Blogs from El Chaltén, Santa Cruz, Argentina, South America - page 10

Having spent a very noisy night in Camping Municipal, at Los Anitguos, we got off to an early start with a long day ahead of us. Our route took us east to a small town in the middle of nowhere, called Perito Moreno (nowhere near the glacier of the same name) and then we began our toue south on Ruta 40, ‘La Cuarenta’, famous as Che Guevara’s route down the country in his motorcycle diaries. Ruta 40 runs over 3,000kms from way up on the northern border with Bolivia, right down to the Atlantic coast at Rio Gallegos. La Cuarenta is an incredible road across arid steppe, stretching for endles miles of empty nothing, with huge skies and crazy-shaped clouds blown by the Patagonian winds. Every 50kms of so you may see another vehicle, but it ... read more

We've been on the road for a few days now, and there's a lot we've seen and enough to tell. First off, in stark contrast to the fabulous bus service that puts Greyhound to shame, my trip from Pucon to Bariloche was a pain in the ass, with a two hour delay caused by (1) some sort of mechanical issues and (2) a wait for some other bus to arrive so that we could add a few passengers. Not going into any details on this, since it won't interest you or me to read about. Suffice it to say that instead of arriving in Bariloche at 8pm with time to see some of the town, I arrived at the hotel where I met my dad around 10:30pm, luckily having met a couple of Israelis while waiting ... read more

The next few days were spent in and around Los Glaciares National Park, a UNESCO world heritage site and the pearl of Argentine Patagonia, a spectacular region of mountain peaks, lakes and glaciers. We drove from Puerto Natales to El Calafate, staying at the Hostel del Glacier Libertador. El Calafate was originally founded to set up an Argentine presence in a region disputed with Chile but recently has developed as a tourist hub, primarily to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. The next day we went on a day trip to visit the glacier, one of the few in the world that's still expanding. The glaciers here are formed when clouds from the Pacific rise when encountering the Andes, dropping huge quantities of snow which over time compresses to form glaciers that carve valleys down to the ... read more

For future reference, walking a round of golf does not keep one in shape! This has been made quite clear to both of us. I knew I would regret not hitting the gym before we left, but thought, well, we will just do the ´easier hikes´. Only problem - there aren´t any. All seem to be 4-5 hours one way! But for some reason we were determined to do the Fitz Roy, since, unlike Torres del Paine, the view is not magnificantly displayed in front of our campground. So on Tuesday we took the 3 hr bus ride to El Chalten, which is considered quite a mecca for climbers. The bus was immaculate and had 2 great signs displayed in the front of the bus clearly written in both Spanish and English. No eating on the ... read more

Ran out tonight. Just as the sun went behind the mountain, I ran East out after it. Coming out of town, the road descended slightly and I could actually see the shadow of the mountains creeping fast up the hill in front of me. But Rocinanta was faster. I tweaked the trottle a little more, and rode back into the sunlight. It was a fabulous moment, all the better because of where I was and where I was going. For most of the ride from El Calafate to El Chaltén I'd been giddy as a child. The massive spires of Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre shot up into the first perfectly clear sky I'd seen for weeks. I saw them the moment I hit Ruta 40 coming out of El Calafate and they grew taller ... read more