Two Beers and a Pretzel

Saturday the 21st -

After renting those boots for the glacier hike and in lieu of the soles of my shoes already become worn, I decided to buy a nice pair of ankle high boots.  To break them in, I hiked another trail to the Southwest of town that takes 12 km to rise 1 km.  Katie and Erin were also on the trail ahead of me, but there was no way O could catch them.  I could tell these were heavier, and only made it about 10km and 750m before meeting the girls and turning back.  The way my knees feel today, I made the right choice.

Early in the day, you could actually see Fitz Roy in it’s entirety, so I got a pretty cool pic mid-hike…

However, instead of boring everyone with more and more photos of stunning scenery, I took a 10 minute time lapse video (compressed into 40 seconds) of clouds rolling around Mt. Fitz Roy.  This ought to give you an idea how patient you have to be to get a picture like the one above of the mountain without a veil of clouds.

I got back into town and stretched and rested before going out for dinner.  The sun had already descended past the mountains, but after dinner, the low clouds became luminescent, then dark as the sky turned dark blue and pink…  but I never actually saw the sun set – not that I feel like I missed anything…

Yeah, Patagonia is pretty nice…

So today, Sunday, is dedicated to letting my knees recover from 4 days of mountain and glacier trekking, catching up on the blog, and planning the rest of the South American portion of the trip – which is already a month beyond the original plan.  Tomorrow morning I leave for 2 days on buses with a night in Perito Moreno (the city) to get to Bariloche.

Thurs, Feb 19th

If yesterday’s hike wasn’t enough, we tried another one… and I overted a near disaster -

After booking tomorrows glacier hike I walked out of the office and a massive gust of wind blew my cap away.  I couldn’t find it anywhere, and it was my favorite orange cap that I got at the Ryder Cup last year in Kentucky.  I walked down-wind along the street and could not find it.  The nearby construction crew tried to help.  Lynne looked for it too.  Finally, when the lady from the booking office came out we had all but given up hope when another massive wind gust blew the hat into plain view.

WHEW…  close call…  It must have been either on the roof, or up in the porch rafters.  I felt like Indiana Jones when his hat always finds him…

Anyway, back to the real story…  Erin and Katie had started the trek to Laguna de los Tres (under the 3400 meter peak of Fitz-Roy) about 15 minutes before Lynne and I.  They said they would dilly-dally until we caught up to them.  It never happened because we were all too tired from the previous hike, so I walked as slow as possible while observing some interesting signs along the way…

…along with some stellar views… like the West side of the valley where El Chalten sits.

And Fitz Roy…

I thought this one was kind of zen looking…

Lynne and I stopped at a campground 2.5 km short of the Laguna – which was fine with me.  That last section rises 400 meters in just 2.5 kilometers, and we’d already seen some amazing views of Mt. Fitz-Roy.

The hike back was gruelling – shin splints and sore soles.  Even with cutting the hike short, Lynne and I hiked 9.5k each way with a 350m ascent.  So that was 41 kilometers total with 600m of ascent and descent in less than 24 hours.

The next day, Katie and Erin were in more pain than Lynne and I.  I’m pretty glad we didn’t attempt the last 2.5K.

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…

On the 9th I took another minibus tour.  This time onto the peninsula – well past where I had biked…

We stopped at a viewpoint where you could see the island that inspired the snake swallowing an elephant -versus- a mans hat drawings in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous book, The Little Prince.

I personally don’t see it, but I’m not stoned on shrooms like Saint-Exupéry was, so who knows…

Two hours later we found the Sea Lion beach.

About an hour we made it to the Elephant Seal beach.

The alpha males were apparently out fishing, but there were a few big females hanging out.

We also saw some fearless armadillos, but I accidentally had the camera on time lapse video, so it’s not worth posting online…

Finally, we stopped on the side of the road to see a family of monster rabbits.

Actually, these are not rabbits – they are juvenile Jackalope’s.

OK, they’re really Patagonian Cavy’s (or Mara).  The 3rs largest rodent in the world.  They have a squirrel’s head, rabbit’s body, and hop like a kangaroo.  No antlers that I know of.  They get to be about 18 inches tall and 25 lbs.

Saturday, Feb 7th – what a day…

PENGUINS

I booked a tour of the region South of Puerto Madryn.  The bus picked me and 2 Swedish guys, Magnus and Jonas, up at the hostel.  There were already a few Irish, Brits, and Argentinians.  Out guide was really cool, but I can’t remember his name to save my life.

We drove about an hour and a half on Route 3 to an area South of Trelew called Punto Tombo.  Years ago, a private land owner donated 17 km of beach-front penguin nesting grounds to the Argentine government in exchange for exclusive rights to have the only souvenir shop and restaurant near the park.  Around the whole area there were an estimated 2 million Magellin Penguins between mating pairs with 2 babies each and molting 1 and 2 year olds.

The park was basically a stone path thru the nesting grounds.  We were told to give way to the Penguins crossing the walkway because most of them were on their way back to the nest to feed the chicks.  You had to be careful that you didn’t step on any of them…  We were on a 1.5 km section of the beach where about 20,000 pengiun pairs were nesting with their chicks – so there were around 80K penguins in the “human” part of the preserve.

DOLPHINS

We headed back to Trelew and over to the coast to catch a boat to see Commerson’s Dolphins (also called Panda Dolphins).  These dolphins are small.  About 50lbs and 4.5 ft long on average.  Our guide stressed that we should remember that there was always a chance that we may not see them.  Shortly thereafter, we ran into a pod of about 20 of them ziping between out boat and another boat.  They were so fast that you had to film using video.  Even people with SLR’s could not get any good still images in the limited time we had.

Here’s my best video, again proving the value of having a waterproof camera – as no-one else dared to hold their camera under the bow of the boat.

…and another video of the dolphins breaching the water between the boats:

DRAGONS

After the penguins, we went to the city of Gaimen for Welsh tea.  Thus, the Welsh dragon.  This area was settled by Welsh immigrants back in the late 1800′s.  They planted trees in the barren plateau and irrigated the land to make farming possible. Everyone on our bus went to a very quaint Welsh tea house and enjoyed some bitter tea with what seemed to be an endless supply of pastries.

The lemon tort was the best, followed by a banana cream cake.  Plum sauce was a close third, with the raspberry/fig sauce not far behind.  The tea was not my favorite (I’m not a tea drinker anyway), but if you loaded it up with enough cream and sugar it became palatable.

RETURN TRIP

On the way back, we descended a hill where you could see how straight and far the road was – as well as how barren the landscape is.

We got back to the hostel around 8 PM – just in time for the dinner the staff had prepared – barbecued beef, pork and prawns, plus a good selection of local wines for about $12. There was also a featherweight boxing match for the championship belt being held about 3 km away from the hostel.  The main event was at midnight where an American challenger took on the Argentinean champ.  A number of us thought about going, but it was free on TV and we were having too much fun already, so we watched it on the tube.  The Argentinean won, making the hostel staff so happy that they neglected to collect money from anyone.

FYI, $12 is about what a bed in the dorm costs, and I’ve been lucky enough to be in a small 2 bed addition to an 8 bed room – without a roommate.  Aside from the tours, you can easily live on about $35 a day here.  Day long tours are about $50, but it’s worth it to see the animals in the wild.