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Published: March 24th 2014
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After reaching El Chalten the hard way and having already seen Mount Fitzroy in the dawn light, we decided against embarking on one of the many treks from the town and instead settled for a tasty pizza, a few beers, a "real" coffee and a warm bed for the night. El Chalten is beautifully situated overlooking Los Glaciares National Park and has ample trekking opportunities straight from town but not much for those who are not feeling very energetic, so as our legs refused to walk up anymore mountains, we jumped on a bus out of town the next day.
Our next destination was to the slightly larger town of El Calafate, which shares its name with a wild berry found growing all over this area not dissimilar to a blueberry and very tasty. Legend has it that if you eat a calafate berry then you are destined to return to Patagonia, so seeing as we found a very tasty calafate berry pie, we may be destined never to leave Patagonia.
There is only one reason people flock to El Calafate and that is to visit the nearby famous Perito Moreno glacier and we were no different. A one
hour bus ride, the usual parting with a number of pesos to enter the national park and there before you is this massive glacier. The glacier grinds and cracks its way down the valley before big lumps of ice break off the front with a huge bang and shatter into the turquoise water below. Listening to the glacier and watching it calve was an incredible experience and we could literally not take our eyes off of it for one minute. We were very glad to have packed a few of our usual cheese butties (livened up by a miniature bottle of red wine as a way of celebration), so that we did not have to leave the glacier and miss any of the spectacular ice falls whilst eating at the cafe.
Eventually, we had to tear ourselves away from the glacier and head back to town. We spent a few more days in El Calafate, visiting a museum and a very wind swept bird reserve (we decided the reason all the birds were there was because they could not risk taking off for fear of being blown clean over the Andes).
Heading south again, we crossed back over
into Chile to the town of Puerto Natales. We had heard of and read much about the Torres del Paine national park and its famous "W" trek, for which the town is the main jumping off point. We were undecided regarding the trek as it takes 4-5 days, some good camping gear is essential and the closest thing we have to any camping gear is two plastic forks and a couple of tattered ponchos. However, a quick chat with the friendly staff at our hostel revealed that all the gear could be hired from them pretty cheaply, including some extra thick fleece jackets, plus the weather for the next few days looked pretty good. What probably swung our snap decision to do the trek though was that we could still reserve the nicest double room in the hostel for when we returned ahead of a German couple who were still dithering (oh well, you snooze you lose), decision made.
So having stocked up with packet soups (only chicken flavour available), pasta and various other (according to Liz) "essential" items like ten chocolate bars, we squeezed all our equipment and provisions into our huge rented backpacks and we were off
(well we were off once Liz had managed to actually pick up her small person sized rucksack, who we named Clive, wrestle it onto her back and stand up without toppling over backwards anyway).
We took four days and three nights to do the "W", adding a little bit extra to the standard trek (just a further, rather painful 16 km) on the last day, just for fun... and because this saved around £25 for a ferry. It was fairly tough going (understandably as they are the Towers of Paine!), especially carrying all the gear, but it was really worth it. Yes there are a lot of other people on the trail and camp sites but the scenery is incredible. We had a great four days of hiking and whilst it was cold at night, we only had one morning of rain, so the camping was good (probably won't be able to face chicken soup again for a while though).
So after a good rest up and no small amount of congratulatory feeding, we left Puerto Natales and headed down to Punta Arenas, where we spent a day or two checking out some interesting museums and wandering along
the sea front watching dolphins and bizarrely two hairy dogs, who just loved to swim right out to sea trying to catch the sea birds for fun. We also celebrated Shrove Tuesday in Punta Arenas, discovering the wonders of dulce de leche pancakes. The main reason for us being in Punta Arenas though was to catch the 30 hour ferry down to Puerto Williams, which is situated alongside the Beagle Channel and is about as far south as you can go anywhere in the world, short of going to Antarctica.
Puerto Williams is very much the end of the world, it is a small and incredibly friendly little town. The main form of employment is fishing for king crab (which we discovered tastes amazing). The weather is as changeable as you can imagine it would be only a stone's throw away from Cape Horn, but we managed to do some great walking in the forested valleys and up in the mountains. After a couple of days we figured we had pretty much done enough and were all set to take a small boat over the Beagle Channel and back into Argentina. However, the Patagonian weather had other ideas and
became stormy with a good dose of snow thrown in. Needless to say, the boat did not leave and so we decided to buy a couple of tickets for a more reliable mode of transport, the small plane that left everyday. This meant a change of plan by not going to Ushuaia in Argentina, but flying back to Punta Arenas and having to spend more days than anticipated in Puerto Williams (as all flights were booked up for a few days).
In all we spent ten days in Puerto Williams and ended up feeling like locals by the time we left. Patty, the hostel owner and somewhat of a local legend, was very friendly and cooked some fantastic meals (mainly king crab or local beef washed down with a good dose of Chilean wine or a Pisco Sour) for the guests and what seemed like half the town, all served around a communal table with festivities often continuing until the early hours. The other guests were a great crowd including three slightly eccentric Swedish geologists who were doing some research work in the area, a French architect with a desire to become a fisherman at the end of the
world and a couple of Swiss backpackers. Once the weather calmed down we were able to hire some bikes and explore further along the coast, as well as climb back up the mountains to see the tops covered with snow, a sign that we should really start heading north.
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