AspiringNomad

It’s hard not to get sentimental about my trip to South America as I think back to all the incredible things that I have been lucky enough to experience over the last couple of months. However, I will try my best not to get too emotional in my final couple of blog posts!

We (Chris and I) picked up our 4×4 Nissan Frontier pick up truck in El Calafate with ease. We were slightly disappointed as we had booked for a Toyota Hilux but as it turns out, the 4×4 was a smooth drive and it still looked pretty cool so we settled for our modest Nissan and set off to our first stop, Glacier Perito Moreno.
We entered the National Park with no expectations. We knew what a Glacier looked like and had seen photos online of this place but as we turned the corner and were faced with a colossal sized ice block we were both blown away!
We pulled over at the first mirador we came across to take some photos. We had only been here an hour and already we were taken back by the beauty of Patagonia. We continued on and parked up nearby. There was a well established walkway that lead you on a few different routes to give you the best views of the 70m tall glacier. It was quite hard for the eyes and brain to comprehend the scale of it as we looked out from the boardwalk.
We could only see the edge, but the Perito Moreno spans over 830km2 across Argentina and Chile and is the largest ice Glacier in the southern hemisphere. We stayed here for quite a while before deciding it was about time we headed up to El Chalten. El Chalten a town about 5hrs North (or so Google Maps told us).
It took us about 3.5hrs to get there in the end. The roads were luxuriously straight and flat through the flat lands with the Patagonian snow capped mountains on the horizon. I don’t think I’ve used so many different descriptive words than I have over the last 6 days. Everything is either ‘spectacular’ or ‘stunning’ or ‘beautiful’ or ‘breathtaking’ or even ‘insane’, the list goes on!

At about 8:45pm we arrived in El Chalten. We were surprised that the sun was still fairly high in the sky but happy that we had arrived in daylight. Sunset in this place is about 9:15pm! As arranged with our booking.com accommodation owner, we turned up to the Pachamamma Supermacado and asked for Antonio after grabbing some supplies.
Antonio took us to our accommodation. As expected, he tried to fob us off with the cheaper apartment which we made a conscious effort to avoid (we paid a little more for a decent view and newly furnished apartment).
Luckily Chris’s spanish skills managed to get us into the apartment we had booked for. Albeit we had to wait for it to be cleaned (not ideal at 9pm) but I would have waited a long while to avoid going into the apartment painted in neon green with a pebble printed shower curtain!

Once in, we cracked open a bottle of red and planned our trek for the next day. The Fitz Roy Peak is the most well known in this area (see all the branding for your Patagonia clothing- that’s the Fitz Roy mountain range).
The Laguna Los Tres is what sits just beneath Fitz Roy and there is a 10km trail leading there from El Chalten.
The following day we grabbed some snacks from the nearby store and headed out of town at about midday estimating it would take us around 3hrs from the information we had.

To my delight I had met my competitive match in my fellow traveller. The Austrian Mountain Goat (aka Chris) was flying up the trail overtaking all the other slow coaches on the way! We took in turns to set the pace and made it to the summit with a couple of stops on the way within about 2.5hrs. We made a 400m climb in the last 1km which seemed more like a ramble. Legs shaking and aching at the top, the view more than made up for it. We found a comfy spot on a large rock that had been warming up throughout the day, the cool breeze from the glacier kept us at a perfect temperature and we tucked into our snacks. Chris took a nap, which I have discovered he can do almost anywhere, whilst I took in the view. After an hour or so we headed back down. After discussing how we seemed to be do the whole hiking thing better than all the other people who had all the gear and no idea, we unintentionally challenged ourselves to get back in good time. We discussed going for a burger, chips and a beer when we got back to El Chalten and so there wasn’t much holding us back. 2hrs later and we returned. Burgers, chips, mozzarella sticks and beer was had to celebrate our hard work.

The next day we were a little achy so took it easy. We organised a two day camping trip for the second half of our Patagonia adventure and decided to do a short hike to Chorillo Del Salto Waterfall that afternoon. The waterfall is about 2km out of town. We took snacks (which was now a necessity), plenty of water and lots of mosquito spray.
The waterfall was beautiful. We dipped our toes in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall as the sun fell behind the cliff face, ate our sandwiches and Chris managed to have another nap on the warm rocks before we headed back.
We had a lovely meal at a smaller restaurant in town. The wine was probably the best I have had so far in Argentina (still only £9).

Wednesday morning was an early start for us. We hired all our camping equipment from Baja Zero in town. Tent, roll mats, sleeping bags and cooking equipment. We repacked our large backpacks for two nights and began out first hike to Laguna Torres. We had been told by a local information office that this one has a lovely campsite and would be good for the first night. The first 3km had a fairly steep incline and then the rest of the trail, 6km, to the campsite was fairly flat. Of course, we didn’t let this slow us down, despite the added weight we still absolutely smashed the hike and got the campsite in good time (and before everyone else, which meant we had full choice of pitches). The tent was idiot proof so we had no problems putting it up even though neither of us have much camping experience. We then walked a little further to admire the Laguna and the Glaciar. Another spectacular view of the surrounding mountains as well as the one we had hiked to see. Of course, it wasn’t long before Chris was napping on another warm rock as I snacked on our supplies.

As we returned back to camp, looking forward to our basic tuna pasta dinner, we were greeted by new neighbours. They were German and after a little complication over the fact that they had stolen our eating area we soon realised that they had slightly blown us out of the park in terms of cooking equipment. As w ate our pasta straight from the cooking pot we looked over to see that in true German fashion, they had everything INCLUDING a portable kitchen sink packed with them!

The following morning, as we had our cereal bars and coffee from the polystyrene cups we had saved from a coffee we had in town the previous day, the Germans were busy cooking Porridge with nuts and chocolate chips which they had separately packaged in sandwich bags.
If I am completely honest, I quite enjoyed our peasants breakfast and found it very amusing that there was such a difference in our camping styles. We satisfyingly packed all our things and headed off before they had finished washing up their cooking equipment (not that there is any competition or anything, but if there was, we would have won). We treated ourselves to another delightful lunch when we returned to El Chalten (and a couple of beverages).

El Chalten has a ski resort vibe to it. Lots of wooden bars/pubs with basic but tasty food available, loaded fries, burgers, tacos, that kind of thing. We paid a little over the odds for everything just like you do in a ski resort. There was one main street that sold everything you would need for staying in the area and all the buildings and people were prepared for cold weather. This week however, we got really lucky. There was hardly a cloud to be seen, the wind was low and the sun was really strong. Apparantly people come to El Chalten and never seen the Fitz Roy Peak as it is too cloudy. But for us, there wasn’t a day that we couldn’t see it.

Once we refuelled, we headed off to our destination for night number two, Lago Del Desierto. We were told that this was pretty little spot to camp 40km North of El Chalten. We were far from disappointed. The camp site was beautiful. It was nestled in a forest at the foot of the snow capped mountains. In fact, I could see the snowy mountains from my ‘bed’ in the tent. We set up camp, made some more pasta and cracked open another delicious bottle of red. It’s hard to go wrong with views like we had, good wine, a full stomach and a cosy tent to crawl into when it got too cold outside.

Chris and I are both coming to the tail end of our travels. We reminisced on our time in South America, what we have learnt from our experiences, who we have met and what we hope for when we return home.
Saturday morning came around and we packed up our things for the final time. We had a flight to catch at 9:30pm this evening from El Calafate so we had just enough time to fit in a hike to the Laguna Huemul.
Just like the rest of our trip in Patagonia, the Laguna Huemul left us speechless. The bright blue lagoon looked unreal next to the contrasting colours of the green trees, red flowers, blinding white snow and rocky cliff faces. For the last time we found a warm rock to relax against whilst having our snacks.

As we chilled out on the top we discussed that the trip back to El Calafate was going to be tight. Somehow, we still thought we had plenty of time to take in the views.
Soon enough, we raced back down. We had time for some camp pasta for lunch and finally showered. After a couple of days without one, it was getting desperate!
Alex and Emelia who were on the campsite asked if they could grab a lift back to town with us. Emilia was from Buenos Aires and was doing a season in El Chalten like most of the other workers and Alex was travelling from Australia. Apparantly he was only meant to spend one week in El Chalten but has now been there 3 weeks after meeting Emelia.

After dropping the pair off, Chris and I headed for a coffee at our favourite little cafe in town. Not sure if it is a particularly good trait but we seemed to be so laid back about the fact that our flight was fast approaching, we even treated ourselves to an empanada each. We finally left El Chalten and realised that we really were quite short of time. Fortunately the straight flat road meant we got to El Calafate in half the time that Google suggested. I won’t tell you how we managed that but let’s just say I am glad there were no speed cameras on the way!
You’ll be pleased to know that I am now on said flight, we made it with loads of time to spare and I even got to meet the infamous ‘Dan from Huacachina’ at the Airport who I have heard about from the other people in our friendship group.
He was also in El Chalten with one of his friends who happen to be on our flight.

We are due to land back in Buenos Aires at 12:30am. Kalib has kindly said that we can crash at his place from a while before all 3 of us need to get on the 5am flight to Mendoza for our last get together before heading home.
To say I am sad about this is an understatement. I wish I had more time to travel around Argentina and all the other amazing countries in this part of the world.
For now though I need to focus on the fact that my ear has swollen around the piercing I had done in Cusco and engulfed the ball of the stud. The group have already suggested that they may need Van Gogh my ear in Mendoza but I am hoping there might be a less painful way to solve problem. Hopefully I return home with both ear still intact.