Mountains, ice and sunsets

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Day 32 to 39 (23^rd to the 30^thMarch) El Calafate



The bus trip from Puerto Madryn to El Cal was long, another overnight on a bus, but enjoyable as it was along the coast for a time. As I got closer to El Cal I started seeing snow capped mountains and brilliant blue lakes. The big hills up to the hostel are worth the climb as the views are amazing. I am stay in IKeu Ken, a lovely homey hostel, with friendly helpful staff and lots of friendly fellow travellers. The directions I got to the hostel we complicated as there are very few road names here, also most of the roads are dirt tracks, so I wasn't sure if I was on a road at all. Once I got to the hostel, I looked down on the town and realise better directions from the bus station would to leave the station by the main street and look up, high on the hill there is a big pink hotel, aim for this as the hostel is on the same road 3 houses down.

On Tuesday (24th) and Wednesday I explored the town and surrounding hills. I found small park, with information about explorers of the area and some native plants as well as for some reason engines, I think it was to show the growth of the town, from the explores to the development of the petrol engine, but it was kinda lost on me.

On Thursday I went on a Mini-trekking trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier. The day started early with a pick up at the hostel in a mini bus then transferring to a huge bus in the town before collecting some more people from fancy hotels before we headed to the National Park. The bus got there at 11ish, after stopping to pay the entrance to the park, ($215 for tourists, $18 for residents!) We had two hours to explore the board-walk and look at the glacier, as the glacier is constantly moving at different rate, the middle centre is faster than the edges, the front edge of the ice is not supported and often bits crack off into the water,so it is amazing to watching bits of the ice fall. Listing to the loud crack sounds wondering where the next bit would fall from. After lunch we headed to the boat for a 20 min trip across the lake to get to the edge of the glacier. While the guide was explaining about the ice and what we would see on the glacier a huge wall of ice fell, that was awesome to see. Then it was time to get our crampons on and start trekking. We spent 2 hours exploring the valleys, hills, skin-holes, and crevasse of the ice, a very enjoyable experience, before getting the boat back to the bus and then back to the town. That evening some of the people in the hostel we all going for dinner so I joined them, for a very enjoyable steak dinner with drinks afterwards in a Library bar. There was live music which was nice to listen to. On the way back we got escorted home by some of the many stray dogs around this town. Other than my total terror of being jumped on by these wild dogs, when we got back to the hostel they caused a fight with the hostels dog, so there was barking all night.

On Friday afternoon, I went on a Safari Experience, this I was disappointed with, as all the animals were very far away and also not many to see. I had seen guanaco, rhea and rabbits closer on my trips in Puerto Madryn than I did on the safari, but it was enjoyable to be up in the hills looking down on the town. A lamb stew was served in a traditional guacho summer home, which was a nice experience. As we were so far outside the town, the night sky was amazing and lots of stars visible on the clear night.



On Saturday, I went on a tour/trek in the "Bosque Pertrificado la Leona". It is a huge expanse of a dried out/petrified river bed/glacier valley. From El Cal, we took the route 40 (the south american version of route 66). The trekking was on sandstone hills, up and down for about an hour and a half before we ended up on the river bed. I got to hold real dinosaur bones, (they were not of historical importance as it was to hard/impossible to identify the dinosaur from the bone, the best guess was part of a leg bone. Only when partial skeleton are discovered can they determine the type. The single bones could have been uncovered by wind erosion then blown around the valley, so unless more of the skeleton is discover, the bones are left in the valley for people to see and touch. I also saw trees that had been petrified (turned into stone), they were burnt on one side, which suggested that a volcano had come through the area, pushing the flat plate up to create the Andes and surrounding mountains. On the hike I saw lots of fossils from the sea bed, the guide explained that the area was a river, then covered with the ocean before becoming the dry valley is was now. It was very interesting as also I got to hold a dinosaur bone!

That night few of us sat around in the hostel, swapping travel stories and sharing experiences, on what to see and avoid in the next stages of our trips. Sunday was then spent refining the plans. My next step is to take a 28hr bus to Bariloche today (Monday), due to time, money and poor weather conditions, I have decide that not to head to El Chalten or continue to Torres del Pine in Chile. The weather for the rest of this week in those areas, is to be rain, snow and temperature highs of 4 degrees. People were saying in the rain the visibility was so poor, while hiking the W they couldn't see the sights. 😞 Some of my friends are going to waste some time in El Chalten waiting for the weather to improve before starting the W, but I decided to move on, so much more to see, and hikes (and better weather) are available in Bariloche too.

One thing I forgot the mention is the amazing sunsets and sun rises, because the hostel is so high up, the view of the sun rising (about 7.20am) over the mountains and then setting turning the sky red/orange/pink and purple, we have all sat outside on the porch watching show most evenings.

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