Days 68 + 69: Bariloche

I didn't do a lot these two days, just a little walking around Bariloche, a little planning, and a little trying to publish blog posts over the hostel's crappy wifi. Turns out the wifi wasn't the only problem preventing me from publishing pictures and blog updates - as I found out later, I'd also run out of google storage space... but obviously, I've fixed that in the meantime. The error messages given by my Android apps could really have been a little more conclusive - and consistent, for that matter.

Oh, and obviously it was Christmas - not a lot to do because pretty much everything was closed down. Christmas wasn't very spectacular, but at least it was warm and sunny :-) The Christmas decorations with artificial snow on them look kinda funny here:



Another funny aspect was that they started setting off fireworks at midnight - I wonder what will happen at new year's eve?

Bariloche is located at the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi and usually offers beautiful views of the mountains on the far end. However, as you might have read in the media, the Chaitén volcano in Chile erupted about half a year ago. At the time, it caused many disruptions in air traffic, and covered some towns in 40 cm of volcanic ash. Right now, the ash doesn't disrupt traffic anymore, only the view. I took these two pictures from the same spot (my hostel's rooftop terrace), once in perfect weather, and once with ash around:





In the city center, they have some chalet-style houses which immediately reminded me of the Alps - I'm guessing that's the association they were trying to achieve.

Day 67: Ruta 40 road trip (2)

The trip continued at 7:45 in the morning and lasted for about 12 hours, or 800 km. Luckily, almost all of the road north of Perito Moreno is already paved, so the journey was a lot smoother, and faster, than yesterday.

One thing I noticed about South America, and that really stood out on this trip, was how many Israelis there are traveling here. About 90% of the people on the bus were from Israel! As one of them explained to me, the reason is this: everyone in Israel, guys and girls alike, has to go through at least two years of military service directly after high school. When they finish military service, before starting university, many of them take the opportunity to travel, often with the hope of finding out what they want to do with their lives. There seem to be two extremely popular destinations for them: South America and India. So I guess I'll keep on running into Israels throughout my trip ;-)

But now back to Ruta 40: the landscape was quite fascinating today. It gradually changed from flat, infinite steppe to forested mountains to lakes surrounded by lush, green hills. Like this:











...and all of this in one day! Amazing, right? And a good way to spend Christmas Eve, in my opinion :-)

Day 66: Ruta 40 road trip (1)

To get to Bariloche from El Chaltén, I decided to take a bus along the legendary Ruta 40. The trip takes two days, with an overnight stop in a small village called Perito Moreno (not related to the glacier, and not close to it... confused me for a bit ;-)).

The first day covers a distance of about 600 km in 11 hours. After about one and a half hours, the bus stopped at a tiny gas station, announcing that this was gonna be the last stop with a toilet for about 8 hours.



Ruta 40 is being paved right now, so most of the way the bus still had to use the old gravel-and-dirt road, resulting in a pretty rough and noisy journey.



The landscape was the typical Patagonian steppe: mostly flat, low vegetation, trees only around streams (once every hundred kilometers or so). It is fascinating to watch, because there is nothing even remotely like it in crowded Germany. Due to the low vegetation it is possible to spot animals over quite large distances. I saw the typical inhabitants of Patagonia: guanacos, rhea, sheep, horses, rabbits. The highlight was a herd of rhea, consisting of a few adult ones and many many young ones running after them - a beautiful sight!

After a few hours of nothing but steppe, however, even a tiny village is a welcome diversion. If you're from a densely populated country, just try to get your head around this: there is nothing along the road for a few hundred kilometers at a time. Nothing! Amazing how vast this country is...

Day 65: Laguna Torre

Another brilliant day for hiking in El Chaltén, and so I went to do another long hike. The hike took me up to Laguna Torre, and then a little further up to Mirador Maestri, totaling about 28km with only 300m of altitude gain. According to the map, the hike to the mirador should take 4 hours; somehow, I managed to be up there in 2:45 :-)

Close to Mirador Maestri, there are superb views of Glaciar Grande:



Laguna Torre with the cloud-coated Torre range:



Later in the afternoon, the remaining few clouds cleared away, leading to this grand view of Cerro Torre:



So now... Since I'm leaving El Chaltén tomorrow morning I guess it is time for the final El Chaltén vs. Torres del Paine comparison.

The views and landscape are magnificent in both places, but Torres del Paine was a little more varied. The hikes are more difficult in Torres del Paine (which is a plus), and I loved the advanced planning needed for food and accommodation for five days. Then again, it is also very comfortable to have several day hikes available just outside the hostel's door, being able to return to supermarkets and wifi at the end of the day. All things considered, I'd say that Torres del Paine wins, but not by much. I'll have to return there some day and do the full circuit :-)

Day 64: Fitz Roy

The weather cleared up very nicely, and so I decided to do the longest hike in the area up to Laguna de los Tres. There are wonderful views of Fitz Roy up there - provided the sky is clear.

At the first viewpoint on the way up, there were still clouds around Fitz Roy:

But once I got to the top, it cleared up to reveal these gorgeous views:

I spent about two hours up there, just watching Fitz Roy smoke. Really amazing!

I then went on a little side trip to get a better view of glacier Piedras Blancas:

Due to bad signposting, I somehow took the wrong path and only noticed my mistake after about 40 minutes... adding quite a bit to my kilometer count ;-) I'm guessing I walked about 30 km today, in a total of 10 hours including breaks.

The way back down was surprisingly pleasant, with some nice views of the river valley below:

Day 63: El Chaltén

The first day of hiking in El Chaltén, but unfortunately the weather is bad. Bad weather means mainly two things here: it is extremely windy, and the mountains are hidden within clouds.

I didn't really want to do one of the long hikes with supposedly spectacular mountain views in these conditions, so I settled for three smaller hikes. The first one, to the lookout Los Cóndores, offers a view over the village:



The second one, Las Águilas, was another lookout close to the first one.



Finally, the third path went to a waterfall on the other side of the village.



But three best part of this day was that I solved the puzzle! The lovely smelling plant is called Ñire, or Nothofagus antarctica. One of the rangers at the national park information center knew immediately which plant I was talking about :-)

To celebrate, here's another picture of it:

Day 62: On to El Chaltén

Travel day. Nothing much happened today, except lots of time on buses. From Puerto Natales, I first went back to El Calafate, and then caught an evening bus to El Chaltén. I finally arrived at about 9:30 pm. I still love looking at the Patagonian landscape, so it wasn't too bad ;-)

El Chaltén is advertised as Argentina's trekking capital. I'm not sure yet if it can compete with Torres del Paine... Maybe it was a bad idea to do two hiking destinations in a row - now I'm forced to subject them to a direct comparison, and one of them is bound to loose. I guess I'll know more tomorrow when I've had a chance to do some hiking :-)

Day 61: The W (5) - Chileno to Torres

As I already went up to the Torres del Paine viewpoint yesterday, today's hike was very relaxing: just about 5 km mostly downhill. There was another part back to the bus stop, 7 km along a dirt road, that I intended on walking. About 15 minutes into that part, a chilean family in a big van stopped and offered me a lift - very nice!

So I guess it's time for a recap.

First, how did the food work out? I ate almost all of it, just one packet of peanuts remaining (about 1200 kcal). I was very happy about the salted peanuts. At the rate I was sweating I really needed the extra salt. Of the three bags of canned vegetables I took, I was very happy about the olives; the pickles were ok; but the bag labeled chucrut was disgusting. I bought it because it looked like sauerkraut, and I think it was made from the same plant, but the taste was different - very sour - and I had to throw it away. Another item that I loved was the hot sauce. It made everything from eggs to chorizo to crackers taste better. Eggs, dried fruit and sweets were also excellent. For the future, there are some items that I saw other hikers eat that would've been good: canned tuna, canned meat or sausage, toast. Next time I think I'd also take cooking gear - hot coffee or soup or noodles or powdered potatoes just seem too delicious at times ;-)

Second, the shoes. I love my shoes, and I'd like to thank everybody who coaxed me into taking real hiking boots on my trip. After five days of hiking, I have no blisters at all. Sure, my feet hurt in the evenings, but not due to bad shoes.

Third, experience. It was very interesting to see how my hiking skills improved over these five days. I guess I was pretty much a newbie before, and I fussed a long time over stream crossings or downhill slopes in the beginning. Starting on the third day, I felt much more confident. I started to know which terrain I could trust my boots with, and I suddenly had no problems at all anymore with crossing streams (after realizing that my boots are waterproof up to about ankle level). In RPG terms, I'm certain I have gained one or two levels in hiking ;-)

And finally, my overall impression. I guess I mentioned once or twice in my previous posts how amazing the nature and the views were. I totally loved seeing all of that. Of course, it was also very physically demanding - which, in a way, I also loved - although sometimes it would've been hard to go on without my motivational song in my head :-) What I found a bit strange was that I didn't have any sore muscles at all, although some parts of the hike seemed like an excellent workout (those 30-minutes-straight-uphill parts carrying a 12 kg backpack come to mind...)

Anyway, here are two more pictures - just two of the many flowers that were blooming in the park.

Day 60: The W (4) - Cuernos to Chileno

After having been so exhausted yesterday, I promised myself that I would only go to the next camp, Refugio Chileno, today. I felt quite fit later in the day, so I didn't keep my promise and ended up walking about 25 km in 7 hours.

During the first part, I had some great views of Lago Nordenskjöld.





After a while, there is a shortcut to Refugio Chileno. It is only a shortcut in distance to walk - the altitude difference still has to be covered. So the result is that the shortcut has a quite steep and long uphill part. But, applying the walking/jogging strategy I discovered yesterday, it wasn't so bad, and I arrived at the Refugio after only 4 hours (instead of the of 6.5 that were stated on the map which doesn't display the shortcut). The refugio can be seen a little way up this valley:



So I was happy that my day's work was done and sat down to have lunch. Then I met a couple (who took longer for the hike from Cuernos than I did) who said they were going on to the Torres del Paine viewpoint - marked on the map as 2.5 hours one way. I didn't really feel like going, but then decided to ask if there was a weather forecast for tomorrow. The Refugio's staff didn't have one yet - but said that they had had excellent weather for a week now which was very unusual. So I decided to clench my teeth and go on - at least I didn't have to carry my backpack this time.

Very much to my surprise, I arrived at the top after only 1 hour and 20 minutes. Is the map simply wrong, our have I discovered super-speed?

Anyway, there was a fantastic view of the Torres del Paine:





In the evening, there was some rain (the first I've seen here), so maybe the trails won't be as dusty tomorrow. My shoes and the lower party of my trousers are totally covered in dust - the original color can only be guessed ;-)

Day 59: The W (3) - Paine Grande to Cuernos

28 km in about 13 hours (including breaks)... I'm so exhausted! I guess you could say I'm in a lot of "Paine" right now, but that would be a bad joke, wouldn't it?

I got up at 5:15, when everybody was still sleeping, and left at 6 - this left me with at least 15 hours of daylight to complete the hike which according to my map can be done in 10 hours.

The hike took me from lodge Paine Grande to Campamento Italiano, then up Valle del Francés, all the way to the lookout at the top, back down the valley again, and then on to Refugio Cuernos - all the way carrying my backpack. On the way up the valley, I accidentally followed the wrong trail for a while - at least 20 minutes straight uphill, all for nothing. At least I wasn't alone: I met three other hikers who had also chosen the wrong trail independently from each other.

Just before Campamento Italiano, there is an interesting suspension bridge crossing a major stream.



The weights supporting the bridge are river stones in a wireframe cage. As I found out later, all the bridges and trails in the park are made and maintained manually - including the usage of manual drills because there is no electricity at arbitrary points on the trail. Knowing the amount of manual labor involved, it is all the more surprising that the trails are all in an excellent condition.

Further up the valley, there are great views of Glaciar del Francés. Unlike Perito Moreno, where chunks of ice just sink into the water when they break off, this glacier produces a small avalanche every time. The avalanches make a sound just like thunder, and the first few times I was afraid there was a storm coming (though it didn't look like that).



The viewpoint at the top was magnificent. It offered a 360° view of the surrounding mountaintops and the valley.









Descending the valley, I was overtaken by a group who were running and jumping down in a very light-footed manner. I was immediately jealous: why do I have to feel fat and heavy and move at a glacial pace? So a bit later I gave jogging a try. Surprisingly, jogging makes everything easier: you go faster, but the pace is a lot easier to maintain. I guess the key is not jogging in itself, but rather applying the same principles to your steps that also apply in running: short, quick steps, and making the front foot touch down very close to your center of gravity. I applied these principles during the last part of the hike (when I was already so exhausted that I felt like sleeping on the spot), and it was really amazing how refreshing it felt, and how quickly I arrived after.



The refugio is named after these mountains. They are called Cuernos - horns - and views like this can be seen from the refugio and nearby:

Day 58: The W (2) - Grey to Paine Grande

Today's task was to simply backtrack to Paine Grande and relax for the big day tomorrow. Backtracking sounds worse than it actually is - the views are completely different going in the other direction, it is almost like walking on an entirely different path.

I started off early, at about 7:15 am. The advantage of starting this early is that there is almost nobody else on the track - at the busier times, it feels more like an ant trail than a wilderness trek... Another advantage is that the lakes are still unperturbed, leading to gorgeous views like these:







In the afternoon, I went on for a little bit to get to a vantage point overlooking Lago Pehoé.



On the way, I identified the lovely-smelling plant.



Unfortunately, I haven't found out yet how it is called - I asked at the lodge, but the guy wasn't into flora, apparently.

This is the view from the lookout. Wow, am I glad that I went!





And finally, this is lodge Paine Grande - with Paine Grande (the mountain) in the back - where I'm staying tonight:

Day 57: The W (1) - Paine Grande to Grey

So now my first day of hiking is done. First, some facts: I walked for about 7 hours, covering almost 20 km. Unfortunately, my map has no information about the altitude differences. Maybe I'll look it up some time.

I started in the morning with a bus from Puerto Natales to the national park entrance, and then on to Pudeto. There I changed to the catamaran that crosses Lago Pehoé. This way I arrived at lodge Paine Grande at about 1 pm. After lunch I set out on the 11 km hike to Refugio Grey where I had a bed waiting for me.

The hike was really amazing. The views throughout were stunning:







Another great aspect was the availability of water: all water sources in the park are drinkable! No need to carry a huge water supply. I only brought a 600 ml coke bottle, and it was definitely sufficient.

I really loved the smells on the trail. Some of the plants smelled really really lovely and made me wish that I could just inhale all the time author having to waste time on exhaling ;-)

Needless to say, you saw it on the pictures already: the weather was perfect. It wasn't even windy which is supposed to be super rare here. And this on the only party of the trek that has symbols for "heavy wind" on the map... I'm grateful!

I made it to the refugio in a little over 4 hours. After dinner, I went a little further to Campamento Guardas. From there you can get a much better view of glacier Grey:







Afterwards, I fell into my bed at about 10pm. I thought the other people in my dorm were a bit funny: I got there at 9, and everybody was already sleeping. Went to take a shower, everybody still sleeping. Woke up the next morning at 6:30, everybody still sleeping. Went to eat breakfast, then packed and left at 7:15 - everybody still sleeping. Seriously, I wonder if they're still there sleeping... ;-)