Trekking (or not) in El Chalten

El Chaltén is known as the capital of trekking in Argentina and rightfully so. There are snow capped mountains in all directions, crowned by imposing Mount Fitzroy, the namesake of the range. The northern section of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is within a stone's throw and there are several first class day hikes starting right in El Chaltén itself. Unfortunately though, Kev has injured his leg and has had to rest it most days. X-rays and advice from various people suggest that he's damaged the lining of his shin bone - it will heal but only with a lot of rest and NO long walks! So Kev's been relaxing at the hostel most days, keeping an eye on our petrol scented washing.

At the Chorillo Salta waterfall

On our second day here, we both did a short walk to the waterfall Chorillo Salto. The majority was next to the glacier fed river, which is fast flowing and a gorgeous grey-blue colour. When we arrived at the 20m falls there were a lot of other people there taking photos, but once we walked downstream for five minutes it was lovely and quiet, with a magnificent view in the late afternoon light down the valley across to the mountains.

Looking down the valley from the waterfall

The two most popular hikes here both go to lakes, crossing through spectacular scenery with trees in beautiful autumnal colours and views of the surrounding mountains. We met some great people in our hostel and they were kind enough to let me join them.

The first trek was mainly on the flat, proceeding past fields of silver birch trees and finally arriving at Laguna Torre, with lovely views of the peak Cerro Torre behind. The lake was a greyish colour rather than blue and extremely cold; there were icebergs floating in it! It was still enough to reflect three spire-like peaks behind, which we were lucky to see as they are often covered in cloud. A glacier flows into the lake and we sat listening to it making ominous creaking noises while eating lunch.

Cerro Torre overlooking its lake

The second trek, to Laguna de los Tres, was even better - one of the best day hikes I've done. The views ahead to Mount Fitzroy were breathtaking all the way, and got better and better as we went along. We crossed several crystal clear streams and rivers, most with signs saying you could drink from them. The walk is 11km one way, but the final 1km took us an hour as it was so steep. Towards the top, Fitzroy had disappeared behind the hill we were climbing, but as we arrived at the end of the trail it suddenly reappeared, looking even more stunning behind the dazzlingly turquoise Laguna de los Tres. After a lunch break and some scrambling we found a different and possibly even better view. We were the only people there, which made it all the more special.

At the start of the trek to Cerro Fitzroy

Today Kev braved a trip out and we took a minibus to Lago del Desierto, about 40km along a veeery bumpy gravel road. We then went for an hour' long boat trip on the lake, surrounded by thickly forested slopes. Although the weather was cold and rainy to start with, it cleared up and the gaps in the clouds revealed the slopes were capped with several glaciers. We could clearly see where they came down the mountain and turned into waterfalls flowing into the lake. Pretty cool!

Made it to the lake at Cerro Fitzroy!

While here we've also spent a lot of time trying to sort out the petrol disaster described in our previous post. On the plus side, three laundry visits, a lot of airing and some soaking in buckets of vinegar (I got odd looks in the supermarket!) have improved most of our clothes. On the down side, we're not sure that our rucksacks will be salvageable. We asked one laundry if they'd soak them overnight, which they had done once already, and got a very curt reply along the lines of 'you made my laundry smell for three days, go away!' It looks like we're going to have to buy new ones...

Drowning sorrows with new friends in the cervecería

El Chaltén is a good place to drown our sorrows though: it is the first place we've found that has its own microbrewery, or Cerveceria. It only has two beer options but we've still had a couple of good nights there and at the Vineria wine bar. We're here for another day and then heading to nearby El Calafate for more glacier action.

Ups and Downs in Patagonia

Travel can have its ups and downs, as proven by our recent few days.

Last week we took a trip from Trelew to Punta Tombo, which has the largest colony of Magellanic penguins in the world with around half a million penguins. We walked along a wooden boardwalk through the colony with penguins on either side, often right next to the path. As we got nearer the sea their number increased and soon there were penguins literally everywhere we looked. Although we'd seen penguins at Peninsula Valdés, this was a much better experience as we were so much closer to them. We could hear the noises they made really well - somewhere halfway between a honking noise like a goose and the eeyore of a donkey.

So many penguins!

From Trelew we decided to make Puerto Deseado, the 'Port of Desire', our next stop. This was a small town 600 km or so further down the coast, which we'd heard had lovely scenery and was an excellent place to see rare Rockhopper penguins. Arriving in Puerto Deseado at 11 pm after a 9 hour bus ride, our first impressions were not favourable. The place was completely dead except for fierce dogs everywhere. One even leapt over its fence and chased us, barking all the way. Things didn't improve in the morning - the hotels were all extortionately priced and apparently 'full' despite there still being no-one around. Visiting nearby scenery and wildlife also proved prohibitively expensive. The town hadn't quite lived up to its name!

At least Puerto Deseado has a pretty estuary

Still, onwards and upwards. We left Puerto Deseado before the crack of dawn and a few hours later arrived in the dusty pitstop town of Perito Moreno where we booked a tour to the nearby Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands). The drive there took us through some of the most incredible scenery imaginable, looking down into a deep canyon and passing through arid landscapes coloured all shades of the rainbow by mineral deposits. The cave itself is a UNESCO world heritage site and was even more spectacular. There are rock paintings here dating from 9000 years ago, most of them the eponymous handprints. There were even ancient maps and advice on how to hunt guanaco. The paintings are in exceptionally good condition - you'd think they were painted yesterday. We were joined on this trip by an Argentinian patriarch who turned out to be the great-grandson of Perito Moreno himself!

The view down to the canyon with Cueva de las Manos

A fantastic day... but then disaster struck. Unfortunately, while our bags were in the back of the pick up truck to the cave, a container of spare petrol spilt everywhere and all of our possessions were covered in petrol. We had to throw a lot of things away, and separated the rest into two black sacks of clean and contaminated items. The dirty sack was significantly bigger than the clean one. We had to wait around with the smelly sacks at a desolate one horse town for several hours for our night bus to El Chaltén. Arriving there this morning, we promptly took everything to the laundry and it is all now airing outside. It still smells.

Hands and other symbols

On the plus side, El Chaltén is perfectly situated adjacent to the Fitz Roy range and the scenery here is jaw droppingly beautiful, with a perfect view of snowy peaks from our hostel balcony. It's a pretty amazing place to be, and we look forward to exploring further.

Dinosaurs and The Welsh

Since entering Patagonia, we've been spending our time in towns all founded by Welsh immigrants in the mid-1800s. We've visited Puerto Madryn, Trelew and Gaiman and there are many other towns whose names betray their Welsh heritage. One of the other things Patagonia is famous for is its fossils, particularly dinosaurs. Maybe the Welsh knew they would one day be living in this land when they put a dragon on their flag.

The largest femur ever?

Trelew is the largest town in the valley of the River Chubut, and is home to an excellent palaeontological museum. The large collection of fossils is well laid out in reverse chronological order, starting with extinct mammals, before moving backwards to Patagonian marsupials, dinosaurs, huge ammonites and, finally, 900 million year old bacteria. The real highlight, however, is the bones from the recently discovered largest dinosaur ever found. Palaeontologists there are still working on the bones from the 40m long, 75+ ton titanosaur - the bones are so huge that I could barely reach the top of the femur.

Fossils across the desert-like plain near Gaiman

From Trelew, we made our way to Gaiman, a much smaller town. Close by is another palaeontological park, with a walk through the arid, desert-like landscape that was full of fossils still in situ. We really enjoyed seeing 25 million year old dolphins and more recent fossils of marine animals as we walked upwards through the layers. When we got towards the top of a cliff, a lone condor was circling very closely above us. Suddenly, in the not too far distance, a column of 11 more condors took to the air and also started circling us and swooping quite low above our heads. We promptly decided to descend again, further from their nest.

A condor swooping down to get us

Gaiman was founded by the Welsh at a location suggested by the native Tehuelche people, and is the only town here with an indigenous name. The Welsh, surprisingly for colonists and perhaps uniquely across the world, had a friendly and cooperative relationship with the locals. The town is now famous for its Welsh teahouses, and we enjoyed a sumptious collection of scones and cakes. There were so many that we took half of them away with us for a second lunch the next day.

Jo trying her best to eat all of the cakes

 For now though, we're returning from the deep past and on to more contemporary wildlife.

Life in Argentina

Argentina is an expensive country. We had been forewarned of this, but hadn't quite realised quite how much the high inflation is affecting prices. The prices quoted in guidebooks bear no resemblance to current ones - 25% is the inflation rate most quoted, but on average most things have tripled or even quadrupled in price since our book was published two years ago. A lot of places have prices written in pencil so that they can be changed often enough!

Life here happens at its own pace. A case in point is the afternoon siesta, which typically runs from around 1 until 4, but varies massively from place to place. One shop will be open at 2.30, but the next door one might not open until 5. The cafe after that might open at 3 but only on Sundays, and when you turn up it doesn't actually open until half past because the owner has overslept.

Spiral staircase (with stuffed eagles!) at the Museo del Hombre y del Mar, Puerto Madryn

Service in bars and cafes also occurs in a relaxed manner  - it's perfectly normal for the staff to serve you, then disappear for an hour somewhere. In one restaurant, the sole member of the waiting staff disappeared over the road for a fag, leaving the manager to wait tables. At another one, all of the staff spontaneously decided to clean the outside windows, while completely ignoring the customers. We are learning that this is just the way things work here - 'mañana' ('tomorrow!') is the mantra, and we just have to accept that things will happen when they happen. In fact, it's a refreshing change from the fast paced, supply on demand lifestyle we've grown perhaps overly accustomed to at home.

Another peculiarity of this country is its 'artesanal' products. Everything is 'artesanal' in Argentina, for example in Puerto Madryn we have sampled their tasty artesanal beer, bakery products and chocolate. It ostensibly means craft, or homemade, but we have even come across artesanal fish and artesanal laundry!

Slightly scary Jesus statue en route from Puerto Madryn to the Ecocentro

One of the lighthouse paintings at the Ecocentro

We have recently spent a lovely few more days in Puerto Madryn. Kev went diving with sea lions, which he enjoyed - spotting a nudibranch was a highlight as well as the sea lions. We visited the Museo del Hombre y del Mar, a museum mainly concerned with natural history, but also with some interesting history about the native peoples of Patagonia.

We also walked a picturesque 5 km along the coast to the Ecocentro, a modern centre concerned with marine life of the Patagonian sea and emphasising conservation issues. Together with science it had a second focus on art, with a beautiful exhibition of paintings of nearby lighthouses, as well as a thought provoking sculpture of a whale made entirely of litter that had washed up on the shore. It also had a cafe with excellent cake and beautiful views across the bay back towards the town.


Our next stop is Trelew, where we look forward to exploring the neighbouring Welsh villages (and associated teahouses).

In and Around Puerto Madryn

Our next destination after Sierra de la Ventana was to be Puerto Madryn, home to the UNESCO-listed Península Valdés. The bus route was going to be tricky - we could either stay in Bahía Blanca or Viedma, or both - and we were running low on ready cash.

Sunset over the square in Bahía Blanca

We decided to go for Bahía Blanca - it sounded a bit more interesting than Viedma, was a shorter bus journey, and is a larger city so more chance of finding somewhere to exchange money at a good rate. The incredibly helpful lady in the Sierra de la Ventana tourism office helped us find a cheap room and a list of backup options. On arrival, the cheap room was on a dark, dark street, with unsavoury characters hanging around outside. We went for one of the backup options.

Having survived the night in spite of the 32° heat and the overpowering stench of gas ('no, no, there's no gas here'), we spent the day taking in the sights of Bahía Blanca. It's a pleasant city, with a large tree-filled square and several pedestrianised shopping streets. There isn't a huge amount to do for tourists so we whiled away our time away in several cafes - we did manage to exchange money at a decent rate with the staff in one of these. Our bus to Puerto Madryn was due to leave at 23:40, but was delayed for an hour while the drivers decided what to do with all of the luggage. It was already crammed full of bags, despite there being no one on it, so there was no room for the luggage of the 30 people waiting to get on. We don't know what they did with the first set in the end, or where it had come from.

Drinking maté

After a couple of days exploring the coastal town of Puerto Madryn, we decided that the best way to visit Península Valdés would be on a tour. We were picked up by our friendly and knowledgeable guide, Hugo, and driven in a minibus around the mostly gravel roads of the peninsula. He shared his maté with us, a bitter herby tea that is an institution here and in surrounding countries. It is traditionally drunk from special maté cups with metal filter straws and passed round between friends.

Elephant seals

Burrowing owl

Although it is the wrong season for right whales, and the sea was too rough for seeing orcas, we were still spoilt by the abundance of wildlife across the peninsula. Amongst other things, the highlights were the noisy sea lion colony (they sound a lot like sheep), elephant seals, Magellanic penguins, burrowing owls, guanacos (undomesticated llamas) and hairy armadillos. What a great start to our time in Patagonia!

Penguins!

Sea lions

Climbing Cerro Ventana

We came to Sierra de la Ventana with one main intention - climbing the nearby peak Cerro Ventana (1134m).  Those of you with some knowledge of Spanish will know that Cerro means hill and Ventana window, and as the name implies Cerro Ventana is famous for the spectacular window in the rock near the summit.

First things first - we needed to work out how to get to the provincial park, Parque Provincial Ernesto Tornquist, from where the climb begins. We consulted the local bus timetable and found there was a bus there at 9.50 am and one back at 5 pm - perfect, we thought, as the hike takes around 5-6 hours. We set off the next day but on arrival we were told the only way to do the hike was to arrive before 9 and do it in a group with a guide. Furthermore, according to the rangers at the park, the 5pm bus didn't actually exist and the only bus back was at 7 pm.

On the 'path' to the waterfall

Instead, we spent the day on a great shorter walk, scrambling along a dried-up canyon culminating at a sheer cliff and waterfall. We were lucky to be able to hitch a lift back to Sierra de la Ventana with a friendly couple from Buenos Aires. We bought them a beer to say thank you and enjoyed having a long chat with them in Spanish - fun and very good practice for us.

Gazing across the Pampas

Attempt #2 at the Cerro Ventana climb involved getting up at an unearthly hour in order to catch the 6.45 am bus - the only option for getting to the park on time. We had just over an hour to wait for the park to open but once it did around 20 other people turned up and we duly registered for the climb. It was as amazing as we'd hoped. The route was very tough going in places, with steep sections where we had to scramble up rocks, and there was no shade in the 30 degree heat. The clear skies meant breathtaking views though - panoramic vistas of the surrounding plains for miles and miles around. The hills in this area are the only bulges of any size in the whole of the Buenos Aires province (and bear in mind we were now 500 km south of the capital). The views got better and better as we climbed and the one framed by the window at the top was the best of all - simply stunning. During the course of the climb we saw a couple of guanacos (wild llamas) and while at the top a large bird of prey soared above us, so low that we could see the patterns on its wings - wow!

Made it to the Window!

The guide was friendly, helpful and very well informed. We were the only non-Argentinians on the walk so followed his detailed (and fast) Spanish explanations as best as we could. He kindly gave us a lift back to Sierra de la Ventana that day in his very antique vehicle.

On a sidenote, Sierra de la Ventana has a rather interesting dog population. We initially thought that the countless dogs running around everywhere were strays, but they seem remarkably well fed and most have collars. It seems most likely that dog owners here just let their pets out every morning to go and have fun round the village all day - this would also explain the large number of 'lost dog' signs!

Food and Travel

I think I can say as a fact that Argentinian food is not healthy. Alongside the famous steaks, Argentina is also good at chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), Italian food and ice cream. There aren't many vegetables. That's not to say that it isn't all delicious though.

A large, bloody steak

In Buenos Aires, we've typically been snacking on croissants (medialunas, literally half-moons), cheese and ham toasties and tea and coffee throughout the day. We've also been escaping from the heat with ice cream or freshly-pressed orange juice. Dinner happens a lot later than we're used to at home - we typically head out for something at around 9 - 10 o'clock, when the restaurants are just about opening.

On most evenings, we've gone out to nearby restaurants. Once to a traditional (read slightly touristy) parrilla, or steakhouse, where we shared the biggest, bloodiest steak I've ever seen. On another, we went to a quaint Italian restaurant where we were served with some delicious, rich pasta and seafood. One time, we tried to be more healthy, but failed miserably when our grilled vegetables were swimming in oil. We've decided since then to stick to what the Argentinians are good at.

Enjoying some Italian food, with some greenery on top

We stayed in once at our hostel for a feast of traditional Argentinian food - various steak cuts, choripan (chorizo in bread) and morcilla, the sticky and rich blood sausage. This was served alongside red wine, which is ubiquitous round here. We even managed to get some salad!

The King of Ham lives in Argentina

We've now made our way to the small country town of Sierra de la Ventana - a complete change of scene from the bustling Buenos Aires with its dusty roads, stray dogs and long afternoon siesta. For the 8 hour overnight bus journey there was only a 'semi-cama' option - meaning the beds reclined to about 45°. It was much more comfortable than a similar length journey would be back home, and we can't wait to experience the (fully-reclining) cama buses for the longer trips further south.