Feb 2008

From El Chalten I think I did my longest bus journey so far, 31 hours spread over 2 nights and a day with only a couple of short stops. The distance wasn´t even that far, about 1600km, but mostly on gravel roads so the bus was just slow. Arrived in Bariloche early in the morning so just spent the day wandering round the town. It is a big tourist town as it is in an amazing location, by the sound of a huge lake, surrounded by mountains and a national park. In the winter it is apparently very good for skiing, but at this time of the year it was good for all other outdoor activities. So I went on a days kayaking trip on one of the lakes. It was a bit disappointing as we didn´t actually get to spend much time kayaking, as we seemed to spend as long having a coffee break as we did actually paddeling.
I also spent another 3 days hiking and camping in the mountains in the national park. The weather was great, although it did make it very hot for hiking a lot of long steep hills in the sun. It was worth it though as the campsites I stayed at were in amazing locations. The first one was at the top of a mountain pass, by a lake, surrounded by towers of rock. I spent a very nice afternoon lying by the lake watching people climbing with the condors flying overhead. I did wish I had some climbing gear with me though.
I also spent a day cycling the circuito chico, a famous route through the national parks which passes by several different lakes and through the forrests. It was very hilly but for once the hire bikes were really good and there was plenty of time to stop for breaks on the beaches and walks in the woods.
From Bariloche it was another overnight bus ride (only 20 hours this time) to Buenos Aires.

From Punta Arenas I went back to Puerto Natales so that I could get a bus across the border to Argentina. I spent all day there just trying to buy a bus ticket, but eventually had some success and left the next day. My plan was to get a morning bus to El Calafate (a town just across the border), spend a couple of hours there getting some money and food for the next few days, then get the evening bus to El Chalten in the Fitz Roy national park. The first bus was fine, no problems with the border crossing, just a nice welcoming sign which said ´Welcome to Argentina, the Falklands belong to Argentina¨. Arrived in El Calafate and went to find a cashpoint. There were 5 in the town, all had run out of money and the 2 places where you could change money were closed as it was Sunday. So I ended up going to a hostal, explaining that I had no money but needed somewhere to stay until the banks opened the next day. Later on I found another place that opened in the evening where I could change money, so I was able to sort out a bus ticket for the next day.

El Chalten is a small town only founded in the 1980s (because of a border dispute with Chile) and its still under going a lot of development. There isn´t a lot there at the moment but it looks like it is being made into a big tourist destination. Its in an amazing location, situated below the Fitz Roy towers in the National Park and is a perfect place for hiking and climbing. I spent 3 days there, hiking and camping, even though the weather wasn´t the best for it. The day I arrived it was so windy in the town it was difficult to even stand up and all the roads are just gravel tracks so everything was covered in dust. But I still enjoyed it because of the spectacular scenery and good hiking.

From Puerto Natales I headed further south to Punta Arenas where I spent a few days before starting another 5 day hike. It´s the most sotherly town on mainland South America and it´s an incredibly windy place. Sometimes they put up ropes on the corners of the main square to stop people getting blown away. Stayed in an interesting hostel, run by a Chilean Rastafarian who played Bob Marley 24 hours a day. The town had a couple of interesting museums and a big, very elaborate cemetry that was interesting to visit. Also went to see a penguin colony on Isla Magdelena. There are about 120,000 of them nesting on the island and we were able to walk around the island. Some of them were very curious and would come right up to you and even pecked at my shoes. We spent about an hour there watching them going in and out of the water, waddling about, climbing up and down the cliffs etc. They are really comical the way they jump down little steps on the cliffs and slip and regain their balance.

On Sunday the other people going on the hike arrived at the hostal and we got everything organized ready to leave on Monday. We had planned to do a 5 day trek to Cabo Froward, the most southerly point on mainland South America. We caught a bus to start of the trek at about 7.30am and were walking shortly after 9. Initially we walked on a gravel track between the beach and some woods, along the Straits of Magellan. We could see across to Tierra del Fuego and occasionally dolphins broke the surface of the water. In the afternoon we walked along more beaches and through the woods to our first campsite by a disused house, which provided a good shelter for cooking and a fire. We had a late start the next day (about 12pm) because we had to arrive at a major river crossing at low tide to make sure the water was at its lowest point. We crossed a smaller river straight after leaving the camp and then after more beach walking we entered the turbal. I don´t know what the English translation of this would be but it was a dense extremely muddy woodland followed by a long stretch of bog. After this it was time for the river crossing. We all stripped down to our undies and held our rucksacks over our heads and waded across. It was nearly chest deep and very cold, but luckily not too fast flowing. After that we had to scramble arouind a headland to reach the 2nd campsite. It rained hard all night and we got up early at about 6.30am in order to cross the nearby river at low tide. But after all the rain the water level had risen and was very fast flowing so we decided we wouldn´t be able to get across and returned back to the camp. We built a fire to get warm and dry out all our wet things from the previous day. There had been fresh snow on the hills in the night and as that melted during the day it became obvious that the river was not going to go down. So we had no choice but to head back. So in the afternoon we headed back to our first campsite. The first river we had crossed was much lower than it had been, probably because of a lower tide, so we were able to get across just rolling up our trouser legs. But after all the rain we had a further 2 rivers to cross. On the way there we were able to just step avross them, but on the way back it was more knee deep paddleing, made a bit more difficult as we had to do it in the dark this time. The extra rain also made crossing the turbal even more intyeresting. But eventually we all made it back to the hut, soaked and covered in mud.

The next day was sunny and quite warm (for Patagonia) and we stayed at the campsite until about lunchtime before heading back to near the bus stop, where we camped in the woods. Early the next morning we caught the bus back to Punta Arenas. Despite not making it to the end of the walk it was still a really good trip as we got to a very remote part of the country and experianced some true Patagonian weather.

From Puerto Natales I spent 4 days hiking the W trail in Torres del Paine National Park. After taking a bus and a catamaran I arrived at the first campsite late in the afternoon so just spent the evening there and started walking the next day. The campsite was quite civilised with toilets and showers and you could even get a beer. The backdrop to the campsite was superb with huge mountains and the lake. The mountains are two tone; pale granite up to a certain point and then topped off with dark rock.

The next day I started walking by about 8am to get away before it got too busy, as at this time of the year the park is packed. The hike went up through a valley to a viewpoint looking over the end of Glacier Grey. The glacier ends in a lake which had a lot of icebergs in it from chunks of ice falling off the end of the glacier. While I was sat at the viewpoint another chunk of ice fell off with a huge crash that echoed round the valley.After about 3 1/2 hours we reached the Refugio Grey and climbed to the top of a rocky outcrop for views of the glacier. Went back to the campsite where I spent another night before moving on the next day.

On Sunday the main part of the walk was along the Valle Frances. It was another good walk along rocky ridges, through woods, with views of the mountians and glaciers all the way along. At the head of the valley you could see the back of the Torres and lots of the other mountains. From the Valle Frances I continued walking to the next campsite at Los Cuernos, another nice site under the mountains beside a lake-

The next day I set off for the campsite below the Torres. After walking along the side of a lake, the track went up and over into the next valley. After putting up the tent it was a 40 minute scramble over bolders to the viewpoint at the base of the Torres. The view was amazing, huge towers of granite above a lake and glacier.

The final day I got up at 4am to climb up to the Torres again, in time for sunrise. I was one of the first people to get to the top and it was still dark but it was stunning sitting there in the silence with the moon and the stars and a red glow of the sun starting to rise in the distance. Sat there for a couple of hours watching the light change as the sun came up, then went back down to the campsite for beakfast and to finish the walk. It was only a couple of hours walk down to the bus stop to get the bus nack to Puerto Natales. Then we made our way down to the end of the trail where we waited for the bus back to the park entrance and our bus to Puerto Natales.
Spent a couple of nights in Puerto Natales before moving further south to Punta Arenas for a few days-