From very south to north and further

After a nice last day in Punta Arenas with a delicious dinner, we took the bus in the morning to drive to Ushuaia in Argentina. The bus ride took 10 hours and we crossed the sea with a ferry to fire-land (tierra del fuego)  before we had to do the immigration stuff once more. But this time, we could stay in the bus and we didn't need to unpack our luggage (as it is usually is done) :-) .
We arrived in Ushuaia at 19.00 and went straight to our hostal (we booked in advanced since our guidebook told us to do so) Casa de Tere, where we stayed 5 nights. It's a nice hostal with a good kitchen, so we cooked twice on our own, but this evening we went for dinner. As usually in the south, we recommend the lamb which is very tasty here! We also solved an important question for us: how much does a full wine bottle weight? (it's about 1.5 kg).
Next morning, we visited Ushuaia (looks a bit like in the north of Europe and the prices are similar) and we organized a sea kanu tour and our visit in the national park the day after. Ushuaia is in a bay, surrounded with mountains and a nice touristy town. But the "problem" with Ushuaia is, that the weather can change withing 10 minutes and it can be cold and windy down there! So we used the last time our thick jackets and spent a lot of money that day (e.g. postcards) and we had fresh sushi in town! Good stuff!

Sushi in Ushuaia

 The national park of Tierra del Fuego is a bit away from Ushuaia, so we first took a cab and then we choose the "slowest way" to get to the park: a stem train ride from Station "Fin del Mundo" into the park. It is actually the same way the prisoners had to take to get firewood from the forest and they had to do it all year long. So we boarded our slow train and it was a nice experience! After about 1 hour, we arrived and started hiking. Unfortunately, the weather changed to the wet side but it wasn't too much of rain, so we still had a pleasant walk in the mountain and then along the sea shore.

Prisoner's Train

Sea shore view

Mountain view

Next morning, we got picked up by a tour company that offers day trips with a canoe and hiking. So, we hopped on a bus and drove to the canoeing place. We had 2 persons from India on that trip (they were a bit funnily dressed, no gore-tex jacket, jeans, ... ) not the best for being outside but well, they managed it (although they didn't really paddle in the canoe). The Indians told us, that they have a hard time in Argentina since they don't eat animals of religious reasons (well, there is not much left I'd say!!) and that they go to Antarctica soon (I hope they like the stormy trip there!).
It was nice to be in the beagle channel with the small boat. Later that day, we drove with a fast boat to an Penguin Colony (funny) and then further south to an island for our short hike and lunch (where we noticed that just the two of us drank the bottle of wine the guide had brought with him). After lunch, it was very stormy at that place (the wind pushed you up the hill) so we had to hurry a bit. Once back, our boat picked us up and we drove back to Ushuaia after a very pleasant day.

what a windy place

Sea shore

Pinguinos on the island

No meat today (but Paella instead)

Our last day we spent in Ushuaia with sending a parcel back home (not with the help of a very unfriendly postal employee) but finally it was ready and we had time for an easy day there. We went to a very good restaurant in Ushuaia (paella) and we looked forward to change our jackets by shorts. To shorten the distance between Ushuaia and Buenos Aires (3040 km) we took the plane the day after and we arrived in the afternoon by sunshine and 30 degrees there. We stayed one night in a hostal that our Belgium friends mentioned on their blog (Che Argentino) and it was nice (and they remembered the Belgiums as well). We just visited San Telmo (a part of BA) and had a nice night in the hostel.
Next morning, we left for the beach, to Uruguay. We took the ferry to Colonia and from there the bus to Montevideo. The city is pretty nice but a bit empty on week ends (we arrived on Saturday). We finally found a hostal which was ok but not great and we stayed 2 nights there. 
In the morning, we woke up and noticed that we had shared the beds with bed bugs (or something like that) but fortunately, we could change the room anyway for the next night. We visited the old town of Montevideo and the beach there (and we were surprised by a shower there). In the evening, we had to compare the Argentinian Meat with the one from Uruguay and we had a juicy piece of meat (just GREAT).

Centre of Montevideo

Fountain

What a meat! GREAT!

Now, we are in a beach town, we are in Piriapolis. Here is not much to see except from the sea and the beach (well there is a chairlift up a hill we gonna visit tomorrow). But there is sun (a bit too much today) and it's nicely warm (and I got a beard-cut for free!).

Piriapolis

 So, what's next? We head back to Montevideo to stay one night there to visit the football museum (and get some more meat!) and from there we visit Colonia and drive back to Buenos Aires, where we are going to spend our last money on wine :-)

 

Days in Punta Arenas

We spent our last day in Puerto Natales relaxing after the tour in the Torres del Paine national park. In the evening, we visited an African / Patagonian restaurant (Afrigonia) with very good food. So we were ready for the 3 hour bus ride further south to Punta Arenas.

Puerto Natales

 In the afternoon we arrived there and with the help of a friendly owner of a hostal, we checked in at B&B Hostal. It's a nice hostal not far away from the main square. Since it was still early that day we went to visit the center and we also organized the tour for the next day, a visit to Islas Magdalena with 50'000 Penguins breeding. The tour starts at 5 in the afternoon, so we had half a day for sight-seeing and for a visit at a museum with information about the inhabitants of south patagonia before the Europeans arrived. Nice display and good information. It was a windy day (actually every day here is a windy day) and we arrived on time at the harbour to board the ship at 17.00. After 2 hours, we stopped at Isla Magdalena and had 1 hour to take pictures of penguins (they are not shy at all). The whole island is covered with penguins as you can see on the picture! Back in town (22.00) we went to a recommended restaurant (La Luna) for seafood and patagonian lamb! Very tasty.

Ship at the harbour

Isla Magdalena

The day after the island, we wanted to visit a national park, but it was difficult to find information about it: in the hostal, they didn't know that this park exists and the maps in our guidebooks were just old, so we couldn't find the tourist information (at first). Once we had the information that there is no public transport to this park, we took a cab to get there. We spend 3 hours there (from the hilltop it's possible to see Fireland) before we headed back to town (again by taxi).
Today was our last day in Punta Arenas and we visited the maritime museum and the graveyard. Around 1880 a lot of people from Yugoslavia left their country and settled in the very south so you find a lot of graves with names ending on -ic.

National Park

Tomb of a Sailor

Sun set in Punta Arenas

 Now, we are ready for "the end of the world" and tomorrow we drive to Ushuaia (12h), our last stop in the south before we fly to Buenos Aires from there!

Perito Moreno and Torres del Paine

We got picked up in the morning for our day trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier. The bus ride to the national park took about 1 hour where we arrived earlier than other tours. The good thing about this was, that there were not so many people on the "catwalks" around the glacier. We had about 1 hour to enjoy the beauty of this glacier and to see how junks of ice break down and crash into the water. Later, we had to go back to the bus since we booked the ice trekking tour on it. We got transferred by boat to the other side of the lagune where we had our box lunch and prepared for the "hike". Putting on some basic crampones (not really nice ones but they fit to every kind of shoes) we were ready to have a stroll over the glacier, followed by a iced whiskey on the glacier. The colors of the glacier are really impressive (actually it's just a optical illusion, the ice is transparent, not white or blue)!

Perito Moreno

On the glacier

Junks in the water

 On our way back, we could also see a very big junk of ice crashing into the lake (it sounds like a thunder) Just Amazing!
We had one day left in Calafate which we spent with visiting a museum about the south of Patagonia, how it developed, what kind of animals lived here and how the local people got killed to get rid of them. It's an nice and interesting museum, worth to visit. In the late afternoon, we got picked up to visit the Estancia 25 de Mayo, which was the first "supermarket" in the town Calafate (at that time, there was no town, just this estancia). It's a small estancia, "just" 17'000 hectars of land, but you need this since for 1 sheep, you need about 1 hectar of land to survive. We had a very interesting talk about how it was founded, about the immigrants, the life and a demonstration how the sheep got sheared. The owner also showed us around, displayed the old tools they used and how it all worked there. After an aperitif, we also had dinner in the estancia (a parillada) which was also very tasty (the lamb is just great down here!).

Mammal that lived in Patagonia

Estancia 25 de Mayo

Small Parillada

So, after some days in Calafate, we left the town (in a bus with no space for tall people) for crossing the border to Chile again (this means waiting for leaving Argentina, waiting for migrating to Chile and plague control (this means, your luggage get's x-rayed to check if you have fruits or meat with you which is not allowed). But once we were done with it it was just a small bus ride left to Puerto Natales.
We arrived in the afternoon and check in at our hostal (a very nice one). The owner helped us to organize the trip to the Torres del Paine national park and we purchased all things that we would need for 3 days there (food, water, tent, etc). We decided to take the afternoon bus so we had some time to enjoy the rich breakfast in the hostal before we re-packed once more all things and left for the park. We arrived around 17.00 there and a local guide told us (again) that fire is strickly prohibited in the park (and the other rules).

Not too difficult to understand

As you might have read, some idiot burned down 10% of the park by lighting his toilet paper :-( well, the part around lago Gray is still closed, but the french valey and the torres part is opened, so we hiked till 20.30 to get to our camping ground. This time, we had a different dinner (rice) before we went to bed. We had an early start (04.00) to the lagune of the Torres since we wanted to see sunrise there. It was amazing when the mountains turn red in the morning! Great to see!

Las Torres del Paine at sunrise

 After a nap, we hiked down to the cuernos which was our base for the french valley. It's a nice camping with hot showers and toilets and a store where you can by things you need (e.g. beer). Ready for the next day, we started at 07.00 before the crowd started, so we were almost alone for the full trip into the valley. We just met a french couple that is on a 5 year jurney around the globe... not too bad :-)
The french valley is amazing, with the hanging glacier and the view to the cuernos. Furthermore, you can also see what the fire has caused: you see a lot of burned areas which are just black :-( On the way back we saw, that the crowd was up also and we headed back to our tent. On the way down, we also noticed that some very stupid people had lit a fire on a campground for a BBQ. The park ranger was just about putting out the rest of the fire when we passed there. I'm not sure how stupid and ignorant one has to be do this. It's a dry area and you can see the burned areas :-( just idiots! Well, we arrived in the afternoon at our campsite and enjoyed the sunny afternoon.

Morning view of lago Nordenskjöld

French Valley

View from the Mirrador Britanico

Las Curenos

Next morning, our only thing to do was to get back to the bus stop and head back to Puerto Natales. We had a wonderful sunny day and arrived on time at the bus stop where we had to wait, but this was nice since the weather was perfect. Blue sky and sunshine. The bus ride back was shorter since we didn't stop at any place and so we arrived early in Puerto Natales, just a bit tired. As it was Rosi's birthday, we went for a specially recommended restaurant, where they serve king crab (good, but not a lot of taste) and other food. It was nice but not the very best restaurant we have eaten so far, but it was a very nice day!

Now, we have one day left here before we head for 4-5 days to Punto Arenas and then some more days in Ushuaia (end of the world) before we fly to Buenos Aires (3. Feb).        

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!).

News coming soon...

We haven't updated the blog for almost 2 weeks now :-( but we'll do it soon again. We headed from Bariloche to el chalten and today we move to el calafate (with hopefully a better Internet connection) and we'll do an update from there :-)

Happy New Year

As written in the last entry, the 25 dec we hiked a mirrador close to San Martin de los Andes and headed further to la Islita, an island close to a beach where we had a short swim in the refreshing water!

Mirrador

La Islita

Next morning, we checked with the Park Rangers if it was possible to climb volcano Lanin (3776) and what we would need. We met a german who did it before and he advised us, that a guide is not needed, so we opted for the version without guide. The funny thing about the Lanin Volcano is, that it's covered with permanent ice and snow, so you need crampons to climb it. Furthermore, there is quite a lot of regulations what you need to get the allowance to climb it (eye drops, first aid set, ice axt and helmet, etc.) and the rangers check if you have all of it at the beginning. so we needed to hire some equipment in a store to be ready. In the afternoon, we wanted to visit another lake in the north with hot springs, but we were already a bit late since the 50 km took us way longer to get there since it's all unpaved and very narrow. During this day, we also noticed the ash cloud that covers the sky and the ground (it looks like fog). The reason for this is an active volcano that erupted in June and that is still smoking some 100 km away in Chile. Depending on the wind situation, the smoke is blown to Bariloche, the 7 lakes area or / and villa la Angostura (see later). So we had lunch at the shore and headed back to prepare for the Lanin.

Volcano Lanin 3776 m

 We left early in the morning and arrived at 08.00 at the foot of the Lanin, where the ranger checked our stuff (and was happy with it). To give you an idea of our tour, here the plan:
1 day: hiking up 1500 m for 6-8 hours to reach the refugio on 2660 m altitude. You need to carry water (13 l for 2 people), food, stove, pan, ice axt, crampons, sleeping bag & mat, helmet, cloths so it added up to about 25 kg for 2 people).
2 day: climb to the summit (ascend of 1116 m on a 45 degree slope) and downhill everything back to the base camp (2500 m down) in about 12-14 h.
The first day was pretty though because of the weight that we needed to carry up, but luckily, after 8 hours, we arrived at the refugio and we were the only ones there! only some condors were visiting us there!

The refugio

 Climbing the summit usually goes along with an early start. We left around 5 in the morning due to windy weather before and we climbed 2 snow fields with the crampons pretty quickly. After the snow, we had to pass a horrible rock field, which was very steep before we reached the glacier / snow field on the summit (another hour to climb). Finally, we made it to the top and enjoyed the view, although the ash from the volcano was disturbing it slightly. And from the top, we were also able to see the smoking volcano! (see the picture that looks like a cloud). On the top, we also encountered another Swiss climber that did the volcano in 1 day with light luggage, so he could climb faster than we did (funny: 3 Swiss meet on the top of an Argentine Mountain).
 

45 degrees uphill

Snow field walking

View to the volcano Villarica

On the top with view to the smoking volcano

Downhill through the snow fields is good fun and you can walk very quick, but once we passed the lower refugio, we had to walk down for about 3 hours on gravel with our big backpacks and tired legs (and it was hot as well and we had a lot of very annoying horse flies around us), so we were happy to reach the car. We stopped at a lake close to cool down a bit before driving back to San Martin.

downhill

Next day, we took the car and returned to the route of the 7 lakes, but the ash cloud was following us. We had sore muscles and wanted to enjoy some views at lake Trafull. As we arrived at the lake, we couldn't even see the other side of it, so dense was the fog there, so we continued to Villa La Angostura. There we noticed something that we didn't notice the days before Christmas: This town is heavily hit by the volcanic ash! on the side of the road, you can see as piles, on the roofs is ash of about 10 cm and they clean the roads regularly with water. Also the mountains around are covered with an ash layer, so they are grey on the top!

Ash cloud and covered mountains

Ash on the roof

 We stopped here for dinner and stayed the night (disrupted by an alarm horn at 2 in the morning) because we had to return the car next morning (the car was gray from the ash as well)
After returning the car, we started to organize our next days and we postponed or flight back to the 15.02.2012 (arriving on Thursday the 16.02.2012 in Zurich) :-) so we have some more time here.  Unfortunately, we may encounter some issues regarding the national park of Torres del Paine (in Chile). There is a fire (apparently because a very stupid Israeli was not careful) and they closed down the park at the moment. So we have to check if we can visit it or not.
At the day of new year, we visited the mountain close to Bariloche (Cerro Otto) to have a look around. It was a hot day and the ash cloud was visible again, blocking the view to the lakes around, but still, it was nice. We spend the evening in a Mexican restaurant (besides meat-restaurants, there is not much else) with wine, food, margaritas and champagne! So we wish you all a happy new year and we'll write some more postcards. Apparently some of the cards are still on the way (sent weeks ago) but we still have some time :-)

A typical dinner for 2, 700g of meat