Thursday, January 28th 2016
Yesterday we had a somewhat miserable day of travel. What was supposed to be a 5 hour trip from Puerto Natales in Chile to El Calafate in Argentina turned into an all day ordeal, due to long waits at the border. For some reason all of the bus companies schedule departures around the same time and all get stacked up for the border crossing. Our bus left at 8:30, and we knew of one other that left at 8. Getting stamped out of Chile went fairly quickly, I suppose as quickly as it can go for a double decker bus full of people from all different countries. The problem was the entrance to Argentina. When we pulled up there was a long line of buses and vehicles lined up on the side of the road going the other direction and just as many going the same way we were. We hurried off the bus to be near the front of the line (for our bus anyway) and found that there were probably at least 100 people in front of us and the line went well out the door. The line was just as bad for people waiting to get exit stamps. We wound up waiting in line nearly 2 1/2 hours, mostly outside, and during most of that time the bus was locked. I wonder how many gringos got a sun burn from having to spend so much unexpected time out in the sun! When we finally got inside the building we found a tiny office staffed with just 3 border patrol officers, and they were handling both the incoming and outgoing travelers. They obviously need more customs agents, but it doesn't seem like it should have taken quite that long! In total, we spent about 3 1/2 hours getting across the border. The line was almost gone by the time we departed, as it seemed no other vehicles going either direction had arrived during that long ordeal. The bus companies should really stagger better!
I was glad that we had some food with us, a little of the stew left over from the previous night and fruits that we ate before crossing the border. We were sure to have the fruit before getting to the Argentinean border, but they didn't even check any bags. I could understand it taking 3 hours if they had to x-Ray our bags like they do at some border crossings!
We arrived to El Calafate feeling tired and hungry with no reservations, no definite plan and no Argentine pesos. The government recently eradicated the black market for US dollars or blue dollar, as it was known. They accepted the black market rate as the official rate and now you get a better exchange rate in the banks. Argentinians are now allowed to possess US dollars and keep their savings in US dollars if they want to; it was previously illegal. Unfortunately, we would find out all of the banks in town close at 1! The blue dollar was taken out in mid December and since, there has been considerable inflation. So everything is more expensive that it seems it should be. The official rate currently is 13.8 pesos per dollar. Chile might actually be more affordable right now. It definitely wasn't last year.
To avoid doing too much walking in the warm sun with our big backpacks, we settled on staying at the second hotel/hostel that we looked at, Hostel del Glacier Libertador. El Calafate is the gateway city for visiting the famous Perito Moreno glacier, and as a result the town and its accommodation fill up during the peak of summer, which is now. All this hostel had available was 1 dorm bed or a $75 private room, but we decided to just take it as we didn't expect much better luck anywhere else. It was the same deal at the first hotel we'd tried. The room is probably the nicest we have stayed in during our travels in South America and is on par with a nice hotel in the US. The nice lady at front desk informed us we could exchange small amounts of money at the convenience store two buildings down, so we did that at a rate of 13 to 1 to hold us over til today when we could go in a bank.
Our goal was to visit Lago Roca during this trip to El Calafate. This is the less busy area of the same National Park that the Perito Moreno Glacier is in, Los Glaciares National Park. There is supposed to be nice camping and hiking out there. We tried to go last trip, but the bus schedule didn't work with our schedule and there were no available rental cars in town. It seems we have run into the same problem again, as the bus goes out there on Saturday and comes back on Sunday. We don't want to sit around here that long, so it will have to again be saved for a future trip!
To offset the cost of our fancy hotel we decided to cook dinner in the shared kitchen they offer. It's neat that they offer a kitchen, cause the place is huge and is really more like a hotel than a hostel. It feels more anonymous and private than your average hostel, which we really like. In order to cook dinner we had to venture into one of the depressing grocery stores of Southern Argentina. Not only does the produce look sad and old but it always feels like the apocalypse is coming and people are anticipating famines, because the stores are always packed full of people and it always looks as if the shelves have been pillaged. Today was no different. We managed to fight the crowds, literally, and get our share of the food! For dinner we had mashed potato and carrot topped with sautéed onion, mushrooms, garlic, tomato and beans and ketchup drizzled on top. A big filling plate of food for $3 each. (: Mushrooms are a luxury item and were by far the most expensive thing we bought, at $2.25, they are about the same cost as in the US. Everything else was in the 25-50¢ range.
During and after dinner we thought about all the possible day tours we could book to pass the time until Saturday, but it ended up getting too late to book anything, so we instead gave up and bought bus tickets to continue on our way to El Chaltén. Tickets were conveniently sold at the hotel front desk.
Included in the cost of our fancy private hotel stay was a free breakfast that the people in the dorms had to pay $6 for. We both ended up eating a bunch of crappy food that we wouldn't otherwise eat! I think that is probably the hardest thing for me about being vegan and also trying to be healthy while traveling, is not getting the same joy out of free food as I used to! I just end up feeling gross and guilty afterward. I should really just stop eating it, I ate GMO corn flakes with tang on them among other garbage! They did have whole grain bread and oranges, which I also ate, so not all was lost.
We had to wait forever in the bank to change money. You take a number and sit and wait to be called up. While we waited we watched television and made it through 5 very cheesy yet entertaining music videos on the top 10 Spanish charts. We have changed a few hundred dollars and plan to be thrifty the next few days to make it last until we depart back into Chile. It's nice being able to exchange US dollars at a fair rate and not have to be hit with ATM fees.
After the bank we walked around the flamingo reserve, Laguna Nimez. This was now our third visit there, I think. I never tire of seeing flamingos. It was warm and sunny today with a very pleasant breeze, and there were many flowers with their wonderful smells filling the air, as well as bushes filled with almost ripe calafate berries for sampling and lovely views of the lake, wetlands and birds. It was a short walk, just an hour was all we had time for before our bus ride.
The good weather continued on our bus ride and afforded us nice views of the Fitz Roy mountain range along the way, as well as views of many other glacier filled mountains. We are lucky to have gotten to see these mountains so many times. For many visitors they remain hidden in the clouds throughout their entire stay. We also saw astoundingly blue glacially fed lakes and rivers, they really stand out against the yellow-ish brown and pale green vegetation of the arid steppe. We also had a few guanaco sightings! I love guanacos! The drive was prettier than I had remembered it being. It was thankfully a short ride at just 3 1/2 hours. We had peanut butter banana sandwiches shortly after getting on, using whole grain bread slices that were squirreled away at breakfast.
Once we got to town we decided we'd camp. We stopped at the first place we saw, Camping Del Lago, with an attached hostel and cook shelter, plus bathrooms and hot water showers. It's great when you can have all of the amenities of a hostel at less than half the price. It costs 100 pesos per person to stay here, which is currently the equivalent of $7.25USD. We especially don't mind camping today, as it's still so nice out!
As soon as our house was built, we headed for La Cevecería, a brewing company and restaurant that we always look forward to visiting. We had a wonderful meal of oven baked potato wedges, veggie pizza and beer.
After dinner we gathered supplies for a hike that we will be doing over the next 3 days. We had to go to 3 different grocery stores to find everything we wanted. The first store we went in was completely barren and we bought nothing. We decided to go with simple no cook foods so that Jeff won't have to carry the stove. We are brining along lots of fresh fruits, bread, rice cakes , peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate bars, cookies, dried fruits, nuts and dried fruit and nut bars that we brought with us from the USA. We were pleased to find that just like last time we were here, there was a cherry vendor, set up to sell cherries from a car parked on the main road through town. We got 2 pounds to take on our hike. We have learned they come from Los Antiguos, "The Cherry Capital," which is 500 miles north. We wonder who brings them here and how.
One more thing we had to do was rent harnesses for a section of the hike that requires a harness and cable to get across a river canyon.
<A nice stamppot style dinner.>
Chaltén>
Friday January 29th 2016
We awoke to another beautiful morning, a great day for hiking! After we packed up camp we walked over to the ranger station/visitor center and registered for the trail. The hike we will be doing is called Paso Del Viento. Since the trail goes father away from town and has few users, you must sign in and out with park rangers. Most other area trails see heavy traffic and can be done as day trips from town. We have been given a permission slip to carry with us and had to show the rangers that we indeed had the climbing harnesses and caribiners for the cable section of trail.
The first day of our hike, we weren't sure what to expect and didn't think it would be terribly scenic, but we were quite wrong! Much of the trail was through lenga forest and open meadows with grazing cows, but we also got plenty of amazing mountain views, as wells as glaciers and their blue and green lakes, lagoons and rivers. Today was a fairly easy day. We spent about 7 hours on the trail, hiking just under 10 miles from town. We had to go up and over a small mountain, from the river valley where the town is located, and into the next river valley over. Once over the mountain we hiked a ways up the valley to camp at Lago Toro (Bull Lake). We had to pass though some deforested areas due to forest fires. When this area was first being colonized by cattle and sheep ranchers, burning everything down was not only accepted, but encouraged, in order to open up the land and create economic growth in the form of lots of livestock. We also crossed many glacially carved streams that were very swollen by late afternoon. Towards the end of our walk we had the pleasure of walking through some forest that was saved from fires and got to see many beautiful old lenga trees.
Our camp in located in a small stand of lenga trees that is sheltered in a alcove of large boulders and cliffs. You can't actually see the lake from the camping area, but it's just a 10 minute walk to the green Lago Toro, a glacially fed lake. We are also right next to the river that flows from the lake, this is the water source that's intended for use at the camp, but it's very silty and were very pleased to find a tiny clear water stream hidden in amongst tundra vegetation not far from here.
<Deforested hillsides as we head down the mountain and into the valley.>
Saturday, January 30th 2016
Today we had a very long and difficult hike up to Paso Del Viento (Pass of the Wind). We had clear skies and no wind yet again, and the scenery was amazing, the best we have seen in El Chaltén. We started around 8, which is apparently quite early. There were 5 other tents in our camp and no one was up when we left. We spent almost 12 hours on the trail, taking our time and taking many rest and snack breaks. The further we walked, the better the scenery got. For the most part the trail was easy to find, but during one section in which we had to walk across the foot of Glaciar Túnel, we lost the trail for awhile. Since glaciers move and melt and the only way to mark the trail here is with rock stacks amongst a sea other rocks, it's understandable that we strayed from the trail. We knew the general direction we needed to go so it didn't matter.
The trail went around Lago Toro, up into some small solid rock hills, over the river canyon with the cable and just kept going up the valley. We crossed over the foot of Glacier Túnel, climbed up alongside of a steep raging river that flowed into the glacier via a large ice cave. We reached a second glacier lagoon lake and kept climbing up and up, all the while with views of the river valley below, two big glaciers and several glacier covered mountains. By about 2 pm we reached the pass. Due to the long day length here, this worked out to be solar noon. Views at the pass were incredible, ice as far as we could see. Even more ice existed that we couldn't see, on, around and behind the mountains. And amazingly there was no wind, so we stopped for a long peanut butter and apple sandwich picnic.
The only people we had seen all day were a pair of climbers/mountaineers coming off the ice field from a 4 day trek. On the way back down however, we began to see more and more people, all of the late risers. They all had big backpacks on though, and we didn't understand where they were going. We ran into an American couple that told us they were hiking to a mountain refuge. We didn't know of any mountain refuge. About an hour later we met a ranger on the trail that was checking permission slips. We were highly surprised but this, and were luckily carrying ours with us! We asked him about the mountain refuge, and it turns out this hike can be done as a circuit in 4 days! We were upset to learn this as we were coming down from the pass with our tent still sent up down at Lago Toro and nothing we could do about it. We would have loved to do the circuit. Oh well! Perhaps it will be another item for our next time list.
This hike is not on any of the park maps, and is not mentioned in any of our guide books. Jeff heard about it last time we were here from talking to people staying at the same hostel we were. I looked it up online on blogs and websites offering guide service, all of the information I found was for hiking out and back from town, never any mention of the circuit!
The hike back down from the pass was much quicker than going up and pretty easy. It only took us 3 hours to get back to our tent, where we had chocolate, cookies, cherries and rice cakes with chocolate hazelnut butter for our dinner.
Sunday, January 31st 2016
The hike back to town was uneventful, but just as beautiful as the hike out had been. It was yet other clear, windless day, which made the going quite hot, especially coming out of the valley and back over the little mountain.
When we made it back to the visitor center and turned our permission slip back in, we asked the ranger about the rest of the trail for our future knowledge. Turns out there are two mountain refuges along the route and it takes 4 days. You come out of the hike at an Estancia (ranch) along the highway into town. It's 16 km from town and there may or may not be a bus back. The ranger also said the vast majority of the people that hike the trail are Israelis. It must be listed in one of their guide books!
By 4 pm we had our tent set back up at the same campsite we had stayed about before, and the sun was still high in the sky. Feeling refreshed from a change in to cooler clean clothes, we decided to do a short hike up to the view point above town. It takes less than an hour round trip and has amazing views of Fitz Roy and the other granite towers that the town is famous for.
After our hike we made arrangements to leave town. We will be hiking to
Villa O'Higgins, Chile via Lago Del Desierto.
For dinner we went back to La Cervecería for a much needed potato refuel.
<View point above the visitor center>
Are these border crossings expensive, as well as time-consuming? Seems like you mentioned this problem on a previous trip. Customs in Europe used to be infamous for delays. Then with the rise of the EU, the 27 member nations relaxed all their border controls - which, a common currency too, made the process a snap. Now, with the refugee problem, I guess border controls are returning. The Fitz Roy range looks very much like the Dolomites in Italy. That's europe's hiking paradise. Sounds like your original itinerary has changed quite a bit? I need to get out my big maps to get a better sense of where you are. Is the new national park still a part of your plan?
ReplyDeleteThe border crossings don't cost anything. The long waits are really hit and miss and seem to correspond with the arrival of tour buses. We are following the general route we had planned to, minus the Antarctica part. We didn't have much of a plan, just wanted to see Chilean Patagonia, with the main goal being to see the Tomkins parks, both of which are still on the itinerary.
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