Two Beers and a Pretzel

Wed, Feb 18th-

The bus from El Calafate to El Chalten stopped the the Hotel La Leona – a totally unremarkable building except for the sign outside listing the distances to major cities of the world…

Oh, and the fact that Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (and Sundance’s wife, Elthel) all hid out here for a month before moving into Chile back in 1905.

Once in Chalten, I met back up with the Lynne, Erin & Katie and we hiked an 11km (250m vertical) trek to Laguna Torre, at the foot of Cerro Torre mountain and the terminus of Glaciar Grande.  Katie led the gung-ho pace and everyone was completely exhausted by the end of the 11km return trip, but the views were worth it…  We hiked off to the left in this next pic.  Fitz-Roy is the cloud covered peak to the right.

The glacier and the small lake at the end of the hike.

Zoom in on some interresting clouds on the mountains..

Here’s Me, Erin, Katie and Lynne during the hike.

a view of town on the way back…

I’ll post some more, but the internet is SLOOOOW here…

I doubt too many people will complain about a lack of photos today…  The Moreno glacier was by far the most photogenic geological attraction I’ve seen this side of Yosemite.  The whole town of El Calafate is geared toward hard core adventure travel with a healthy dose of safe tourist activities thrown in for good measure.  I decided go start safe and get more risky as I go.

My hostel arranged a tour starting at 8 AM where we drove 80 kilometers to from El Calafate to Los Glaciares Parque Nacional.

Along the way you could watch the landscape change from barren Patagonian steppe to forest and mountains.

Unlike most normal tours, which go straight to the glacier, we hopped out of the bus before we could see the full extent of the ice and walked around the Lago Argentino portion of the glacial lake.

Then you turn a corner and BAM – there’s about 1/3 of the glacier.  For reference, the face is 60 meters tall by 5 kilometers long.

The sides move around 1/2 meter an hour, while the center moves about 2 meters an hour… so as it emerges into the lake it has an arrowhead shape – as you can see in this photo I got after strapping a few rockets to my backpack (or possibly just ripped off from Google Maps).

Near the point of the arrow is a mountainous penisula.  Occasionally the glacier creates an ice-dam and blocks the Lago Argentino side of the lake.  The water level rises inthe Lago until there’s enough to float the glacier – then all hell breaks loose.  It happens every couple years.  Supposodly last week a calfing iceberg fell into the penisula and created an ice bridge – but it collapsed a few hours later.

This glacier was made for tourists.  Thus, they put boardwalks all along the penisula and boat docks to take you on the lake.

Yes, that’s a 2 story boat on the water.  Here’s another shot of it where you can see the strange pastel blue color of the water and the deep blue ice.  Actually, these photos don’t show the depth or richness of the blue.  I’ll have to goof around with the white balance in Photoshop sometime (which makes me glad the G9 captures RAW files).  Some of the later photos do a decent job of capturing the blue.

Now a bunch of photos from walking along the peninsula and from the boat…  Some of these are a bit more artistic (If I say so myself).

Here’s a shot from over-top of the collapsed ice bridge…

This one shows the meandering path of the ice…

Getting on the boat…

Looking along the Northern face…

This one gives you a hint of the blue color…

The top of the face and a cloudy background…

I think I figured out the problem with panoramic mode after taking this next one (it was using my last shutterspeed setting from manual mode, but adjusting everything else in Auto mode – I may start simply taking full manual images and stitching them myself rather than relying on the camera to show me the matching edge).  However, I did adjust the brightness and colors in p-shop.  It actually gives you a better sense of the blue of the glacier, but it may be a bit overdone here:

What a day!

Tomorrow I catch a 4 hour bus to El Chalten to meet up with three cute American girls I met on this tour (Lynne, Erin and Katie).  We’re going ice-trekking around Mt. Fitz-Roy in 2 days.

Someone please tell me why I wasted 12 years getting fat and sitting at a desk…

Never take a day bus when you have the option of a night bus.

The bus from Ushuia back to Rio Gallegos left at 5 am.  I barely slept the night before.  Some drunk guy stumbled into the dorm at 1 am, made a huge racket getting into the bunk below my bunk, and somehow kept kicking my bunk.  I’m just glad he didn’t puke, because my shoes were really close to his bed and my bag was leaning against the wall nearby.

So, at 4:30 I packed up and walked down to the bus stop.  Ushuia doesn’t really have a bus station, just a parking lot where the buses all pull in.  We took a cramped bus back to Rio Grande, then a slighly larger bus back to Riio Gallegos – revisiting the Argentina – Chile – Straits of Magellin via ferry – Chile – Argentina border crossings.  This time I noticed an interresting sign on the Southern side of the straights near the ferry dock:

I assume the landmines were there because this is a perfect landing spot to smuggle things into Chile.  I would have rather walked thru that minefield than watched the videos they played on the bus.  “Disaster Movie” made me believe that I should be able to walk into Hollywood and get a movie deal in 5 minutes.  It was the stupidest movie I’ve seen in a decade.  Then we watched music videos from 80′s bands that weren’t quite hits.  It was painful.  I tried to read a book I traded with a Canadian guy in Puerto Madryn – I gave him my copy of Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy book for a biography of Horatio Nelson – which fits nicely into the post-US revolutionary books I’ve been dabbling in for the last year or so…  I’m still trying to trade the Harry Potter book for something a little more substantial.

Other than bad movies and border crossings, there’s not much to see on Route 3.  Sheep, Brown land and grey skies.

We made it to Rio Gallegos around 5 PM.  I watched Soccer and traded stories with a Czech couple, an Irish couple, 2 more Irishmen, and 2 Americans.  We had a 3 hour layover until the double decker bus came for he relatively short trip to El Calafate.  This bus had 4 seats per row, and only semi-reclining, so not as luxurious as other buses I’ve taken, but not bad for a 4 hour trip – except for the old guy next to me who smelled like ham.

We pulled into El Calafate around 1:30 AM.  The Irish couple and I ventured off and found a hostel with dorm beds available in decent rooms for 30 Argentine Pesos (about $9) per person. I woke up around 10:30, took a shower, paid for the room, and walked out to the town.  I found a really nice hostel for AR$42 per night with 4 bed dorms, heated floors, in-room bathrooms, and offering tours of the glacier and surrounding areas.  I booked a tour for tomorrow that gives you a private guide around the glacier, 2 hour hike near and on the glacier, lunch, and a boat trip on the lake – right up to the edge of the glacier.  It should be pretty fun.  Then I went out and walked around town for a while – running into pretty much everyone I met on the bus last night.  It’s pretty touristy, like Gatlinburg, but smaller and not as crowded.

…and everyone is really friendly…

Oddly, his mom wasn’t there…

Today I took a bus to Tierra Del Fuego National Park and hiked along the shore for about 4 hours.  My pictures cannot do justice to the scenery…

The hike started as a relatively easy trail.

After passing a group of older tourists who obviously came from a cruise ship, the trail narrowed quite a bit and climbed up rocks and tree roots.  Then it opened up into a very stunning view of the mountains across the Channel.

The trail evened out in a few places, but mostly remained narrow and rocky – which was fine with me.  I only saw a few more people the rest of the day.

It’s kind of hard to make out, bet there’s a massive mountain on the right side of the next image.

I don’t know why, but when I take Pano pics on the G9, they’re coming out darker than they should.

I could not find a fare to Antarctica for less than $4500, and that’s nearly 2 months budget, so I decided to pass.  You can still find deals that are 1/2 off regular fares, but Lonely Planet guidebooks and some websites mentioned last minute fares around $2500.  All 5 of the the travel agencies I visited said that those last minute fares were available 2 years ago, but the cruise companies caught on to the demand and almost always charge more these days.

My only real regret here is not seeing Cape Horn, But cruises out of Ushuia are not allowed in Chilean waters, so it takes 4 days instead of 1, and it costs around $500.  Still, my dad will be happy to know that his version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Ghosts of Cape Horn” is a huge hit here in the hostel.

So now I’m pretty much done with Ushuia.  I could have seen the glacier or gone fly fishing, but both are better at my next stop – El Calafate.  About 1/3 of the way back up Argentina – on the border with Chile.  I did finally fine a spare battery for my Canon G9 camera (oddly, here at the End of the Earth – but I could not find it in Rio, Puerto Alegre, or Buenos Aires).

Tomorrow morning I’m catching a 5 AM bus back to Rio Gallegos, and then a connection to El Calafate – arriving at 1 am on the 16th..

Also, as proof that civilization really exists here, I present you the Southernmost Irish Pub in the world:

And finally, in a country obsessed with Che Guevara, I found a t-shirt that tops the Chuck Norris one from BA (although no one tried to mug me this time)…

Disembarking from the port at 9:30 AM, our small (40 ft) boat set out across the Beagle Channel (named after the HMS Beagle that first navigated the waterway in the early 1800′s).  Amidst sea spray and snowflakes, we pulled out to the lighthouse, then alongside a few islands to view Sea Lions and lots of waterfowl.  It was actually nice being in a “small” boat since we could pull right up to the shore, where the larger boats need to stay about 10 meters back.

It was really nice when we came back into the cabin and they had hot coffee and tea waiting.  Today is probably the first time I’ve been colder than anyone back home in 3 months..

We also stopped on one of the larger islands to see the foliage and hiked to one of the highest points in the channel.

Now I’m going to try to find a “cheap” boat to Antarctica ($2500-ish).