Glacier Perito Moreno, the Argentinian capital of trekking El Chalten and Ushuaia, the end of the world

From Puerto Natales we went to el Calafate and we stayed at Buenos Aires hostel, which is very close to the bus station. Carlos, the owner is very attentive and helps you a lot in planning your stay there. For example, he advised us to buy a combined ticket from CalTur to go to Perito Moreno and then to el Chalten, as the price was discounted.

The day we got to Calafate we ate at a nicely decorated pizzeria called La Lechuza. From there we visited the center of the town and bought some food for our lunch in Perito Moreno the next day. We also visited a few travel agencies and we discovered that Patagonia Adventure offered an ice climbing activity on Viedma glacier in el Chalten. Victor was very excited about it and convinced Laura to do it.

The next day we went to Perito Moreno, which is one of the few glacier that is growing. We first took a boat to see the glacier from the water and then we walked through the walkways. The views from there are astonishing. The glacier is huge, with an average of 60 m high and a few kilometers wide. We were able to see some ice pieces falling and the thunder-like noise that it makes is impressive. We sat on a bench and contemplated the spectacular show while eating our sandwiches.

In the afternoon we went back to el Calafate and hopped in the next bus that took us to el Chalten, the Argentinian capital of trekking. The town is located in a gorgeous place, surrounded by  mountains and rock climbing walls.  We got there pretty late and went straight to our hostel, La cima. The hostel is very new and clean but it lacks a bit the dynamics and atmosphere of a youth hostel. That night we had dinner at a restaurant called "La Senyera" which is the name of the catalan flag. The owner is catalan, but the food that you can eat there is mostly argentinian.

The next day we did the ice climbing trek. We first took a bus to lago Viedma and then a boat to get to the glacier. There we met our funny guides Tato and Nacho. They took us to a dome where they gave us the gear and we left our food bags before heading to the glacier.

Then we put our crampons on and they showed us the basic techniques to walk and climb on ice. Then we went to the first climbing wall where the guides set up two top ropes and we started to climb there. We then moved to steeper walls and the last one was extremely difficult to climb.

After having lunch back in the dome we hiked through the glacier to see the ice formations. There the guides had a surprise for us. They prepared glasses of baileys with 400 years old ice from the glacier.

The following day we took it easy and did a short hike on the Fitz Roy trail. To reward us for the good work of the previous days, we had a snack after the hike at la wafleria.

The next day we took the first CalTur bus back to el Calafate and stopped at the airport where we had to wait around 8h for our flight to Ushuaia.

In Ushuaia we slept at a bed and breakfast called Mysten Kepen. It is managed by a very nice local family. The rooms are inside their house, so you actually live together with them.

We had only 2 days in Ushuaia. The first day we went to the Tierra del Fuego National Park and the next day we did the navigation through the Beagle channel. We used our free evening to buy souvenirs because our trip was ending.

We spent our last day of the trip in Buenos Aires before our flight to Barcelona.

Thank you so much to those who have been following us through the blog!

Our NEXT STOP: go back home to Barcelona and then New York!

Torres del Paine and the Chilean Patagonia

From Santiago we took a flight at 2 a.m. in the morning to go to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the American Continent located in the chilean Patagonia. We got there at 5 am in the morning without much sleep and we went to our hostel: Hostal Keoken. We didn't want to pay for an extra night for just a few hours in the morning so we just took a nap in the hostel's couch until 8 am, when the room was supposed to be emptied. However, the guest changed his plans and left the hotel at 12pm. Luckily they gave us a free breakfast while we were waiting, but what we really needed was some more hours of sleep. While having breakfast, we meet two polish guys who met 20 years ago and took every oportunity they had to travel around the world. They had been to the most remote places in earth! We discovered that they were doing a similar trip as we did through Chile, but in the other direction.

To avoid falling asleep, we used the time we had after breakfast to walk around Punta Arenas. Finally we got our room at 12:30 and slept a couple hours before we went to the penguins tour that the polish guys recommended. In the tour we met a couple of honeymooners from New York, who we also met again in Puerto Natales. We also met another guy from NY who was the film producer and photographer of the Polar Vision expedition in which Victor's MBA classmates Alan Lock and Andrew Jensen will reach the south pole. They are aiming to set the record for the first visually impaired person to trek from the coast of antarctica to the south pole. Check them out on their website!

In the tour we saw very cute penguins that walked around the beach and some lying on the ground.

Magallanic penguins

After the tour we had a hot chocolate and then we went to La Marmita restaurant that the guys from NY recommended to us. We ate very good fish!

The next day we went to Puerto Natales, the gate to Torres del Paine, where we will be trekking for 5 days. There we slept in a great guest house: the Tin house. We would recommend everybody that has to sleep in Puerto Natales to go there. They have only 3 rooms but they are very cozy and the owners, David and Laura took care of us wonderfully well. They helped us to buy all the bus tickets we needed. We felt like in home! That same day we went to a briefing about Torres del Paine in Erratic Rock, that is delivered daily at 3pm. They do a great job at explaining what to expect from the trek and what are the best strategies. The good thing is that they also have a gear rental store (a bit expensive) where you can rent werever you need.

In Torres del Paine we did the W circuit from East to West. Since we didn't want to carry much weight, but we didn't want to pay a lot of money, we decided to use the paid campsites, so that we didn't have to carry the tent nor food as we could eat at the refugios. Eating there was a good idea since we were meeting a lot of people that were doing the same trek.

The first day we took the 2:30 pm bus from Puerto Natales and got off at Refugio Torres where we slept. From there we were already able to see the tips of the towers. 

The next day we climbed up to the towers but it was very foggy and we could only see the outline of the towers. We slept at el Chileno campsite where we met a family from Texas that were doing the same hike as we were. The daughter and her boyfriend had been travelling through south America for 11 months and they were at the end of the trip. Her parents just joined them for the last part of the trip in Patagonia.

mirador Las Torres

From there we went to Los Cuernos campsite and slept there. There we met a german couple, who were both mathematicians and also another couple who were both physicists, she was catalan and he was german. The following day we hiked through the French valley from where you could see a glacier and the mountain range of  Los cuernos on the way up we met a couple from the Basque country and Josep from Vic. 

The hike to our next campsite, Paine grande, was very nice as it was very sunny and went through a flat terrain next to a beautiful lake. Paine Grande is extremely crowded because it is one of the main entrances to the park and it is full of people who just want to do day hikes. 

chocolate in my sleeping bag! 5 stars tent

The next day we went to Refugio Grey from where we could see the Grey Glacier. The refugio Grey was one of the best campsites we have been to because we camped on the beach and the refugio was very cozy and had a fireplace. Perfect to get warm before going to sleep outside!

we made it!

After surviving the W trek we went back to Puerto Natales and the following day we took the bus to Calafate, to our NEXT STOP, Perito Moreno.