The next stop is on the Argentinean side of Patagonia, the Perito Moreno glacier. I booked a bus with Guy to El Calafate, about 6 hours away. The border crossing was very laid back. Fortunately Argentina stopped charging Americans the reciprocal $160 we charge them a few years ago, otherwise this would have been quite costly. In fact Argentina is a great deal right now, as their currency has been devalued greatly against the dollar. Due to the inflation there is actually a cash shortage currently, and what I didn’t know was that you can only take out $40 at a time from the ATM (in this city at least), plus a $6 fee. 15%!! If I had done my research properly I would have known to bring some nice crisp $100 bills and exchange them here, alas. The best thing to do is just pay everything by card.
The first thing I notice when walking in El Calafate was how chic and modernized the shops downtown were compared to other places in South America: stylish boutiques, fancy chocolate shops, high end outdoor apparel, etc. You just had to ignore some of the Argentinian dysfunctions like the long lines at the ATMs and gas stations. And there was a great beer scene as well! There were a bunch of burger and beer pubs with lots of varieties on tap. Artesanal is the Spanish word du jour, basically how we use the word ‘craft’ – artesanal beer, artesanal sandwiches, artisanal turds on a stick, whatever. I was very impressed with the happy hour specials, $1.50 for a pint of good draft beer – but only if you pay in cash. I liked the place immediately! Me and Guy ended up going out for dinner at a very highly rated place, I had huge skirt steak, well marinated and cooked to a perfect medium rare (something hard to find in other part of S. America!!), plus two glasses of wine, for well under $20. Excellent value!
The following morning we got picked up and headed to the Perito Moreno glacier, one of the many arms of the Southern Patagonian Icefield. It’s ice wall towers 200 feet above the sea level, continually breaking off giant chunks of ice (ie calving) as the glacier continually slides downward. In the park you walk along the boardwalk listening to cracks in the ice, hoping to catch a glimpse of part of it flaking off. You hear lots of guttural creaks and moans, but it’s tricky to see the ice calving. We got lucky and saw a big ‘ole piece fall off right in front of us, making a thunderous roar and huge splash when it hit the water! It was spectacular.
first glimpse
happy to have gotten it on camera!
whooosh
We also did a boat trip to get right up close and in person with the ominous wall of ice. In some spots it kind of looks like fingers, reaching up from the icy depths and frozen in place. The color is eerily blue. The ice isn’t blue of course, but it looks that way from the refraction of the sunlight or something. In the photos it’s tricky to get a good feel for how tall the thing is without a frame of reference!
the fingers
We spent one more night in El Calafate drinking craft beers and then it was off to El Chalten, the most impressive spot in Patagonia on the Argentinean side. The town itself is small and super touristy, pricey, and jammed during high season, but I’m sucker for good beer bars overlooking the mountains, so all good. The hostel I had booked was actually overbooked, so they sent me a mile away, all the way at the far end of the main road to a different, much crappier hostel. But whatever, I had a bed and it was half the cost of what I would have paid. And it did have a bakery attached. The owner clearly paid much more attention to the bakery than the hostel itself!
road to El Chalten
So the most famous mountain in El Chalten is Mt. Fitzroy. It’s kind of cool because it dominates so much of the skyline and is easily visible from anywhere around it; unlike the Torres in Torres Del Paine, which are tucked away and have very few good viewing points. I decided to do a one night overnight hike where I would camp near the base of Fitzroy and then hike up to the lagoon to catch the first light hitting the mountain early the next morning. And then pumping out another 18 miles or so to make a complete loop.
a cloudless morning
When I started that afternoon the clouds had rolled in and the tops of the mountains were almost always shrouded, the peaks at least. Sometimes the sky would tease you, making it look like it was about to clear up, but nahhh. After 3 hours I set up camp and decided to go up to the lagoon that evening, hoping maybe it would clear up by the time I got up there. You could see almost all of the mountains, just not the tops, but I decided I would really be kicking myself if I waited till the next morning and it turned out to be really cloudy and you couldn’t see anything!
Damn it cloud, move!! I waited 30 minutes at the viewpoint and this was the clearest shot I had.
Some cool trees
An hour later I was at Laguna Los Tres, and it was buenisimo! Probably one of the prettiest mountain lakes I have ever seen. I thought it was better than the vaunted Torres Del Paine! The mountain chain is just more in your face and imposing than TDP, even if you can’t really tell from the photos. They make you feel very small! And there were very few people around as it was getting pretty late into the evening. It was too bad the damn clouds seemed to cling to peaks like seran wrap! I did get some cool photos of the falcons hanging around up there though! The wind was really whipping, so I couldn’t stay for too long and headed back down to camp. When I got back down and looked up again the clouds had cleared completely, aghgh!
Laguna de los tres
lucky shot
the view from near camp around dusk, clouds finally gone from Mt. Fitzroy
The next morning I woke up 4am and started the hike back up again. It was not looking good as all the mountaintops were covered in clouds, and something would have change drastically in the next hour to be able to see them for sunrise. In Patagonia you never know! It was clear in the opposite part of the sky where the sun was coming up, so we were able to see an extremely red/pink alpenglow on the lower parts of the mountain –it’s actually shocking how bright it was! – and you could only imagine how awesome it would have been if you could see all of Fitzroy and Co. unobstructed by clouds, but that was not the case this morning. Bummer. I hiked backed down, made breakfast and continued the rest of the hike, but it looks like the clouds weren’t going anywhere that day. I was glad I made the climb up the evening before!
Hello from the other side! The sun rising behind us.
Amazing Alpenglow. Really stunning stuff. Stupid clouds though.
The other lagoon on the hike, low clouds still looming
not bad! but you get spoiled after Fitzroy
Back in town that afternoon I took a nice nap and then was able to find the one bar in town that had NFL games! I saw the second half of the Chiefs game, and then I was able to watch the Packers hold on against the Seahawks to get into the NFC championship game. Excellent. The next day I was going to do a day hike, but clouds still hung over Fitzroy, so I was just bummed around all day and then took a night bus to get back over to the Chilean side of Patagonia again. The Carretera Austral. At this point the Argentinean side mostly just goes up through the desert for a long time, while the Chilean side has much better scenery. It’s supposedly remote though, much of this road is unpaved and what little of public transportation they have through this region can be often booked up in advance or unreliable. So I might have to do some hitchhiking! We’ll see! Carretera Austral is up next…
Go Pack