Patagonia: Buffet for the Eyes

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I´m so glad we didn´t heed fellow travellers´warnings and skip our stay in the El Calafate area. It is by no means shut down for winter, and the landscapes we´ve seen over the past few days have been nothing less than unique and remarkably stunning.

Our first full day started at 4:30AM for a 5:30 pickup to Torres del Paine in Chile. We booked the tour through our hostel at around $100USD for the day, so no small change. The van showed up to collect the four of us just after half6 and broke down about 2 hours into our 4 hour drive to the National Park. It wasn´t all bad though as we got to watch the sunrise on the roadside where we broke down and, with the addition of a Colombian couple, had 3 Spanish-English speakers present to clue us in on what the hell was going on. After an hour or so, a passing van gave us all a lift into the nearest patch of civilization, Esperanza, after several failed attempts to resuccitate the van by adding fuel. We had a good 2 hour or so wait there for our next mode of transport to take us back to EC but fortunately, there was a cafe we could sit in and we got to know our Colombian friends better. We all were well bonded by the end of our excursions.

To compensate for our lost time, etc., we got an afternoon tour of the Perito Morena Glacier on the other side of EC for half price, and our own private guide. The glacier itself is brilliant - a massive expanse of jagged blue ice on a lake, with pieces breaking off and falling in at regular, thunder sounding intervals.

The next day we got off to a much better, timely start, sans-breakdown and everything. We drove through an endless horizon of pure white snow and saw Guanacos, foxes, and hawks. Our guide and driver were fun and knowledgable and packed our day full of waterfalls, lakes, mountain ranges, and short ventures into it all. We got back into EC just after 9PM, so the day was a full one.

Finally, we just got back last night from El Chalten, where we spent a night in a near ghost town since everything was shut down for the winter. We were incredibly lucky with the weather since everyone had been telling us they´d spent days there without being able to see a thing. It snowed overnight while we were there so we woke up to horizons of freshly covered powder. We set off for a hike at around half10, while the snow continued to drift down over us and crunched beneath our feet. It was about 1.5 hours walk through a winter wonderland to the Lake, Lago Capri and its nearby glacier.

The bus that was to deliver us back to El Calafate at 6 that evening was broken down (as we bagan to pick up on the trend) but we were shown a couple of movies on the overhead projector of the hostel and provided with free sandwiches and coffee, so all was good. A second bus drove in from El Calafate to collect us at close to 10, and to our relief, did not break down.

Today we have a beautiful sunny day (after waking up to the 9am sunrise which painted pink skies over the lake and mountains visible from our hostel lounge) to paddle around in town before our evening flight back to BA. We´ve been in Argentina over a week now and I can´t believe how much it´s exceeded my expectations entirely. Next up: Iguazu!

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