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Published: January 30th 2009
Perito Moreno
Our first view of the GlaciarHello and welcome to Blog No. 2!
We last wrote from El Calafate, ahead of our adventures in Southern Patagonia....
The Perito Moreno Glaciar is Calafate´s massive attraction, which means there are not only dirty backpackers but respectable, hotel frequenting, restaurante eating punters too! We did a day trip to the national park to see one of the world's last advancing glaciars. It was a breathtaking site. The sheer size (60 m at the face), the colour, the depth... But, if you looked at the glaciar long enough, if you stood and stared at it for a while, it actually started to look fake and superimposed. Then a chunk of ice weighing more than a house would crack off and crash into the lake below, and you were all of a sudden, very much back to reality!
From Calafate we headed slightly north to El Chalten, one of the climbing and trekking hubs of Patagonia, to work off some of the gastronomic delights of Buenos Aires! It was an absolutely beautiful setting, with snow capped mountains, a winding river, a few glaciars and some shy mountains. When we finally made it out trekking (the first day the area
received 1/3 of their normal winter's rainfall), the sun was shining and the mountains were inviting. Despite the sunny skies, after 6km of distance and 1000m of altitude, we were met by a snow shower at the top of the mountain! The top of Mt Fitz Roy was playing hide and seek with the clouds, as would be expected from a peak at 4500m asl, but the landscape and the view were outstanding. On our way back down, the winds were so strong, we had to be careful not to pick our feet up too far off the ground, or else it would have been a Mary Poppins moment!!!
Camping in Chalten was a change from elsewhere in Argentina. With nighttime temperatures struggling to hold at 5 degrees, we put our thermal underwear to the test! Of everything in our rucksacks, I am most happy for my long johns! From Chalten we headed northwards, to Bariloche and Argentina´s lake district.
Bariloche was back to civilization! The area reminds me of the lakes in Canada, except the backdrop is snow capped moutains, volcanos, and as the lakes are fed from glaciars, it is blooming freezing in the water!!! We
El Chalten
Cooking up a storm at the campsite, wearing every pieces of clothing I brought! (Don´t be fooled by the sun - it was chilly!) had a fab week of walking, cycling and horse riding, basing ourselves at a tranquil lakeside campsite. Camping Petunia offered many free services - including free firewood for cooking and free wake up calls. The latter was somewhat unreliable however - although plenty loud, the scavenging birds tended to sound off about 5am, and not when you actually wanted to get up!
This past week, we embarked on an intensive spanish language course. Unfortunately, and fortunately, neither our teacher nor our host mother spoke any english! A bit difficult at first, but we seem to have picked up loads of vocab and can now bumble through a basic conversation! The hope is that we carry on learning and will be able to communicate in the more remote areas we visit.
We´re off on the night bus to Valparaiso tomorrow and looking forward to spending a bit of time on the Chilean beaches.
Cheers for now,
Dave and Natasha
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Anura
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Vegetarian Restaurent
Hey you two, Glad to hear you are having fun and found a vege restaurent as well!! Please send me a brochure from the restaurent will you? I might visit it one day. Freezing?? You ain't seen nothing. It snowed here in Braga after 20 years last week. Anyway, your photos are fab. So when are you coming back? Enjoy the rest of the tour, don't let the financial crisis affect you.. see you soon.