Visiting the (1990s') Most Dangerous City in the World

Medellín still has a fairly bad reputation internationally, having been the most dangerous city in the world during the 1990s. It was home to the infamous Medellín Cartel, headed by Pablo Escobar. Daily life was plagued by violence, drugs, shootings and bombs. Since then, though, the city has cleaned up its act and in 2013 was even named as the 'most innovative city in the world'. Walking around the central neighbourhoods of El Poblado and Laureles today feels safer than many other cities that we've visited.

Past and future:
A bird sculpture by Fernando Botero, Medellín's
and Colombia's most famous artist, was badly damaged by a bomb, so
the artist made a new one to go alongside it as a symbol of regeneration

The city, a bit higher than we've been recently at an altitude of around 1500m, spreads along a valley floor and up its sides. It is connected by an excellent metro network of trains and cable cars linking the areas further up the valley slopes. One of these cable cars takes you to Arví Park, where we enjoyed strolling through tree lined paths and an artisan's market serving craft beer while taking in spectacular views over the city. On the way back, our train was delayed by an hour with no explanation - it seems that some things aren't too different from home!

Medellín from near Parque Arví

One morning, we set off to the Minorista market to join a tour of exotic fruits. Our guide explained that, a few years ago, this market used to be a pretty sketchy place. It has now changed dramatically and is completely safe - tourism is a way to help the locals  and improve its image. We were each handed a spoon and taken around various stalls trying out different obscure fruits. Our favourites, mangosteen and dragonfruit, recalled our travels in Asia.

Trying guava in Minorista market

A couple of hours outside of Medellín, near the town of Guatapé, is a reservoir towered over by the impressive Piedra del Peñol - a giant granite monolith. We walked up the 740 steps to the top for some magnificent views of the surroundings. Guatapé itself is a really pretty town - almost all of the buildings are brightly coloured and decorated around the base of their walls with tiles showing images of the Piedra, geometric designs and products on sale amongst other things.

The Piedra del Peñol

Colourful houses in Guatapé

The Guatapé reservoir from the top of the Piedra del Peñol

From Guatapé, we were heading to Honda but wanted to stop at Río Claro (Clear River) natural reserve on the way. This made the journey a bit of an effort. We took a bus out of Guatapé down to the main road, then hailed down a second bus to the reserve. When we left, we took a third bus along the road to Dorradal, where we were lucky to find a direct bus to the final destination of Honda. Río Claro proved a worthwhile diversion - we spent a couple of hours walking alongside the river lined with cliffs and jungle. The valley is made out of marble, which made interesting rock formations along the river banks and there was plenty of wildlife around. Lots of butterflies (Jo's favourite), a jumping stick insect, a troop of monkeys and, our highlight, a coati climbing a tree.

Río Claro

We've booked flights out of Colombia in March, so don't feel like we have that much time left here now. This meant that we had to leave both Medellín and Guatapé a bit earlier than we'd have liked to. Next, we're now moving on towards the coffee growing region of Colombia.

New Year in Ecuador and on into Colombia

We were sad to leave our lovely hostel in Quito but we had decided to spend New Year in Mindo, a backpackery little town in the cloud forest. The bus from Quito took about 2 hours, winding down through beautiful scenery with tree covered slopes.

Hummingbirds around Mindo

Mindo is down at 1200m and the climate is completely different to what we've got used to recently - very humid and pretty hot during the day. The town is mostly unpaved roads and has quite an outpost, jungly feel, with cloud forest all around. This feeling was enhanced by the amazing diversity of birds (and insects!) everywhere. Most cafes and hostels have hummingbird feeders outside and we saw so many beautiful examples of this tiny bird. We'd expected Mindo to be full of backpackers, but actually it was quite a mix of people, including a lot of older tourists here for birdwatching.

Peering in at one of the very large owl butterflies (they can have a wingspan of up to 16cm!)

We arrived in Mindo mid-afternoon but still managed to fit in two activities that day - a butterfly farm, and a chocolate tour. We started with the former. You might ask, why on earth would someone with a butterfly phobia possibly want to visit a butterfly farm?
 Well, I guess I thought it might be good for me - after all, I would actually like one day not to be in mortal fear when a butterfly or moth is in my vicinity. I braved entering the big netted off section with the butterflies once, and did okay until some of the gigantic owl butterflies started flying around. After that I made do with sticking my head through the entrance and withdrawing it whenever one came near. I think it did help, a little. Exposure therapy! But my bravery diminished rapidly that evening when we were confronted with the biggest moth I have ever seen, just casually sitting on the hostel wall. That was truly something out of my worst nightmares and it took a while for me even to pluck up the courage to run past it back to our room.

Cocoa beans drying, part of the chocolate making process

Immediately after the butterfly farm we did the aforementioned chocolate tour, which felt like a reward for surviving the house of horrors. Mindo has its own chocolate company, and over the hour or so of the tour we saw all stages of the chocolate making process, from the cocoa pods on the tree, to the finished bar. We also got to sample several of their chocolate products, including the (amazing) chocolate brownies, sea salt chocolate, and liquid 100% chocolate (added sugar required!).



We spent the first of our two full days here hiking in the jungle around Casa Amarilla. This, as you might expect from the Spanish, is a yellow house, owned by a friendly local lady. She also seems to own the surrounding jungle for miles around; at least, if you pay her a small entrance fee you can spend several hours exploring the paths she's made. We think it's great that she's chosen to open the area for hikers and birdwatchers, rather than getting rid of the trees to make room for cows, or digging for oil. The circuit we did took about 3 or 4 hours and included an enchanting viewpoint, looking down on tiny Mindo surrounded by cloud forest for miles in all directions. We met a Dutch guy and chatted with him for most of the hike; maybe we were making too much noise as we failed to see many birds!

View of Mindo (in the distance) from viewpoint during our jungle hike

Our second day in Mindo was New Year's Eve. In the morning we had a go at ziplining - zooming high above the trees along cables. For $20 we got to do an hour or two's circuit of 10 different ziplines ranging from 75 - 400m in length. It was great fun! Especially trying the 'Butterfly' position - literally upside down, with your legs in the air! Absolutely terrifying, but awesome. We spent the evening hanging out with some fellow travellers, enjoying free cocktails courtesy of our hostel, and then plenty of beers outside watching the festivities in the square. It is traditional in Ecuador to make sort of large dolls, a bit like the 'guys' on Guy Fawkes' Night, and burn them in the street at midnight. Often the dolls have masks representing unpopular politicians or celebrities. There were also kids running around everywhere in masks, and the odd guy or two wearing drag (another tradition apparently)! It felt more like Halloween than New Year! Really fun though, and interesting to see another culture's completely different style of celebration.

Ziplining and the 'Butterfly'

New Year's celebrations in Mindo

We returned from Mindo to Quito on the 1st, feeling a little the worse for wear after the night before (the twisty bus ride didn't help) and spent that afternoon in our hostel recovering. We had intended to proceed to Colombia the next day, but we'd not bargained on the city we were heading to in Colombia, Pasto, being so booked up and expensive! It turns out that Pasto has its annual carnival on the days we were planning to be there. It's so popular that Colombians book up all the places to stay months in advance. The only place we could find to stay was an (expensive) AirBnB, so we ended up prolonging our stay in Quito by a day so as to just spend the one night in Pasto. We were pretty happy to have an extra day in Quito at our favourite hostel, anyway! That day we visited the Basilica del Voto Nacional, a huge neo-Gothic church, and climbed up to the top of one of the towers. The ascent began like normal stairs but ended with some quite scary vertical metal ladders! The view from the top over the historic centre was worth it though.

On our way up the Basilica in Quito

On the Sunday we finally left Kinde House for good and proceeded 5 hours north to the Colombian border by bus. The Ecuador side of the border had a horribly long queue, due to mainly to Ecuadorian citizens returning from a weekend in Colombia. Anything in Ecuador that is imported carries a huge tax. Thus a lot of locals hop across to Colombia at the weekend to buy things like electronics and toiletries there - it's so much cheaper it's worth the journey! Luckily the queue moved quickly and within an hour we were through both Ecuadorian and Colombian immigration.

The Las Lajas church in the daylight...

Our first stop in Colombia was the small village of Las Lajas, only a few km from the border. The main reason for visiting here was to see the famous church, El Santuario de Las Lajas, which is literally built across a gorge. We expected this place to be very quiet but actually it was heaving with crowds of local tourists - it's something of a pilgrimage site for Colombians, it seems. The only place to stay was a sort of convent converted into a very basic hotel and run by nuns. The room was like a cell and the bed might as well have been a rock. I'm not sure being a nun is for me... The one consolation was that it cost £5.60 for the night.

...and by night

In the evening the church was lit up with neon lighting, constantly changing colour, which we found somewhat tacky but quite amusing. We got up early the next day and had a better look in the daylight with fewer tourists. It's certainly a spectacular setting - hopefully the photos demonstrate this better than I can describe. We have now arrived in Pasto for our night in an AirBnB around 10 times the price of last night - about 10 times nicer too. Tomorrow we are flying to Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast, and excited to be meeting up with our old travelling buddies Cindy and Julien again there.

9 days, 4 countries, 1 robbery

The last few days have involved a lot of travelling: four different countries over the past nine days! There have been ups and downs, with one particular down occurring when my bag was stolen as we went from Peru into Ecuador - more on that to follow. Returning to Chile and Argentina gave us a chance to reflect on all the countries we've visited so far. So in this blog entry, at the end of each section I thought it would be nice to sum up some of our feelings on each country.

One of the hikes around El Chaltén with my family, in Patagonia

We ended our last blog entry still in Argentine Patagonia, from where my dad and sister flew back home to the UK. Kev and I then made our way back to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile. We had some time to kill in Punta Arenas, so we made use of this by checking out the outdoor shops there. Turns out 3 years and 20 plus countries is too much for even the toughest hiking shoes, so we both reluctantly purchased new ones.

The harbour at Punta Arenas - taken when we first visited earlier this year

Argentina: worst food in of all the countries we've visited (apart from the good steak!); excellent Malbec; friendly people; weird Spanish accent; crazy dual exchange rate due to crazy inflation; super expensive buses; amazing Patagonian scenery.

Chile: favourite country so far - fantastic wine at very cheap prices; Spanish accent almost impossible to understand; volcanoes by the dozen; gorgeous, rarely visited national parks; some of the best day hikes ever; food nearly as bad as Argentina but improved by seafood; crazy long thin country (very long bus rides!)

At Conguillo National Park earlier in the year - one of our favourite places in Chile

As we boarded our flight to Lima at midnight, we wondered what had possessed us to pick this ridiculous flight time. After a turbulent flight from Punta Arenas up to Santiago, we groggily had to change flight at 4am and finally arrived back in Lima, Peru at about 7am. We spent the next couple of days staying in a pleasant Air BnB recovering from our flight and not doing much. As you may have gathered from previous posts, we've not been overly inspired by Lima. We did however return to our favourite craft beer bar, and to the cat park of course, and also finally went into the cathedral.

The tomb in Lima cathedral of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Inca empire

From Lima we took the longest bus journey of the trip so far (19 hours) up to Máncora, a small beach town on the north coast. For this bus journey we'd chosen the luxury option - all meals provided, private TV screens, and seats that reclined 180 degrees - so the time went surprisingly fast! Getting off the bus in Máncora, we were hit by the heat. This is the first time we've been anywhere genuinely hot since the start of our trip, and I was finally grateful for all the summer clothes I've been carrying around for months. On with the shorts and flip flops!

The beach at Mancora, with fishing boats in the distance

Máncora has a different feel to the rest of Peru. The streets are mostly unpaved and dusty, there are tuk tuks everywhere, the beach is lined with bars and the roads with souvenir shops. There are people everywhere trying to sell you stuff, and more than your average number of scams. We felt like we'd returned to south east Asia! After a couple of nights here relaxing on our balcony, with the occasional 'swim' (read 'splash around in the shallows' - the waves were pretty big!) and plenty of time spent in bamboo beach bars, we were ready to head on up to a new country - Ecuador.

Peru: best food of anywhere in South America so far (ceviche especially); delicious pisco sour cocktails; most places especially in the South are very touristy; incredible history and archaeological sites by the dozen; our least favourite capital city; great hiking; excellent craft beer selection.

At Choquequirao in Peru - amazing history, amazing hiking!

As I mentioned, Máncora is full of scams. One of these involves bus companies. We'd been warned to make sure we bought our tickets to Ecuador from the actual company itself, NOT an agency. Easy, we thought. We're travel savvy! Wrong. The company we bought the tickets from was an agency masquerading (very well) as the official bus office. We discovered this when we found out we had to get a minibus to start with and then change to a bus at the border, which is exactly what you are NOT supposed to do. But it was too late to change plan by then.

Colourful hill in Guayaquil, Ecuador, near where we were staying

The minibus dropped us at the bus office at the (very gritty) border town. We went to the window to get our tickets sorted, and had our bags on the bench next to us, literally a step away. I took my passport out of my rucksack to hand to the woman behind the desk, and when I turned around 30 seconds later to check on the bags, I immediately noticed my small rucksack was missing. We both ran out into the street but the man had disappeared. Some people in the cafe next door had seen him running and we ran that way but couldn't find any sign. There were some local police on the next corner and they immediately searched the area themselves on a motorbike, but no luck. We left our details with them but I think it's pretty unlikely we'll ever get that bag back.

Cathedral in Guayaquil, Ecuador

The one good thing is that I did not have my passport in the bag, having taken it out a few seconds before. Most of the items that were in the rucksack are replaceable, but it's very frustrating as there were quite a few things of financial value (phone, backup hard drive, Kindle, raincoat, etc) and many more of sentimental value. Sadly these things happen, and we are still berating ourselves for letting our guard down for that one moment. We read later about how some tourists have been held up at gunpoint outside that very same office, and others kidnapped nearby. Maybe we got off lightly.

View of Guayaquil, from a lighthouse up a hill near where we were staying

We arrived late that day in the city of Guayaquil, our first stop in Ecuador. It's Ecuador's largest city (though not the capital), very hot and humid and located on the coast. Guayaquil is an interesting place - it used to have an extremely bad reputation, which didn't inspire us with confidence arriving here after the robbery. However, the waterfront area where we're staying has had a recent makeover and is now very nice and very safe - there are armed police every hundred metres or so!

Ecuadorians just getting on with normal life, in the iguana park!

We have spent the last couple of days shopping to replace the stolen stuff and filling in insurance claim forms, as well finding time to see one of Guayaquil's main attractions - a small park in the centre that is full of iguanas! Most importantly, we've been researching Galapagos cruises, and are excited to say that we have now booked an 8 day trip starting on the 28th November. The cruises are very pricey, but this is something we knew all along was unmissable, and we've managed to get a very good discount by booking last minute from within Ecuador.

Iguana and pigeon!

First impressions of Ecuador: bad food, friendly people, very hot at sea level, very green (lots of banana plantations!); football mad (like all of South America).

We leave here soon to spend a few days in the highland city of Cuenca, before returning to Guayaquil to fly from there to the Galapagos.

Oh, and though we haven't been there recently, it's not fair not to include Bolivia in this post - so, Bolivia: least Westernised country; lots of indigenous influence; crazy country with half at 4000m altitude and the rest at 0; highest capital in the world; cheap; too many incidents of food poisoning; insane cliff edge bus rides.

Up at 4900m at the El Tatio geysers, in Bolivia in June

That's all till next time!

The Lengths We Will Go to See a Waterfall

We'd decided that we wanted to spend a day seeing the waterfalls in the Siete Tazas (Seven Cups) National Park. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy - there is only one bus there every day and it leaves Molina at 5pm. It returns at 7:30am the next morning. Therefore, to have time to actually see the park at all, we would have to spend two nights there.

The Velo de Novia (Bridal Veil) waterfall, close to the national park

As we were in Talca, we would first have to get to Molina for the solitary bus at 5pm. We were told that there were regular buses there, so we turned up at the bus station at just after 3. However, this happened to be the only gap in the schedule - there wasn't another bus until 4. We sat impatiently on this one and might just have arrived in time, if the bus hadn't got a puncture just outside of Molina. In desperation, we tried to hitchhike into town, and the first thing that arrived was another bus. It rattled ominously and struggled to get out of second gear for the rest of the journey. We arrived at the bus station 10 minutes too late.

The 20m Salta de la Leona (Lioness) waterfall

Molina is not a town geared up for tourists, but we did manage to find a dirty, but dirt cheap, guesthouse and, amazingly, a place selling craft beer. We got up early in the morning as we had been advised that there was a bus that would take us some of the way towards the park, and then we could hitchhike the rest of the way. The bus part went successfully; the hitchhiking part started less well. We stood shivering on the roadside in darkness until the sun rose an hour or so later. Only two cars passed in two hours; neither stopped. Eventually, a pickup truck did pull over for us, threw our bags in under the tarp and on top of the goat, and we were off. For some of the way. They seemed to be delivering the tied up goat to their friend, just 7km further down the road. Soon after though, we were picked up by a visiting Chileno family and taken the rest of the way. We'd made it! And the seven waterfalls were fine.

The Siete Tazas waterfalls, and their cups - the object of the arduous journey

From the national park, we had to be up before dawn once again for the one morning bus back to Molina. It was somewhat surreal walking by torchlight into the pitch black village and seeing the bus materialise out of the darkness. From Molina we took another bus to Curicó and a final one to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is the heart of the Colchagua Valley wine region and, although difficult to get to, the vineyards produce fine red wines. Particularly of the full bodied variety we're both most keen on. We enjoyed some lengthy tasting sessions, even if one was interrupted part way through by a small earthquake sending a jolt through the room.

So much wine!

We've now moved on again, up to the capital, Santiago. We're hoping to see some of the cultural sights around here but mix it up with some more wine tasting in the nearby Casablanca and Maipo regions.

Wine Tasting, Stargazing and a UFO Landing Site

After a busy few days of long hikes near Curacautín, we thought we needed a break and have spent the last week or so based in and around Talca, the capital of the Maule Valley wine region. The Maule Valley is known for its red wines, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon, and some of the wineries are fairly easy to access by public transport; on our first day we took local buses to check out a couple of the nearest ones.

Hiding among the wine barrels

The first winery we visited, Balduzzi, offered a tour in English at a reasonable price, including four tastings. We enjoyed seeing all the machinery used, for example in pressing the grapes, removing stems and so on. Our favourite section was the huge room where the reserve wines are left to mature in huge barrels - the powerful scent in here of oak mixed with wine was quite intoxicating! We tasted two reds and two whites, one more of a dessert wine. All were fine though not spectacular; the spicy Carménère was the pick of the bunch.

Enjoying the sights at Gilmore winery

The second, Gilmore, was more out in the countryside, very picturesque and much less visited by tourists. We didn't bother with a tour but sat outside in the sun with our wine, admiring the vines and the beautiful Mediterranean style garden. The wine here was also better  - we only tried two types but the Merlot here was much more full bodied and satisfying than either of the reds at Balduzzi. The measures were large enough that two tastes was plenty! Gilmore made its own artesanal beer as well as the wine; obviously we purchased a bottle for later.

Volcanic formations at Altos de Lircay

Despite our designs on a restful time, we couldn't come to Talca and not visit the nearby Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay. We duly caught a local bus at 7 am and after a couple of hours bouncing along in the cold arrived at the reserve (actually 2 km outside it - the bus can't make it all the way down the road). We walked through forest and then steeply uphill for some hours, passing huge formations of solidified lava in outlandish shapes and colours. The culmination of our efforts was reaching El Enladrillado, an incredibly flat plateau made of massive volcanic stone slabs in a very ordered layout - it is popularly rumoured to be a UFO landing ground! From the edges there were stupendous views: a panorama of snow capped mountains in every direction, with the far away river just visible down in the valley. One of the nearest mountains was Volcan Descabezado, or the 'headless volcano' - the summit is so wide and flat it really does look like its top is missing.

Looking over the canyon from the Enladrillado, towards Volcan Descabezado

We headed out of Talca to spend three days in a hostel right out in the countryside, Refugio Tricahue. The Belgian owner has found a pretty stunning setting - the hostel is right next to the Rio Maule, with steep, tree covered slopes rising sharply on the other side of the valley. We had a great time chilling out here, venturing out on some short walks but mostly sitting out in the sun enjoying the quiet and the lovely scenery. The highlight though was the night sky. The lack of light pollution here, together with the glass ceiling in our room, meant we had the perfect conditions for stargazing. I have never seen so many stars. Falling asleep gazing up at the Milky Way was really something special.

The Maule valley, from the Tricahue park

Volcanoes, Forts and Beer

From Chiloé we took a bus to Puerto Varas, a touristy town close to Volcán Calbuco. En route the volcano erupted for a third time and we could see the ensuing ash cloud from the bus window. Sadly, once in Puerto Varas itself the weather was too bad to see any more of the volcano, despite it being just over the lake. Since most activities in the town were suspended due to the Calbuco situation, we decided to move on after one night.

Hazy view across from Puerto Varas to Volcán Osorno (left) and Calbuco (right)

Our next stop was Valdivia, a pretty city towards the west coast, with tame sea lions and pelicans frequenting the big riverside fish market. We were lucky to find a fantastic hostel to stay in - it was very eco-friendly, had a resident pet cat (adorable) and duck (vicious!) and was very sociable, with a delicious communal fish barbecue on our first night.

Resident sea lions at the fish market in Valdivia

Valdivia is located at the junction of three rivers and has some wonderful scenery just out of town. On our second day we visited the remains of several forts around Corral Bay. These were built by the Spanish in the 17th century to defend their territories from the threat of attacks from the Pacific, especially pirate raids which were becoming an increasing problem at the time. After going round the recently renovated and very well done fort at Niebla, we took a ferry across the bay to the town of Corral and went to see two more forts there. Corral seemed to be the store for the whole country's supply of wood chippings - the town was dominated by two absolutely enormous piles!

Guns at the fort in Niebla, near Valdivia

Valdivia is also known for its breweries and after a washed out attempt to go to a national park one day, we spent an enjoyable afternoon sampling beers. It is the base for one of Chile's largest brewing companies, Kunstmann, but we decided to give the very touristy trip there a miss and instead checked out two microbreweries. We particularly liked the first of these, El Duende (The Gnome), which had a wood burning stove, free herb bread and lovely river views even in the rain. Not to mention very decent beer on tap!

Fishing boats and pelicans

After three days in Valdivia we moved on to Pucón, a lakeside town adjacent to Volcán Villarrica. We only intended to stay here for one night since a) it is very touristy; b) the top activity, climbing Villarrica, has been impossible since it erupted in March; and c) we'd heard the town was badly affected by volcanic ash blown across from Calbuco. However, on arrival we swiftly reversed this decision. The air was perfectly clear, there weren't many people around, and there was plenty to do! Our hostel in Pucón is on the lakefront and also has a great view of Volcán Villarrica. There's still a plume of smoke from time to time and on a clear night you can see the top glowing red - it's pretty awesome.

Glowing Volcán Villarrica, from Pucón

The forecast for the day after we arrived was clear, so we took the opportunity to climb another of the volcanoes in the area. Not Villarrica of course, but a much less active one. We left the hostel at 7 am and made the ascent in a group of ten with two local guides. The walk started in the forest but most was out on the mountain and the snow cover increased as went up. We were carrying lots of gear and in the course of the walk up our bags lightened considerably as we donned crampons, helmets and began using ice picks. This was the best part of the whole experience - neither of us had ever done any serious hiking in snow and ice before, and the scenery blanketed in white was spectacular. As were the views from the top, from where we could see down to the snow filled crater, and across to Volcan Villarrica on one side and numerous other volcanoes in the other direction.

Ascending Volcán Quetrupillán, with Volcán Villarrica in the distance

We have another couple of days here, with lots more outdoor activity planned, including a waterfall and a national park.

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.