Getting further south

After new year's eve, we spent the day relaxing and organizing things in Bariloche (e.g. updating the blog, etc. ), since we had booked a car in Bariloche next morning. So, as before Christmas, we headed to the rental car office to pick our new car up and we drove 120 km south to escape from the ash cloud of the volcano. Once we arrived, we were disappointed since the cloud seemed to be there as well, so the sky was silky and gray. But "luckily" this wasn't the cloud of the volcano, it was from the fires in the forest in Chile on the other side of the mountains. We hoped that we gonna have luck for next morning, went to our nice and private hostal and headed further south to the parque de los Alerces, where we spent the afternoon at a lake with sunshine.

Los Alerces

Next morning, later than expected, we started our day trip to the mountain Piltriquitron. you can drive up to 1000m, before you hike up to the summit (2260m). At the beginning its straight forward, but close to the end it gets really steep and we were happy to have our good hiking boots with us. The view was great from the top. Funnily, some other people (young Argentinos) had the same idea, but they merely wore normal sport shoes to climb the mountain ;-) .

View from the top

After our climb, we headed next morning to another hike on the other side of the valley for a night in a Refugio (better equipped than the one on mount Lanin). Firstly, we had to cross a suspension bridge that would not make it through any test since it supports only 1 person at a time and it is very unstable and half broken!

1 Person max

It was hot and dry while we walked up the steep slope and we were happy to have enough water with us. We reached the river with fresh water after about 4.5 hours of walking and from there it was just another 45 minutes to the Refugio. It is run by a family and it's very nice, except for the bugs in the mattress :-( I woke up with about 60 bites covering my body. Furthermore I lost the self inflatable mattress on the way up, it must have dropped from my backpack somehow.
Besides the bugs, the night was quiet and we left in the morning with small luggage to climb 450 m to reach a lagune at the head of a glacier on the mountain. Here as well, some Argentinos had the same idea, but they don't carry water, no food and just very basic shoes, whereas we used our good ones. The difference at the end is, that the Argentinos "slide and stumble" up and down the mountain more than walking ;-)   but the lagune and the view was great! Once back at the refugio, we packed our things and hiked the 5 hours down to the car again. On our way back we met some other Argentinos (yes: no water, bad shoes, no food) who asked us firstly how long it is to the river and then if we could give them some water :-) . Almost at the end of the way, we had a good view to a sad event, we could directly see the fire in the forest on the hills next to El Bolson.

The Lagune

View from the top

Fire

After our last night in El Bolson, we drove back to Bariloche to hand back the car (no problem) and we prepared for our next trip to El Chalten (about 1200 km south).

We started at 06.30 in Bariloche for our first 12 h road trip south. At the beginning, the scenery is nice and changing, but after about 4 hours, it's all flat, dry and a straight street. Luckily for us, this part of the road was mostly asphalted. With some stops in between, we arrived in Perito Moreno Pueblo where we stayed in an expensive hostal in a 4 bed dorm. Next morning, we had the same as the day before, but with gravel road. Sitting in a bus, waiting in a more or less not changing environment. The only change we had was the rain, which made the driving more difficult and we stopped for about an hour to pass a difficult place. Finally, we arrived at about 22.00 at El Chalten where we had to find a hostal firstly. It was cold, wet and windy, so not the weather where you want to walk around for a long time. But well, this place is really small and it took us about 1 hour to find something affordable.

Since El Chalten is the hiking capital, we had to get a tent for our hikes and we bought all essential things for 4 days in the mountains (which is food). It was still raining and very windy, but we took the opportunity to visit a small cascade close to the town.

On the way to the cascade

Carrying food for 4 days, a tent, sleeping bags etc. is pretty heavy but we hiked the planned route. Firstly, we went to the Laguna Torre, but the clouds were low so we couldn't see much there. The same day, we took a "shortcut" via 2 lagunes to reach our designated camping ground (Pointcenot) where we set up the tent and prepared dinner (soup and pasta). All day was about 20km of hiking.
Next morning, the weather was better so we hiked up to the laguna de los tres (450m uphill) and we had a good view to the Mt. Fitz Roy and the lagunes there. A pretty nice spot! Since we had some more time this day, we walked back and went for a late lunch to another lagune (laguna Capri) where the view was great as well. In the evening, we had pasta and soup again, after walking for about 15 km.

Fitz Roy

Lagune

On day 3 we headed west to the piedra de los frailes which took us some time (one way was about 12 km) and arriving there, we were told that passing this point to reach the lago electrico would cost us 75 pesos each (about 18 CHF per person). So we dropped this plan and hiked back another route that brought us to the Lagune Piedras Blancas. This Lagune can only be reached by climbing through big rocks, not very easy but nice at the end! Finally, we reached our camp ground tired after about 25 km. Tired but happy we had another soup and pasta for dinner before we went to bed.

Laguna Piedras Blancas

Since the last day was really nice (no clouds) we decided to go back to laguna Torre again and go back to town from there (12 km hike). Fortunately, the weather stayed good so we could take some more pictures of the Cerro Torre and its lagune! But the way back and the previous day were hard enough, so we suffered a bit on our way down. All in all, we hiked about 80 km in 4 days but it was very nice.

Blue Sky

Cerro Torre and Lagune

We didn't have a lot of time for relaxing, because we had an appointment with some horses next morning (horse back riding). We didn't book the boring tour, no, we took the big one which goes up a mountain and down on the other sides. We took this because firstly, it's more fun (if you know riding) and there was a bbq for lunch! So, sitting on a horse for the first time (for some people) we headed uphill with our guide and some other tourists. The view from there was great and the horses know the way, so you don't have to do a lot (except for not falling down). The downhill part was a bit more difficult since my horse wanted to run down all the time (Galopp) which is not the most relaxing thing in the world ;-) but finally we reached the bbq place and had some nice patagonian lamb. From there, it was just a short ride back to the Estancia and after about 6h we were back in town, with a full stomach, slightly hurting buts and legs.

 
In the evening (after having packed again) we went to a small but very nice restaurant where we had some other animals for dinner (about 1 cow, 1 tasty fish and some pig-sausage)  ;-) and to answer a question from some of you: No, besides meat there is nothing else to eat in Argentina (well, there is, but meat is mostly the best thing you can eat normaly).
Well, the night was over, we got up and waited for our bus to El Calafate, the town closest to the Perito Moreno Glacier. We arrived in the afternoon and had time to check out some places regarding visits of the glacier and other things. We decided that we wanted to "have a day off" so today we didn't do a tour our anything but sleeping, eating, postcarding (does this verb exist?) and blogging (and soon eating again ;-) ).
Tomorrow, if all goes well, we hope for good weather since we gonna visit the Glacier (the entrance cost is 100 Pesos each!).