one of them, and we did! During our restaurant search, we found an RV trailer selling cherries, so we got some. The pickings can be slim here when it comes to produce since the town is so isolated, so you take what you can get whenever you can get it! We ended up eating at a vegetarian restaurant called Prana Natural Bar. We all got ginormous salads AND each ordered a meal. We didn't know the salads would be so big, but we still ate all our food. The "ensalada completa" contained beets, carrots, corn, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado and lettuce. Jeff got brown rice risotto, I had brown rice, lentils and Indian curry veggies and Kirianne had rice and coconut curry veggies. It wasn't the most flavorful food ever, but definitely our best option as far as restaurants go and very healthy! Back at our campsite, many dogs were barking, but there was still no wind which made for a pretty good, but short nights sleep.

<The cherry trailer is very popular!>

<Not the greatest photo, but this shows what a typical bathroom looks like down here. This was the one was the campground. The toilet seat is not attached and the sink is made of ply-wood! All toilet paper, whether coated in pee or poo, goes into the trash can, so we often find smell bathrooms! We have also learned that many things are optional when it comes to public restrooms, including toilet paper, toilet seat, stall door that actually locks locks, a working sink, soap and something to dry hands with. A bathroom with all the optionals is a dream down here!>

<This is the kitchen at the campground, and it is representative of a typical kitchen that we cook in down here. This particular kitchen has hollowed out coffee cans built into the wall so that trash can go through them to the trash bins outside! Pretty neat! Most of the kitchens we use are not very well stocked with cookware, utensils or dishes, which can be frustrating, but we always make it work.>

February 3rd 2015

This morning we got up early (7:00) and packed up camp and moved to our hostel (it was called Rancho Grande). It was far to too early for check-in so we used the luggage storage room and went for a hike to Laguna Torre, on a another fabulously clear and hot windless day. We hiked to a glacially fed lake, which is where most people stop, but we continued about an hour past it climbing along the lateral moraine of the glacier to a viewpoint called Mirador Maestri.We had great views of Laguna Torre, Glacier Torre and Cerro Torre, a stone spire of around 10,000 feet, that's world famous in the rock climbing world. It was gorgeous! We were very glad we'd gone the extra distance to the further view. Jeff and I didn't even know about it the last time we were here, and I don't think most people do. We stopped for awhile and enjoyed a nice lunch of overnight oats, which I initially learned of from the blog: "Oh She Glows," I don't know what I'd do without them now! They consist of fruit (usually mashed banana), oats and chia seeds with water, plant milk or juice soaked overnight, so they require no cooking. I brought the chia seeds from home, but I did see them in the grocery store in El Bolsón. 

<The view from where most hikers stop at the lake.>

<Here is a iPhone panorama of the view at Mirador Maestri. I'm not sure how good the quality will be on a home computer/large screen, but hopefully good!>

<Our container of oats that we share among the three of us.>

<Hiking on the lateral moraine.>

We then began the long hike back out. The hike ended up taking about 9 hours and we estimate about 15 miles total distance. We were thoroughly exhausted by the time we arrived back to town and Kirianne and I were kind of hobbling from blister injuries. 

<The welcome sight of town at the end of our hike. What you see is about all there is, it's a pretty small town.>

We decided to eat at a brewpub (La Cervecería) that Jeff and I remember enjoying the last time we were here, cause Jeff really wanted a beer. We inspected the menu before sitting down and I was pleased to see they had a whole gluten free section that looked very promising, including beer! The service ended up being really slow and the waitress had a bad attitude! I tried to order a gluten free beer made of corn, but they didn't have it, and the waitress seemed annoyed that I even asked for it and then further annoyed that neither Kirianne or I wanted anything else after that! So Jeff just got a beer and we got some potato wedges to share which turned out to be quite good, with homemade ketchup and ranch dip. The wrong beer was brought to Jeff and the waitress with the bad attitude muttered "well then, I'll drink it myself," then took her sweet time getting the right beer. I wondered if they had any of the other gluten free menu items, such as pizza crusts and sandwich bread, but I decided against asking. We got out of there as quickly as we could and went back to the vegetarian restaurant. Where we each got a fresh juice, a complete salad and dessert this time, a vegan raw brownie with banana soft serve, perhaps the only vegan dessert we will find the whole trip! It was an excellent meal! By the time we were done with dinner, it was after 10, dinner took way longer than we would have liked, but it was still early from the perspective of the locals! We hobbled back to the hostel and went bed.

February 4th 2015

We collectively decided today would be a day of much needed rest, too much hiking and too little sleep the past 2 days. And luckily for us it turned out to be the best day to do so, as the mountains were clouded over. We slept in til 10 as had a late breakfast of Bobs Red Mill gluten free hot cereal that I brought from home. Today Jeff discovered the free box in the hostel kitchen! It seems no one likes to travel with food (except me!) so between the two kitchens (one on each floor), we got a lot of good food! Three partial bags of oatmeal, 2 partial bags of dried lentils, a half bag instant polenta, 2 bananas, 4 pears, an avocado, a lemon, some mustard, tons of garlic, half of an onion, a can of peas and some spices! I made sure all of it was put to good use! 

For the afternoon we set out to do two short hikes to view points near the ranger station. I guess I haven't mentioned it, but all of the hiking in the area is in a national park, Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. These two view points are ones we skipped last time we were here because we didn't have time. The first one we went to was called Mirador Las Aguilás and had a view looking out across Lago Viedma and towards the desert steppe. We then looped around to another view point called Mirador Los Condores, which had a view of town. We went leisurely, resting awhile at each view, and in all it took about 2 hours. 

<View of the steppe and the road into El Chaltén from Mirador Las Aguilás>

<View of the steppe and Lago Viedma from Mirador Las Aguilás.>

<View of El Chaltén from Mirador Los Condores. It's sits nestled between two glacially fed rivers.>

On the way back to the hostel we stopped at a travel agency and booked a flight from El Calafate (our next destination) to Ushuaia, our final destination with Kirianne. We have chosen to fly because there's no road access to Ushuaia without first going into Chile and it would involve many bus transfers as about 20 hours of riding and skipping the towns along the way. Kirianne flys out of Ushuaia, so rather than try to rush through everything along the way, Jeff and I will just see it on our way back North, at a more leisurely rate. Unfortunately the flight was not cheap (about US$200) and wiped Kirianne out of her remaining cash. So we are now in the process of figuring out how to get her more cash without resorting to using the ATMs that give the horrible official 8.5 to 1 exchange rate. (*We have since learned that there is a road to Ushuaia that doesn't require going to Chile, so we could have taken a bus for about half the price of flying! We probably would have had to change buses in Río Gallegos and it would have been about 16 hours of travel time. The map we have shows no road, but we saw a better one today <02/08> We are annoyed, but there is nothing that can be done now).

We stopped at a few grocery stores as we worked our way back to the hostel. There is no large store, just many small ones, and they all have different stuff. At the first one, we found some great vegan whole grain no artificial anything cookies (2 packs) and the first dark chocolate bar that is free of milk that we have encountered thus far (we got two)! Bariloche is known for its chocolate shops, and I have fond memories of them from the last trip, but it turns out NONE of them have chocolate without milk!! So I've been wanting some chocolate real bad and was extremely pleased to finally find it milk free! We also got some Calafate fruit spread, which is a local berry and legend has it, once you taste it you will have no choice but to return to Patagonia someday. In the second store we got canned Swiss chard, which I'd spotted the day before and couldn't resist trying. And in the third and final store we got carrots and canned corn to make a stamppot and some fruit and dried fruit for breakfast and our next hike.

<Canned Swiss chard! Canned vegetables are better than no vegetables at all!>

<You can buy bread in sheets here to make sandwiches! It is very popular o have two slices of this bread with a single thin slice of ham and a single thin slice of cheese. They are called sandwichitos de miga, not very satisfying if you ask me!>

<The nice cookies we will probably never find again!>

Upon our return we had an afternoon snack of leftover bread (which Jeff appropriated from the baskets of other diners at dinner last night! It was really good homemade whole grain bread with all kinds of neat seeds in it like anise and fennel, and they were just leaving it! Not on our watch!) with Calafate jam, which was real good, dark chocolate (also real good, but sugary) and tea! I then made a lovely stamppot utilizing many of our free food items. It contained potatoes, carrots, canned peas, corn and chard, lots of garlic, free spices (cumin and paprika), onion and a topping of avocado, a mexican stamppot of sorts!

<Mexican stamppot!>

February 5th 2015

Today we awoke early, once again stored our luggage in the storage closet and set out for an overnight camping trip. To begin the trip, we took a shuttle 16km up river so that we could do a through hike back to town, instead of out and back from town. We would be hiking with the primary goal being Laguna de Los Tres, a glacially fed lake at the base of Fitz Roy, the tallest of the granite peaks in the Fitz Roy range. We started out with 3 leisurely hours along the river before we reached the campsite in a nice old growth lenga forest. We set up camp  and set out walking with our smaller lumbar packs. Those are just the top lids to our large backpacks, they turn into a giant fanny pack! It was my first time trying it out, and I really liked it. There were 3 different day hikes we could do from the camping area (Campamento Poincenot), and although we hadn't intended to, we ended up being gone for 7 hours and combining all three hikes. The day had started out cloudy and it began to clear so we figured we better take advantage and see all that we could. We started by following alongside the Río Blanco over smooth fields of large river rock to its outlet at Laguna Sucia. The clouds fully cleared after we arrived, giving us stunning views of the lake, glaciers and the mountains. 

<The view at Laguna Sucia.>

From where we sat at Laguna Sucia, I could tell where Laguna de Los Tres was. I probably wouldn't have know if it had not been for our previous trip here two years ago. Although there wasn't a trail and it was a kind of steep ascent that required a little rock climbing (and some reluctance from Kirianne) we followed the outlet stream of Laguna de Los Tres to the second destination. We figure this saved us at least two hours of hiking back out to the campsite and then back up on the marked trail! Once at the top it became VERY windy! So windy that all of us were knocked over on separate occasions. You could jump straight up in the air and land somewhere quite far from where you started. There was dust blowing all over the place and water from the lake being whipped about. The gusts were quite spectacular! It was kind of neat to witness the power of nature. 

<Another iPhone panorama. Laguna Sucia to the left, where we hiked up from, and Laguna de Los Tres right.>

<My trekking poles flying in the wind. They got above my head on a few gusts! I have my hat pulled down over my sunglasses in hopes of keeping dust out of my eyes.>

<Jeff leaning into the wind at Laguna de Los Tres.>

<The view on the descent from Laguna de Los Tres.>

When we'd had enough wind, we descended on the trail and continued down the Río Blanco to one more lake, glacier and mountain view called Piedras Blancas. We had to climb through fields of huge boulders, sometimes bigger than houses to get to this one! And the wind continued whipping and the dust continued blowing, which can give me occasional blindness with my hard contacts when a speck of dust gets lodged under them, but we persevered! We made it to the final lake and received a wonderful show of nature at its finest: churning waves, clouds of swirling vapor, the result of water being ripped from the lakes surface, cyclones and dust devils and the occasional pelting shower of grit and pebbles, for which we would duck and cover! We thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle! Winds like this are fairly common down here, this is evident in the way the trees grow sideways and with foliage often only on one side. 

<A sunburnt and windswept lenga tree.>

<Laguna Piedras Blancas, the sun was getting low in the sky and making photos difficult to capture.>

<Water and dust blowing at Laguna Piedras Blancas.>

<The impressive boulder field we had to navigate over, it was only rocks and no vegetation closer to the glacier.>

Back at camp we had a pot of brown rice flakes and sprouted mung beans, both of which are quick cooking and great for camping. I brought them from home, and they don't sound very appetizing, but mixed with some

Mrs. Dash seasoning (also brought from home) and topped with 2 avocados from the free bin at the hostel, it was a great meal! Before we could go to bed we had to clean out our tent. A lot of dirt had blown in throughout the day and had thoroughly coated everything inside. We are now wishing we hadn't chosen a tent with mesh walls, as the same thing happened on one of the nights of our trek in Bariloche. Except that on that night the dirt blew in on us while we were sleeping! So we had to deal with dust blowing over our faces, eyes and lips and even inside our mouths while we slept, with little we could really do about it. Having learned our lesson on that trip, Jeff adjusted the rain fly to seal off the tent and barricaded it with rocks and fallen logs, limiting the air flow though. It worked well and we were able to sleep dust free! 

February 6th 2015

We woke up to cloudy mountains again and we very glad we'd done all the sightseeing the day before. All that remained for the day for us to complete was a three hour hike back to town. We slept in and even hiked leisurely and got back to town just before 1. Even though we no longer had a room at our hostel, we went back there and appropriated a corner of the common area and took turns having showers. Then we had afternoon tea with dried figs, our last bar of chocolate and cookies. Then we made dinner which was going to be tacos made from the masa harina that I brought from home, but I accidentally added double the water when making the dough, so our tortillas turned into a veggie, lentil and polenta like stew. By now you're probably wondering how much food I brought with me! It was a whole duffle bag full! 

<Food brought from home.>

<More food from home!>

<Clouds over the mountains on the hike out.>

<Hiking along the river back to town.>

<Town!>

Our bus to El Calafate was at 6 pm and left right from our hostel. It was a double decker bus again, which we hadn't expected and we noticed that the front seats were empty! So I asked the driver if we could have them, and he said yes, so we once again got the front row on the second floor of double decker! It was a great 2 1/2 ride to El Calafate!