Advertisement
Published: June 11th 2022
Edit Blog Post
So instead of going all the way to the tip of the continent, we instead turned around and headed up route 40 to visit Patagonia, the huge region that tends to border Chile all the way up until wine country.
Our first stop was El Calafate, recommended by cousin Mike and hugely popular for both international and Argentinian tourists for the giant glacier. When we got into town we were immediately charmed by the wide array of boutiques. There they have a local berry, the Calafate berry. We were able to taste an Alfajor (omnipresent cake available in all flavors that you can find just about everywhere in Argentina, either in Industrial or hand made form, I became quite addicted to these) made with these berries. Also remember those cute Guanaco's? Yes we did try a stew made out of one and it was quite good. Also the local trout was nice. We did go see the glacier which was breath taking and still quite huge.
Our next step up route 40 was the exceptional El Chalten. There I had not realized how cute and cozy a town could be. And it was packed with tourists! But they were
all lovely and hiking types. El Chalten gives off a ski town vibe. The restaurants and bars were all lovely and the perfect thing after a day hiking around. We went up on the most famous trail, the Mount Fitzroy where you can see the big glacier at the top. It was terrible weather, freezing rain. But we were actually really well prepared and did not suffer. We came back and had some wine and pizza and were as happy as could be.
I did not mention that in the beginning of the trip we had the impression that Argentinian roads were swell. This became FALSE as time went on and we were continuing on our way.
North of El Chalten was a beautiful dry area where we came to a scenic loop. On the loop was one such terrible roads but we were determined to visit la Cueva de las manos. This world heritage site was famous because it is one of the best preserved evidence of prehistoric people who happened to live off Guanaco's. They also liked to make prints of their hands on the wall with some sort of mineral paint.
Further on we
rounded the loop and stayed at this free and publicly managed campsite at Parc de l'Ascension. We were happy to have a safe and quiet place where we could make a campfire and even use toilets.
The next day we went for a nice hike in the park, saw a pack of Guanaco's..then we drove on to Los Antiguos, said hi to the border of Chile and turned back around.
The next region started to get really green again and wet for we were entering the route of the seven lakes. There are the big cities of El Bolson and Bariloche which we could have spent way more time in but well we only had a month and were determined to get to Iguazu before the end of it. So we got a lovely hike in park Huapi where we basicallh went straight up but not for too long and found a fabulous view waiting for us as well as another glacier. Although we loved stopping in the cities to eat (parilla, swiss restaurants with trout and cheese... glorious) we fled at night to the outskirts as we were sleeping in our van.
We got
Mt Fitzroy hike
I love how they give you a shovel to bury your poop to a point where we really really needed to do laundry and decided to stop in Villa la Angostura to do it. This is a really charming village where it apparently rains most of the time and was so that day. Well since we had to wait around for our laundry we decided to go to the little museum of modern art to kill time. There we met the director of the museum who also happened to be a sculptor. He was extremely friendly and interested in us visitors. So we ended up exchanging numbers and he said if we needed anything to let him know.
Well we decided to have dinner with him and we visited him and his girlfriend in their container home. That is to say it was like a cabin in the woods heated by a wood burning stove and made out of shipping containers. I thought that was so cool..well we had a nice pizza dinner and they were trying to explain Peronist politics to us (not on the left or right but also both of those things... the Argentinians might be a tad complicated culturally) when we had to make a dash for
our laundry. Andres kept messaging me on WhatsApp though after we left sending me art exhibition request for submission. I had told him that I was not an artist but he did not seem to like that answer. His girlfriend was a political artist and also an illustrator for books.
So we headed up. Next we checked out this village called Saint Martin de los Andes. This is another example of an extremely charming village in Patagonia with shops you would love to visit if you had not shown up during siesta hour ahem that lasts all afternoon. Instead we got in a nice walk up the hill (entrance strangely has a wastewater treatment plant for the village). Well we left without really saying hello and slept somewhere along route 40 as we entered the long stretch of dry nothing in the state of Neuquen before wine country.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0425s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
John Foley
non-member comment
pictures are stunning...
...beautifully composed. Nice work!