South

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Well I seem to be struggling with keeping this Travelblog upto date. I cant beleive so much has happened since I last wrote!
Anyway, on with the story...

...arrived in El Bolson, an old hippy town, very quiet but it was nice to relax there for a couple of days before trekking for 3 days 2 nights with Rachael. It was a tough trek, what made it worse is that we were so busy chatting away that we lost the path and continued for about an hour and half in what seemed to be impossible terrain, scrambling up the side of a mountain, losing our footings and sweating hard. We managed to rejoin the trail and it soon became a pleasant trek with lovely scenery. We were carrying our own tent, sleeping bags, mats, camping stove and food for the whole journey so we weren´t travelling light, but when we arrived we were rewarded with beautiful location´s both nights and were able to make our own camp fires.

We left El Bolson and wanted to head as far south as possible because we both felt time was running out. We had to get a few busses to reach a place called El Calafate and it took about 28 hours to get there!! It was a long journey, our longest so far and also the most boring but it was worth it too get further south and miss out on overnight´s in places where we didnt want to be. El Calafate was a nice enough town but we only went there for one thing, too see the Perito Moreno Glacier, which we did.

The glacier was impressive but what everyone wanted to see were chunks of this glacier falling off (except one girl at the hostal who thought it was sad that we were waiting for something that is bad to the environment to happen!! just to put into context, this glacier grows 2 metres every day, it´s one of the few glaciers in the world that is still growing!). So Rachael and I sat there for maybe 40 mins and then it happened, a huge piece fell into the water with a loud thunder - very cool!

So now it was off again to a place called El Chalten, a few hours north of where we were, this time it was to see Mount Fitz Roy. When we arrived late at night it was bitterly cold and very windy, this wasn´t encouraging as we were planning to trek for 3 days 2 nights and camp along the way! We set off the next day and found the trek very easy, so easy in fact we managed to do what we wanted to in just 2 days and 1 night, the problem however was that the view of Mount Fitz Roy was cloudy, but we still got to see amazing glacial lakes and some impressive peaks, just not Fitz Roy!

From El Chalten it was back to El Calafate because this was the only place to get a bus to our next destination - Puerto Natales. It wasnt too far but we had to cross over to Chile which took some time, when we got there we hurriedly bought provisions ready to complete the Torres Del Paine ´W´circuit, 4 days 3 nights of trekking, carrying all our own equipment again and camping in this beautiful national park.

The trek was 86 kilometres and in 4 days that was an average of 21.5 km per day, quite feasible, although weather was to play a part. The first day rained a little, but didnt dampen our spirits and the night was cold. The next day was windy, we arrived at a campsite, set up our tent and then continued trekking to a viewpoint of the Torres del Paine towers. As we got nearer to the viewpoint it began to snow and it continued to do so the whole time we were there, but it was beautiful and we enjoyed the snow, thinking of a white xmas back home! The next day we were lucky and had good weather, this was to be our longest day and we had the most distance to walk, we arrived at the campsite late in the evening and it was very cold, we quickly cooked a meal, pasta again! and then it was into our sleeping bags to try and stay as warm as possible. The next day we were up at 4am with a 45 minute walk to the most famous viewpoint and hoping to see the sunrise, however walking in the dark with a headtorch trying to work out where the path goes is not easy, we saw some headlights in the distance on the other side of the valley so we crossed and started to follow them. It soon became clear however that we were on the wrong path, in fact we werent on a path at all, we found ourselves once again struggling to keep any grip on the screed of the mountain side. Once at the top we could clearly see the other side of the valley was the correct side as we could see a whole stream of headlights moving slowly upwards. We cut our losses and headed for the other side pushing hard to make it to the top before sunrise - and we did! As we stood there at the top of the mountain with a dozen other people waiting for sunrise, it started to snow! and snow heavily!! We lasted 30 minutes but soon we were cold and it was clear that we were not going to see the sun for sometime to come. It was back to our tents for a quick nap and then off for the return bus back to Puerto Natales.

In Puerto Natales we had decided to take a chance and go to Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world with a chance of getting a last minute ship to Antartica...

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Photos

Camping in El Bolson
Hielo Azul trek

Perito Moreno Glacier
El Calafate

Torres del Paine
Chile

Torres del Paine
snowing at 5am