January 6 – January 11, 2018
Background
Originally, when Darcy, Sarah, and I had started planning this epic part of the trip, we had wanted to go to southern Chile to do the W Trek, a 5-day hike through the famed Torres del Paine National Park. I had stumbled on this blog post about doing all of the logistics, which I highly recommend reading well ahead of time if you’re thinking of going (link). The gist is that there has been a huge increase in tourists for this trek in the last couple years, and as of 2017, the government changed its policies to require that you book all accommodation in advance, and show confirmations when you enter the national park. Unfortunately, it felt like we were trying to get this together in the peak season at a time of transition when processes are still quite loose and inefficient. There would be four nights to book, two through the government-run campsites that were free, and one night each at a private campsite run by two separate companies. This meant that we had to align all four nights with when there would be availability at each specific location, and that proved to be near impossible. One fun example was that I had contacted one of the two private companies in late October to arrange a booking for one night, and didn’t receive an email response from them for over two months. Granted, this was peak season (summer), but still, definitely not the easiest.
Once we realized that Torres del Paine was going to be too difficult to book or prohibitively expensive, we found out that we could simply fly to the other side of the cone to Argentinian Patagonia instead and base ourselves in Chalten for day hikes, rather than a multi-day trek.
El Chalten
We arrived in the small mountain town of El Chalten around 10pm after the 3-hour drive north from El Calafate where we landed (and where we’d return a few days later). It’s built as a base town to launch off into various hikes in the area, and you can essentially walk straight out your door onto a trail. The craziest part was just seeing how late the sun stayed out (it was basically dusk when we arrived). When we got to the entrance of Los Glaciares National Park, our driver pulled over so we could all get out to stretch a bit and feast our eyes on the incredibly colorful and vast sunset that was unfolding over the Cerro Torres and Cerro Fitz Roy – the two famous peaks in the park. It was also the site of a near-war over borders between Chile and Argentina in 1985.
We stayed at the Lo De Trivi hostel together in a quad room the first night and thankfully they blasted the heat, as we were all unaccustomed to the chilly evening temps. We spent the morning getting breakfast and some groceries for the next couple days and preparing for a shorter hike. As with everything in this town, the hostel and the groceries were crazy expensive. Worse than Alaska. We’re talking about $7 avocados when in Buenos Aires they’re no more than $1. Tuna, eggs, cheese – everything was outrageous. Thankfully we’d brought some goodies with us from Buenos Aires, but still it was quite a shock, as was the $20/p for the dorm room (BA was $11/p for a private room).
Our first hike was to Laguna Torre for the view of Cerro Torre. It was a tough start, straight uphill out of the town, and then coming through a beautiful valley full of brush and shrubs before a final rocky ascent to the lake and view. We wanted to do this shorter hike first as both a warm-up for the longer Fitz Roy hike we’d do, but also because the weather was rainy that day, and at the top of the Fitz Roy trail, the climb would be treacherous and very windy. This also gave us the opportunity to test out our new, matching trekking poles! Small endorsement: if you’re looking to do some hiking, I definitely recommend getting poles as they help absorb the nearly 8x body weight impact on your knees when going downhill, in addition to the balance aspect. We got these poles (spend $60, get $20 off REFTYC0Q42AAC), and they’ve worked great with six months (writing in June) of hiking under them. We were pretty stoked to have them.
Even though it was raining on and off throughout the hike, it was still a tremendous view and a great way to start us off. The vistas were grand and the low-hanging clouds lent an extra sense of awe. The landscape definitely reminded me a lot of Alaska with huge, rolling hills, and lush greenness all around. We made it back to town in late afternoon with enough time for Sarah to grab a smoothie and for Darcy and me to get an empanada (ice cream was postponed). We showered up and had a late dinner – the sun being out so late keeps everyone up later than you’d think – at a brewpub. The service was atrocious, and we managed to get a free round on top of our dinner, but the food was tasty and I indulged in a meatball sub.
The next day was rainy, so we took it as a rest day before our big hike on the following day to Laguna de Los Tres, supposedly one of the best day hikes you can do. Someone told me it was the best day hike they’d ever done. It was 20km round trip, and would take about 8 hours, so we wanted to make sure to not be sore at the start. We also took the opportunity to enjoy some of Argentina’s famed steak for dinner. After a quick mixup on the temperature I’d wanted, which bizarrely, we had discussed in quite some depth with the server beforehand, the delicious steak arrived and was cooked to perfection. Even though I’ve been eating primarily vegetarian for the prior few months, I still love meat, so this was a real treat and was absolutely worth it. In an effort to save cash, we paid by card, but the owner said that because their card machine wasn’t working (of course), we’d have to go to the bar next door and they’d be charging us an additional 11% to use their reader. Although this was clearly bogus, we paid it, and I successfully got Chase to refund that amount later on.
We got an early start on the 9th, and the first hour of the hike was pretty tough going uphill. The Argentinian parks organization puts markers every kilometer, and dang, I definitely thought I had missed one or two as the trail ascended to some fantastic views of Mount Fitz Roy. But, after the initial ascent, we got some respite as the middle few kilometers were mostly flat and took us through some of the most picturesque landscape I’d ever witnessed. On a day with a sparkling blue sky, the snow-capped peaks of the surrounding glacial mountains popped off and contrasted beautifully with the lush greenness of the valley and streams that zig-zagged their way through the trail. One moment we stood for photos in front of the mountain with the valley surrounding us and noticed that there was a heart-shaped cloud above Fitz Roy. Love is always in the air, it seems.
A few km before the final ascent we stopped for lunch at one of the campgrounds on the trail. Being summer, it was completely packed, and it made me itch for a little outdoors time – it would be epic to wake up in the forest of this part of the world. The last “bit” of the hike was a one-hour climb directly up the side of the mountain. It was quite tough, with a few slips here and there along the wet and rocky trail. A good portion of the trail was too narrow to have two people walking in opposite directions, so it provided some good opportunities to rest and let others walk down.
The final moments of climbing were handsomely rewarded as we peeked over the edge and were treated to a otherworldly blue lake that sits in front of the majestic Mount Fitz Roy. It was the type of beauty that moves you to tears. Exhausted and now cold with the severe winds at the top, we bundled up after being in short-sleeves for most of the hike and enjoyed our packed lunch. Then, we scurried down the hill to get right on the lake and enjoy some time marveling at this beauty. Of course, we made time for plenty of glamour shots as well. I nearly fell in trying to get to a cool rock sitting in the shallow parts of the lake, but thankfully was able to stabilize myself or I’d have gotten a good mouthful of that water plus soaked boots.
Despite the warm sun, the wind was oppressive and we weren’t able to withstand it for too much longer. We began our descent, recognizing the need to take it extra slow given how tough it was coming up. I slipped a few times, as a clumsy person would, but the hiking poles certainly helped a lot, and I appreciated them a day later when my knees weren’t sore. The descent, though more treacherous, was more enjoyable since we were able to take in the views with a little more patience and presence. It was truly astounding and something I felt being seared into my memory as it was happening.
The return was the same as the way there, so we got to enjoy some late afternoon sun coming down into the valley and made our way back through the forest to the town of El Chalten. We were pretty exhausted, and had to catch our bus back to Calafate at 7, so we had time to go back to the hostel to shower and collect our things, and the go for a celebratory beer and empanadas for the road. Thankfully, our bus was nearly empty and we got some solid naps in before arriving late to the bus station in Calafate.
El Calafate
This town is a good deal bigger than Chalten, but still has some of the same issues. While there were ATMs here (Chalten had none), all of them spit out our cards for some reason, not accepting them even though they were chip-enabled and had been used successfully in Buenos Aires. Yet somehow, most places in the area only accepted cash. That put us in a pickle when we went to pay for our bus and tour tickets to the Perito Moreno Glacier the following day.
While Sarah and Darcy went shopping for the requisite snacks and wine, I went to 3-4 different banks to no avail. We got to the bus station with only a few minutes to spare. Sarah asked around at the bus terminal and one of the tour bus clerks offered to hold on to her passport as collateral at the counter in exchange for him loaning us some of his personal money. Desperate times. We were near-broke, but at least we had plenty of wine.
The Glacier is the main attraction of Calafate, as well as it being a pretty cute town full of restaurants, cafes, and tons of outdoor gear / clothing shops. It’s definitely an expensive place though, and more so if you can’t get any cash out. The hour-long bus and entrance fee to the park put us back over $50 USD, which was a quite large amount, considering that doesn’t even get you any “activity” once you’re there besides marveling at the glacier. For a few hundred more, you could kayak around the glacier or even take a helicopter to do a hike / walk on it. Next trip.
We walked some of the seemingly brand new walking bridges that face the glacier to get different views of the behemoth. The ice field, which the glacier connects to at the top, is the third-largest reserve of fresh water in the world, and the glacier is actually advancing, unlike most of the remaining glaciers in the world. It is 97 square miles, which I just found out is more than 4x the size of the landmass of Manhattan and larger than Buenos Aires. Just ice. All ice. It’s definitely something to behold, and can really just be watched, waiting for chunks of ice the size of houses to calve off the face. We saw this a few times and heard the thunderous rumblings a few other times. We thoroughly enjoyed our wine and cheese celebration here, and tipsily waited for the bus to return us to Calafate for our flight the next day back to Chile.
When we returned, we ended up paying back the tour clerk in three different currencies (Argentina, Chile and US) to get Sarah’s passport back. Then, we tried to get our hostel to arrange a pickup for us for the following morning to the airport and had to deal with the same issues as we pulled up to the departure area. We learned that our flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago had been delayed without our knowledge, but managed to get some free airport meals in BA as compensation. I found the gelato shop in the Buenos Aires airport and then we nervously awaited our flight as we would have a tight connection to our bus leaving Santiago that night. We told Adina the situation, and even asked her to buy us some groceries for the weekend in the Valle del Elqui, as things would be quite scarce / expensive up there.
We landed and dashed through customs and to the parking lot. We caught an Uber who got us to the bus station with minutes to spare. Sarah and Adina hadn’t seen each other in 6+ months, so there was a very exciting reunion to be had. Strangely, I’d seen her a month prior in Guatemala, but it was still so fun to see her in her “home” country for the year and meet one of her friends who had accompanied her to the station. Finally, we were able to take out some cash for the next few days and board our overnight bus to La Serena, where we’d then transfer to a minibus to Pisco Elqui, a tiny town in the region known for producing the eponymous and nationally renowned liquor called pisco.
