El Calafate is a strange town, which is purely there as a tourist springboard to the sights surrounding it. The streets consist of chocolate shops, ice-cream palours, restaurants and bars, which may sound like heaven to some, but in reality it gave it a bit of a souless feel. We managed to find a good campground on the outskirts of town situated by a pretty stream - they even offered us our third night for free which was a real bonus for our tight purse strings.
The next day we caught the bus to the Perito Moreno glacier. The Argentinians have recently constructed new and extensive walkways on the hill directly opposite the glacier, which enables joe public to view the colossal lump of ice from different vantage points. We were blown away by the utter size of the glacier, which put the one that we had walked on in Canada to shame. It is one of the few glaciers in the world that is not receeding, which means that whole chunks can, and do, fall off without having an impact on it´s size. It seemed to be alive, and we stood for four hours, watching this beast creak and crack. Every so often piece
s of ice the size of tower blocks would sheer from it's face, smashing into the water below with gut wrenching, thunderous noise echoing throughout the valley. We even heard, but didn't see, pieces dropping into the mighty cravasses inside this awesome icecube. It really was quite something.The day after I was feeling pretty lousy with a stinking cold - the journeys had finally caught up with me. Still, we caught the bus to El Chatlen, which was only about 3 hours away, and we expected the scenery to melt away any feelings of ill health. James also promised me a nice easy day of walking to begin with. We stopped at the entrance of the National park, where we had a really useful talk from a guy from the visitors' centre. He furnished us with a map of the different trails we could do.
James formulated a plan - we would leave the bulk of our things at a campsite in town, hike up to another one just at the base camp of Fitz Roy mountain, set up camp there and then continue to the lagoon just at the peak's base. As we had limited time there and I wanted us to make the most of it I agreed.
The start of the climb was pretty tough. The hour of walking uphill coupled with my cold left me wheezing, but after this initial push it seemed to flatten out. We reached the lookout after another hour or so, which granted us a great, but far away, view of the Fitz Roy peak. It helped that we were blessed with glorious sushine. This boosted us to push on for a further two hours hike, which took us to the basic campsite nestled in the woods.
We pitched out tent and emptied most of our daypacks in preparation for the final ascent of the day. We had been told at the talk that this section was not only challenging because of the gradient, but also quite dangerous in parts because of the loose rubble. He was not wrong. The first part was tough, but then it got harder and harder, until eventually we had to scramble up the last section. I'm hoping that it was my illness, and not my level of fitness, meant that the supposed one hour climb turned into an hour and a half.
At the top we were superbly rewarded by a view of the lagoon, formed by glacial, milky blue water, with Fitz Roy soaring high from the waters edge, and the peak crowned with the setting sun. Turning our backs to this was just as stunning, as we had risen so high that we were given an eagle eyed view of the valley.
The descent was even more hair-raising, and I my trusty walking poles saved me on more than one occasion. We managed it down in one piece, and sat by the river to eat our sandwiches. So much for the easy first day, huh?! The sun was dropping low in the sky, and the temperature was dropping even quicker. We looked enviously at the people around with campstoves, cupping their hands around steaming cups of soup. We decided to make an early night of it, and wrapped ourselves in our sleeping bags in an attempt to get warm.
At around 2am my eyes shot open, or at least I thought they did. It was so pitch black in the tent that I couldn't even see the outline of James lying next to me. It was cold, and I was surprised that the down sleeping bag hadn't been able to warm up my bones. I also needed the toilet, but there were several things stopping me. Obviously it was bloody freezing, and the thought of getting out of my sleeping bag was pretty horrendous. Secondly, even with my head torch, the depth of the night's dark was all a bit too Blair Witch for my liking. Lastly (and probably my biggest reason) was that the toilet, and I use that word very loosely, was disgusting. Seriously, I have seen some pretty gross toilets at festivals in my time, but this took the biscuit. It was a cubicle with a hole in the ground - that in itself wasn't too bad, it was the fact that more than a couple of people obviously had digestive problems and had missed the rather large target. Anyway, I think you get the picture...
The next morning we got up and got moving in an attempt to warm up. We walked a less popular trail, which links the two main hikes of the park and takes in the "Mother" and "Daughter" lakes. This was a much easier start to the day. After a couple of hours we linked in with the second trail, which lead to the Laguna Torres, another impressive glacial lagoon. We stopped for lunch here, and basked in the sun. James fished out a chunk of glacier which had broken off and floated near the shore; I was poised with my camera in case he fell in.
We made our way back into town, which took another 4 hours, and despite me feeling a bit dodgy, we'd had a really great couple of days hike. We set up camp where we'd left our bags, and then went on a mission to find some heartwarming grub. We were not to be disappointed, and managed to find a hostel restaurant which served cheap and delicious dishes with huge portions. We both opted of lasagne, but I'll admit that it was so meaty that uncharacteristically I was unable to finish it, and not even James could bring himself to polish it off. It was just what we needed.
The next day we spent chilling and walking around the town. We hadn't been in contact with the outside world for a number of days, but there wasn't anywhere that we could use a computer without having to take out a bankloan. In a way that was pretty liberating, as traveling and updating can get pretty full on, but we also knew that it would mean a mass update when we eventually were able to find internet access.
We left for our return to El Calafate early evening; once there we headed straight for our campsite. On the way we bumped into Dean (the one from Rio who had forgotten his boots). It turned out that he was catching the same bus as us in the morning to Puerto Natales - we all agreed what a small world it was.
We decided to eat at the campsite restaurant as they had great food at a reasonable price. We were the only ones in there, which was fine to begin with. Then, one-by-one, a group of musicians strarted to set up to the side of us. They were playing for the evening, and had probably hoped that they would have more than an audience of two. They awkwardly joked that it would be like a serenade. They were pretty good, but as a fellow musician I really felt for them, especially as we had to leave early due to an early morning departure the next morning.
That night the campground was noisy. One of the blokes in a tent near to us was drinking and talking really loudly. This in turn was sending all the stray dogs completely loopy, and they were chasing each other around the tents, growling and yelping. By 4am people in the tents around us started to hurl abuse at him, and eventually a man from the tent next to us gave the bloke such a dressing down that it managed to silence him...for a while. At 6am he started up again, but this time he was just making a loud wailing noise about once a minute. Luckily we were due to get up to catch the bus anyway, and when we did we found a sea of beer, wine and spirit bottles all around the ground. By that point we were pretty happy to see the back of the campsite and get on the bus for Puerto Natales and the crossing into Chile.
Thank you for sharing your adventures with us. I think you both have a future in travel writing.
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