The Perfect Sunrise Minus One Tripod

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I have backdated this entry and it will speed through several locales with the most important being Mount Fitzroy located in El Chalten, Argentina. This is Sara by the way. We last left you at the Torres del Paine in Chile following an expensive lunch and a dusty bus ride. We then spent two nights in Peurto Natales eating wonderful vegetarian food, getting our laundry done, and doing some serious R & R following our tough trek. Our hostel was wonderful, with a great breakfast and the manager was extremely helpful and nice. We left on Peurto Natales on February 14 for Calafate, another touristy town but this time in Argentina. We were worried that our food would get confisgated in Argentina if we had anything fresh since the border crossing to Chile had been so strict. Argentina is very relaxed, they just stamped our passports and didn´t even check our bags. IT was too bad because Peurto Natales had the Dried Fruit guy and there has been nothing like it since. Calafate was an extremely nice, albeit touristy town but we had been unable to book a hostel in Peurto Natales so we were a bit worried about finding a place in a busy town. Fortunately (or later as you will see, maybe not), there were people handing out flyers of hostels, so we picked the first one, Aves de Lago (Birds by the Lake) which sounded eco-conscious and very affordable. A few other people picked the hostel and we set out with the manager. Twenty minutes later we were still walking and the road had turned from paved to dirt, the hostel was probably a mile away and on the absolute edge of town. It was beautiful, near a bird preserve, but a little remote. We dumped our bags onto the somewhat uncomfortable bunk beds and tramped back into town to book a glacier tour of Perito Merono Glacier. We efficiently accomplished all our town needs and luckily, the glacier tour provided transportation from our crazy far away hostel.

The glacier tour was expensive, but absolutely fabulous. It provided a bus tour of the glacier with an excellent English speaking guide, time to explore the boardwalks giving breath-taking views of the glacier, a boat ride past all of the huge floating ice sculptures, and last but not least, a tour walk on the glacier. None of us have ever walked on a real glacier like this (Matt, Sahale glacier doesn´t count), and it was like being on a planet of ice, a moonscape. There was clear blue ice and streams everywhere, and 300-500 year old ice tastes really good! The walking tour ended with whiskey and bon-bons served right on the glacier. We topped off the long, thrilling day with at an absolutely fabulous Argentine grill restaurant, Casmiro, (recommended by our Italian friend Lorenzo) which had excellent meat (according to Matt), great vegetarian dishes, and perfect wine and dessert. It was a long but wonderful day, and our four course meal with wine cost $15 per person. However, since we were only spending two nights in Calafate and had an early bus out to El Chalten and Mount Fitzroy the next morning, it meant a late night of rushed packing since we were leaving most of our bags in Calafate. The next morning we woke up early because our bus was leaving at 7:30 and we knew it was a 15 minute walk at least. We were all packed up at 7 am and ready to go, unfortunately, the front door was locked from the inside. We searched in vain for a key or another way out, and Matt even went out the window and came around the front to see if he could open the door, but no luck. We definitely could not fit our packs out the window without taking everything out of them either. Then a Swedish girl who also needed to leave noticed that the back door wasn´t locked and we quickly moved all the stuff out of the way and ran for the bus, lugging our packs. Buses run on time in Argentina and Chile, and they don´t wait for passengers. Fortunately, we arrived sweaty and out of breath at the bus about 5 minutes before it left. The bus ride itself was uneventful but the bathroom stop was quite exciting. The patagonian landscape is home to thousands of wild guanacos, which are closely related to llamas and alpacas. At the bathroom stop was a somewhat tame (from feeding which we did not partake in), adorable baby guanaco which I got a few kisses from (their lips are so soft and dextrous). The view of Mount Fitzroy as we arrived was nice but somewhat obscured by the clouds. Little did we know that it was the best view we were going to get for the next two days... (I have to go now as our bus will be here soon, more on the sunrise later)

We arrived in Chalten by bus to an instructional lecture on proper camping techniques in Fitzroy which was very humorously given by a park ranger. He told us that the dogs in Chalten were so smart "that it is almost like they speak english to you" and the "caracaras like spaghetti so much it is almost like they are italian". After the bus, we ate a subpar but cheap lunch but missed the 1 pm shuttle to the upper portion of the park where we would be hiking. Since it was raining, we decided that the best way to spend the 3 hours was eating ice cream and drinking hot chocolate at a local heladeria. Ice cream or helados is fabulous in both Argentina and Chile and a large portion of the calcium in our diet seems to come from daily helpings of helados (Matt is particularly susceptible to this craving). Instead of a shuttle arriving to bring us to the trailhead, a taxi arrived and we were a bit perturbed because we could have just gotten a taxi ourselves. We had planned to do a 4 day hike and hit the trail at 5 pm on the way to our campsite on an easy and well maintained trial. Along the way, one of the most striking birds we have seen so far, Magellanic woodpeckers. They are beautiful, the males have red heads with a crest and black bodies with white on the wings. The females have black heads but the crest comes to a curlique over their head and they look like characters from Dr. Seuss. When we arrived at our campsite, we found out that we had forgotten the stakes for the tarp at the hostel in Calafate. Luckily, Matt is an engineer and Jill and I have lots of common sense so we gerry rigged the tarp with 8 stakes that were usually used for the tent and Jill and I scoured the campsite for stakes that were left behind and came up with three so we could stake out the tent. The next morning was cloudy and as we hiked back to the road, it began to rain steadily. As we became soaked, talk of bailing out of the hike and getting a hostel became rampant among the sodden troops. When the shuttle arrived at the precise moment that we stepped onto the road, we took it as a sign and hopped on board. After some minor difficulty finding a hostel with room, we took off our rain gear and settled in. Of course, the rain stopped and the sun found a way through the clouds in the afternoon (Patagonia is notorious for its fast changing weather), but Matt was feeling under the weather so it was for the best. Also, it gave us a chance to check out a wonderful restaurant, Feurio Bistro, with highly recommended vegetarian options as well as wonderful carne for Matt. After several ok meals in Argentina in Buenos Aires and Peurto Natales, we finally found out how great Argentine food can be in El Calafate and Chalten. The key is too pay a little bit more but it pays off in spades with fabulous desserts and excellent main dishes. The next morning Matt was not fit for hiking so Jill and I set off for a night at the foot of Mount Fitzroy at Campamento Poincenet. Along the way, we did a day hike to a lake with a glacier and ate lunch which was unfortunately downwind of the pit toilet or banos. When we arrived at Campamento Poincenet after a day of on and off wind, we could not see Fitzroy at all. In fact, we had not had many good views all day save for a few pretty lakes. Everything was enveloped in clouds and mist. However, the campsite was set in a pretty forest and bustling so we cooked dinner and set the alarm for 5:30 am so we could see the sunrise. It was the coldest night that I had spent in a tent in a long time and it took us awhile to warm up and fall asleep (it didn´t help that after our heavy packs and warm weather on the Torres del Paine we had forgone our heavy weight long underwear for a lighter pack). At 4 am I woke up to the call of nature and discovered the moon and stars bright in the sky. I knew the sunrise would be wonderful but I could not force myself to get out of the sleeping bag at 5:30 to the hour hike to the viewpoint. We decided to get up at 6:30 knowing that the mountains would be visible if we just hiked a few minutes from our campsite. Indeed they were and stained a brilliant pink color. Unfortunately, it was still so dark that without the tripod adapter (Matt invented this metal contraption that allows you to use three trekking poles for a tripod), I could not do them justice and the pictures were fuzzy. Fortunately, as it lightened the mountains turned orange then gold then grey and these 100 pictures or so are in focus. Matt still laments the fact that I did´t have the tripod, but mostly he regrets not seeing the sunrise. He did do a quick dayhike up to a great viewpoint so he could see the mountains in their full glory. Lorenzo had said that Fitzroy was even more beautiful than the Torres del Paine, which we had been scoffing at since we got to the misty, sodden park. However, he may be right because the mountains and all their features are striking in the sun. We ate a wonderful lunch at the only place in town that serves lunch at 11 am (everything is late in Argentina, dinner is usually at 10 pm). Dessert consisted of pears soaked in a Malbec and honey reduction and was the perfect ending to our wonderful last day in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares.

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Photos

Perito Moreno
The view of the glacier´s front face.

Sara and Jill. . .on a Glacier
Though we were quite safe, so the parents shouldn´t worry.

Magellanic Woodpecker
These were probably the best looking birds we had seen up to this point, seen on our hike to Lago Electrico. They didn´t seem to mind our presence, so we sat watching them for some time.

Mount Fitz Roy
Sara and Jill viewed the sunrise on Fitz Roy, but this is the view that I had when I felt better.

As We Leave. . .
The helpful bus driver let us get off and take pictures of the full Fitz Roy range, including Cerro Norte (on the left).