Adventures of Dean and Sophie

Approaching El Chalten in the bus was spectacular. The sun had just come up, lighting up the the towering jagged granite spires that are the dominating features of the area, and will be featuring in many of the accomapanying photos. The two main features are the Torres, three impossibly tall, narrow spires and Cerro Fitz-Roy, a huge granite hump, flanked by several smaller jagged peaks, all cloaked in snow and ice.

Since we arrived so early in the day and had done some shopping in Bariloche already, after stashing some of our stuff, we were able to hit the trails straight away and walk right out of the tiny town, still groggy from our 33 hours on the bus. We left with our new friend Mark leading the way, but it wasn’t long before he was fanging it along ahead of us and we were on our own.

The first hike we did was four days and we went along the main tourist tracks. Our first camp was Lago Torres, fed by the waters melting off the glacier Grande which we could see winding down from beneath the three huge spires. Although it was quite cold, especially when the wind was blowing, it was not nearly as cold as we were expecting, and we didn’t ever have to use all of our many layers. The water running in the steams and rivers is icy cold however, not really surprising since a lot of it has just melted off a huge block of ice.

Our second camp, where we spent two nights, was Camp Poincenot, just below the huge Cerro Fitz-Roy. We did several little excursions from here, and the scenery was absolutely stunning. Lago Los Tres was especially beautiful. A still lake, perched way up on one of the foot hills, with Fits-Roy still looming high above it. I was constantly amazed and decieved by the scale of things. We would walk up hills that looked to be just underneath the mountain, only to arrive at the top to see the mountain was even bigger and more looming than before.

We were very lucky in that the weather, normally very windy and rainy, was unusually good and we had clear skies most of the time. This inspired me to get up in the cold with my camera for sunrise every morning and the early sun lighting up the yellow, sometimes red rock was really special. On the last morning I was even able to persuade Sophie to get up in the dark and climb the arduous path up the Laguna Los Tres for the sunrise.

After roughing it for four days we returned to town for a night in town on a soft bed, content that we had seen most of the major sights and ready to catch a bus onwards to El Calafate the next day.

ElChalten, Hike One
Laguna Torre, Laguna Sucia, Laguna Los Tres and back.

We left Bariloche at 9pm with a most amazing red sunset. Our epic bus trip took us down Ruta 40 which runs down Argentina from the Lakes district in the north all the way down to Calafate in the far South. Though it is more direct, time-wise it is the longer of to routes, the other being Ruta 3, which arrives via Rio Gallegos. This is due to the fact that there are large sections of the road that are unsealed, requiring the bus to crawl along at what seemed to be about 30km/h. So, for one long night, one long day and then another long night we sat in our seats watching the endless plains go by.

It was a long trip, but there were some interesting sights to see along the way, including quite a few of what I think were guanacos grazing by the road (llama like things) and some mini-ostrich/emu type birds that I have not yet been able to put a name to. In addition there was some amazing mirages shimmering above the horizon, snow capped mountain ranges and tree covered hills that evaporated as we went by. Equally amazing were some of the real landscapes that we passed.

As is often the case when cooped up with a small group of people for extended periods, we made friends with a few interesting characters, including a guy from Perth, Mark Sheen, who is a professional mountain climber and was able to entertain us with stories like what its is like to watch the sunrise on the top of Mt. Everest. We were also able to get a tip or two about how to handle the cold.

So in the end, between chatting to passengers, watching the scenery and listening to our Spanish lessons, the trip didn’t drag on too long and before we knew it we were getting off the bus at 7am in El Chalten and preparing to walk into the mountains, still groggy from the bus trip.

Ruta 40, Argentina
The long bus trip from Bariloche to El Chalten.

Tonight we leave on a huge bus trip, lasting a night, a day and another night, it will take us from Bariloche to El Chalten, way down in the south of Argentina. It will be a killer, but El Chalten sits in Los Glaciars National Park and is said to be the hiking capital of Argentina, full of incredible granite spires and glaciers. It is very far south so is likely to be quite extreme. I am very excited.

After hiking a few days there, we plan to go down to El Calafate, and then across to Chile where there is another amazing Park, Torres del Paine. Pray the weather is kind to us down there!

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At this stage, having spent quite a lot of time in the lakes area, we had decided to move on to see some different scenery. So despite Bariloche being very beautiful, clinging to the hills on the shores of the huge Lago Huepi and surrounded by towering mountains, we booked  our ticket onwards for the next night.

We had one night there though, and it proved to be interesting. A few minutes before our bus left, on pilfered internet, we had hastily booked a couple of beds in a hostel in Bariloche as it is very busy at this time of year. We arrived at 5pm to find out that our booking had not been registered yet and they were full that night.

It could have been quite bad, but the hostel, Ponto Sur, really ran around for us, and in the end the owner of the hostel offered us his spare apartment, all to ourselves and right by the bus station. He even picked us up and took us there. So we spent the night in an apartment with two rooms, kitchen and bathroom all to ourselves, for the price of our 10% booking deposit. Go Ponto Sur!

Villa la Angostura is a small touristy town and is the end of the Seven Lakes route. It is set between two lakes and amonsgt the moutains and I´m sure it would normally be a very beautiful town. However, our stay there of three nights was wet and cold. Luckily, soon after we got there we were in the shops and Sophie finally convinced me to shell out for a proper waterproof / windproof jacket. It is made out of pure GORE-TEX®©, apparently a substance that costs more than its weight in gold. It has worked very well though and saved me from being very wet in Angostura where it rained constantly. Some of the attractions we might have seen if it had not been so miserable, the shortest river in the world, and the Bosque de Arrayes, a forest where Walt Disney is said to have gotten his inspiration for Bambi.

The one upside of our visit to Villa La Angostura was that, after our first night in a backpackers, we were ablt to contact a friend of Alejandro (who we met in Buenos Aires) who live their with her mum and rents out their spare room. The next two nights we stayed with them in their lovely rustic wooden house tucked in the back of an amazing jungle of a garden. It was awesome to stay with locals and we shared a couple of meals, a good few rounds of Yerba Mate and some delicious local beers from El Bolson.

We after waiting for a couple nights for the weather to clear up, we decided that, like in San Martin, we had to just forge onward. So we jumped on a bus to Bariloche, and like in San Martin, we arrived in Bariloche under clearing afternoon skies.

Starting from the previous lake the road turns nasty. Untarred and very dusty, it winds along some very steep mountainsides and valleys with a lot of crazy contruction work happening along the way. The views from the bus were nice however. When we arrived at Lago Espejo (Mirror Lake) our bags were coated with white dust, as was our campsite, as it was right at the base of a steep section of road. It was also quite crowded.

It had been a hectic days travel and we weren’t really up to trekking along the beach to find another stealth campsite so we set up there anyway. Needless to say this lake was also stunningly beautiful. We had an early night, listening to a bit of the awesome Spanish music we have acquired from various people.

In the morning I was up again for sunrise, it wasn’t quite as cold this time. The sunrise was magic, and I returned to camp to find Sophie up and making us some delicious oats porridge with dates, now our staple for camping in cold places. Just before our bus we were able to fit in a quick walk to Lago Corentoso, another nearby lake, plus the customary skinny dip.

Then we found ourselves at the end of the Seven Lakes Road, on a bus to Villa La Angostura.

Lago Espejo (Mirror Lake), Siete Lagos
On of the last lakes on the seven lakes route before reaching the end at Villa La Angostura.

As we worked our way further along the Seven Lakes road, we began to see more and more patches of snow on the mountaintops. As it is summer there is not very much, but it’s been up there taunting me. We arrived at a campsite on a long beach on Lago Faulkner, surrounded by mountains. One of those was Mount Faulkner and we could see the patches of snow near the top and though it was big, it seemed to be within reach. We arrived with enough time to set up camp, have a quick snooze, and then start on the path that goes up the mountain.

It was a lot bigger than it looked! We climbed for a couple of hours, enjoying the ever more spectacular views as we got higher. Unfortunately Sophie was still not feeling one hundred percent and decided to stop and have a rest while I continued upward. Soon the scrubby bush that we’d been walking through became beautiful old forest with icy streams running through.

This disappeared nearer the top and I found myself climbing up through sand and loose rock and then… Snow! How exciting! It was only a small patch, 20m or so across, but I had a great time slipping and sliding around on it. I put some in my water bottle to show Sophie. Then even more climbing! It seemed to go on forever. I don’t think I got to the exact top, but I was close enough to be satisfied and was worried about Soph waiting for me, so I flew down the sandy rocky slopes. I had very sore knees when I got back to Sophie, and together we limped down the mountain. In pain, but very satisfied.

That night, we met our first Chileans! We had a great night around their fire, drinking wine and trying ever so hard to communicate with our broken Spanish and English. In the morning we exchanged emails, and will hopefully meet up again for some pisco when we pass through Santiago.

The next day we packed up and walked a kilometer down the road to the next lake. We discovered a free campsite there, but being quite busy we decided instead to trek along the shore for a couple kms to try and fine a nice looking river that I’d seen from up on the mountain. We found it a couple kms along and it turned out to be the most beautiful campsite, amongst the trees with green grass, a beautiful sheltered beach with the now obligatory crystal clear blue water, and mountains all around. A little way along was the river, which made me really keen to be more interested in trout fishing.

That day was Sophie and my three year anniversary, and it was the most beautiful spot to spend it.

In the morning I was feeling so good that I was able to get up for sunrise photos, for the first time in South America (not counting bus stations) and depite the scorching cold. There was mist on the lake and the first light hitting the snow capped mountain was really amazing but my fingers were so very sore from the cold.

Lago Falkner and Lago Villarino
Another two lakes on the Seven Lakes Road.

After a long day of hauling our bags, we arrived at our first lake, Lake Hermoso, in the late afternoon, to find that the campsite there was now closed. Not giving up, and not really having a choice either, we lugged our stuff along the 2km road to the lake itself. As the sun was slowly going down there were a few people who kindly stopped to tell us that there was no camping at Lake Hermoso, before happily carrying on their way. We smiled and nodded and kept going. As it was getting dark and Sophie was suffering from a bad headache we had to make a plan. We hopped off the road and a little way into the bush and found ourselves a nice little stealthy camp spot, tucked in a grove of bamboo. It was a very quick dinner, and then we were fast asleep.

The next day we left our little nest with day packs and spent the day exploring Lake Hermoso, another crystal clear blue lake. There were even more wild flowers here, with thousands of daisies and other flowers lining the roads. In the evening we had an early dinner on the banks of a small pool called Pudu Pudu. Lined with reeds it was very reminiscent of some of the lakes on Fraser Island.

That night our sleep was disturbed by clumbsy hoof steps and snuffling around the tent from what we decided was a wild pig. We sent him on his way with some loud clapping and could hear him crashing through the bush and the water of the pool. Once at a safe distance he snorted and grunted in disgruntlement. The rest of the night was quiet and in the morning we packed up and were able to hail a bus to the next lake along the route, Lake Faulkner.

Lago Hermoso, Siete Lagos
Our first stop on the Seven Lakes Route from San Martin to Villa la Angostura.

For a regular wake up at 8am, sleep at 10pm person like me, living in a sun up at 5am sun down at 6pm place like Brisbane, Argentine time has been a bit of a shock to the system. At this time of year, 6pm is considered to be afternoon, the sun is only going down at 9pm and it is normal practise to only start thinking about dinner at 10pm. This means that nights out only begin after 12 and the night is unlikely to end before 4am. So we have often found ourselves waking up at midday. I hate to think what happens when people have to work the next day.

Yerba Mate (pronounced Sher-ba Mah-teh not Yeh-bah Mayt ) is an hot drink that is really big here in Argentina. It is quite an interesting process so I thought I would write up a brief description.

You will need:

• Yerba - This is the “herb”, its something like green tea.
• Mate - is a small pot, often very ornate and made either from a gourd or wood, Mate being a type of wood.
• Bambilla - a metal pipe with a filter on one end, usually decorated
• Themo - thermos flask with hot water

First the Bombilla is placed in the Mate and then Yerba is poured into the Mate, almost filling it. Water is slowly poured on top of the Yerba, taking care not to cover it completely and “drown it”. The water should be hot, but not boiling hot as this can burn the Yerba and spoil the flavour. You then suck the beverage through the Bombilla. When dry, more water is poured in and the apparatus is passed to the next participant. More Yerba is periodically added on top as required.

Now you too can drink Yerba Mate like an Argentino! Thanks to Alejandro and Manuel for the Yerbadoring instruction.