Monday i went to see the perito moreno glaciar in el calafate, argentina. its absolutely humongous. my tour picked me up at 8am. i was the second person to get picked up. the only other person on the bus was eitan. i swear this boy has been following me...i´ve lost him now that i´m in chile. we met at retiro in buenos aires when we were getting on the bus to puerto madryn. we were in the same tour for puerto madryn. then he showed up at my hostel in ushuaia and now the same tour in calafate. anyway, we went to the glaciar. first we took a boat and got pretty close to the glaciar. then we hiked with the group along side the glaciar, which was pretty awesome. we got to the camp-like area where the lookouts were and i bumped into my spanish travelling buddies. they were doing everything in reverse. we walked around the lookouts, which were the closest part to the glacier and then had lunch in the rain....and it was chilly out. from there we went back to the bus and chatted with the driver. upon arriving in town, we went for ice cream...i had already had calafate, which is a berry, ice cream, but he wanted to try it. then we walked around until i had to catch a 6pm bus to el chaltén with the spaniards.
i met them at there hostel, where the hostel paid for us to take cabs to the bus station and be put on a bus to el chalten. on the bus we met three porteñas who were going to hike fitz roy also. they were hilarious. they were all in the forties or fifties and had way too much luggage. we´re talking actual suitcases....to do the same thing as most backpackers. the ride to el chalten was amazing. it was up the ruta 40, which is a dirt/gravel road through the mountains...but more like along side the mountains.
in el chalten, we found our hostel and went to sleep. we were sharing a room with an aussie woman who spoke a little bit of spanish and was somewhat confused by me...everyone is. i had to do a little bit of translating between her and the spanish.
tuesday, we woke up at 7ish to take a van at 8am out to an estancia. from there we hiked 2 hours up this hilly area to the base of the fitz roy (granit rock formation mountain thing) lookout. it was a really nice hike through the woods and we could see a glacier from the lookout areas. we crossed a one-person-only bridge over this stream to get to the laguna de tres lookout area for fitz roy. getting up that part was really difficult because it was mostly rocks and very steep. my asthma started to bother me a little bit. alicia and i took the climb slowly, while piluca and pedro went really fast. we couldn´t even see them for parts of the climb. when we finally reached the top, the view was georgeos. however, fitz roy was covered with clouds, which was kind of sad. hiking down was actaully really hard to do because we kept slipping on the gravel.
when we got to the bottom, we ran into the three porteñas who were on their way up. they were absolutely hilarious, their clothing also. we´re talking camo spandex pants.... they besoed us and kept going. from the bottom, the clouds lifted and we could see fitz roy. which was kind of a disapointment, because we had just been up top and took 1.5 hours to get there and now we could see it perfectly. anyway, it was still amazing. we hiked down to the town which took another 2 hours. when we got there, we had been hiking 7.5 hours. it was tiring, but really fun also. then we went to a cafe and i had a smoked trout and lemon tostado (tosted sandwich). i love fish, so it was super yummy. then we caught our bus back to el calafate...4 hours. i slept the entire time.
in el calafate, we had a private room with a bathroom en suite, which only cost 3 pesos, 1 US more. it was super nice because we were really tired and had to wake up at 5 am wednesday morning.
wednesday, 5 am came way too quickly. we woke up and had breakfast in the hostel. then we went with a tour bus to the border, which was 3 hours away....i slept the entire time. we did all the usual border crossing formalities, except this time they took my entrance card, which they didn´t do the last two times i left argentina...i hope i get another one when i re-enter in bariloche....from there people changed money, which i had already done in el calafate. we went to the torres del paine national park. the excursion was ok. it was really sad because we couldn´t actually see the torres. they were covered in clouds and fog. it was also a really cruddy day...rain and wind like crazy. we walked 10 minutes to see a waterfall and we almost couldn´t get there it was so windy. most of the excursion was spent on a bus. the lakes we saw were really georgous, so that was nice. and we were able to get really close to some guanacos, which are lamas. we had lunch at a refuigio, which was expensive and not that great. i was debating staying there for the night, but the guide told me that the weather was so bad that it probably wasn´t worth it. i would have probably had to camp anyway. it was super sad that we couldnt´see the torres, we saw the cuernos though. i talked to some people who had been there for two days and they hadn´t seen the torres at all....so sad because its expensive to get in and expensive to be there and all that. from there we took half the group back to the boarder where they would return to calafate. we were then taken to puerto natales, chile. we stayed at a hostel where i met three people who were going on the boat also. wednesday night i went out for dinner with the spaniards.
thursday morning i woke up really early to say goodbye to my friends. pedro wanted to take me with them. alicia was really sad to say goodbye also. then i went back to sleep until 9ish. the hostel breakfast was amazing. it was tea, cake, crackers, bread, and jam. this hostel owner is super sweet. she´s an older lady and her teenage daughter lives with her in the hostel. they cook and are soooo nice. the people in my room are chad, english, sammy, aussie, and shivon (not spelled like that), irish. we are such a weird english speaking group....we´re going to be together on the boat also. anyway, they slept and i walked around thursday morning. for a connection point, puerto natales isn´t that bad. its a cute town with a personality. i walked through the working class neighborhoods where there were fisherment taking today´s catch out of coolers in the trunk and putting them in plastic bags to hand deliver to the houses. from there i walked the coast and saw the ferry. then i walked back towards the hostel and bought some fruit and veggies. i met up with my new travel buddies and we ate lunch while watching the oc in the hostel kitchen. then we walked around a bit more and checked-in at the boat. i´m soooo excited!! we board in a few hours. i´ll blog from puerto montt or chiloé, my next destinations. get out your atlas, mom....besos!!
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