Category: Patagonia

We were up early to catch the 7:30 bus back to El Calafate. We just had to walk across the street to the bus station so it was very easy. The bus was large and very comfortable. We stopped at the same rest stop and arrived at El Calafate bus station at about 10:30. From there we took a taxi to the hotel. I always feel quite accomplished when I successfully take local transportation.

The hotel proprietor took us about things to do in El Calafate. We did not go to the famous glacier called Perito Moreno because we thought we had seen enough glaciers. In hindsight that was probably a mistake because we saw others’ pictures and it looked amazing. Oh well! We walked down to the lake. Here are pictures of the lake.

Then we walked downtown and had a really great lunch at a little place called Vivre la Pepo recommended by the hotel. We took a leisurely walk around town which was very cute. Rick got a couple of t shirts.

We need to be back at the hotel in order to be picked up for our dinner trip to the ranch, Nibepo Aike. We wanted to do this to see some of the local culture. We were picked up by a taxi that was in rough shape. It needed a muffler, had a cracked windshield, and had rugs in the backseat doors to keep them sealed. It took about an hour to get out to the Estancia and over an unpaved, rocky and dusty road. Located in the Los Glaciares National Park, the estancia was beautiful.

The farm was established before the park was created. However since they are inside the park, the park authorities limited the number of animals they can have on the estancia. Today most of their revenue comes from tourism. They offer two tours/meals every day and they run a small bed and breakfast on the estancia.

Once the rest of the people had arrived we took a walk down to the southern arm of the lake, Lago Argentina. It was extra high because the glacier is blocking the water. Here are some pictures.

After the walk they herded the sheep into the corral to protect them at night from the pumas.

Then they caught one sheep and gave a sheep shearing demonstration.

Additionally there was a lamb whose mom was killed by a puma so we bottle fed her.

We returned to the dining room for lamb. Here are pictures of the lamb cooking.

It was delicious. After dinner we returned to our hotel via the bad roads and broken taxi. It was a fabulous evening.

We are hurting from our long walk yesterday so we took it easy. We slept in and after breakfast we walked through town along the main street. We bought a map of the park.

Then we went for a short hike to a condor viewing area. It was very, very windy and a couple of times I thought I was going to be blown off the trail. Rick estimates we were having 60 mile an hour gusts. We got up to the top and saw no condors, even though several people have told us that they saw lots of them yesterday. Here are some pictures from the top.

We came back down, stopped at the hotel to change our shoes and then went out to lunch. After lunch we came back to the hotel to work on the blog but the internet is actually worse than the internet was on the ship so we will have to wait to upload all of our entries.

While we were hangIng around the hotel we saw several condors, flying along the cliff face outside our hotel.

That night neither of us was very hungry so Rick went to the bakery and got sandwiches. We packed up because we need to leave El Chalten early tomorrow morning.

Happy Valentines Day! 💑👩‍👦‍👦💕💘💖

We were up early because we had booked a bus to take us to the trail head at El Pillar, 17 km north of El Chalten. Before the bus picked us up, we walked to the local bakery and got sandwiches and water for lunch. While on the bus we panicked because we didn’t have a map. We went in to a hotel near where we were dropped off and they had a map that we took a picture of. We walked for the morning and stopped often to take pictures of many beautiful views, including views of mt. Fitz Roy and glaciers. It was a beautiful day, blue skies, no clouds, no winds, and no rain. Around noon we arrived at the split up to Laguna de Los Tres. This is where the climbing got more difficult. It reminded us of our walk in the Himalayas from Phakdink to Namache. We went up 400m in 1km. It was worth it because the view of the glacier lake at the top was beautiful. Then we had a walk back down which was difficult to say the least. Everyone was passing us because we went quite slow. Then we had a long walk back to El Chalten. Luckily the terrain was gentle. We saw an pygmy owl on the way back.

Otherwise we saw no wildlife, including birds.

Here are pictures from our walk.

This is a picture of El Chalten as we walked back into town.

We didn’t get back until 7:00 that evening. We were SO tired. We stopped at the pizza restaurant, had a little dinner, hobbled back to our hotel, and collapsed into bed. We walked 39,067 STEPS,  15.13 MILES.  Yikes!

 

We were up early to finish packing. We were loaded onto a bus to go to the airport. We flew from Ushuaia to El Calafate. Once in El Calafate we got on a bus for El Chalten. All very easy. El Calafate is on the south end of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and El Chalten is on the north side of the park. It was a three hour bus ride from El Calafate to El Chalten with a 10 minute stop at an Argentinian rest stop.  There are pictures of the rest stop.

The landscape was really barren. Lots of scrub grass and small bushes. It almost looked like a desert but there would be a glacier river running beside it. We could feel the wind blowing the van.

We were dropped at our hotel which is very nice. By now it was about 4:30.

We got settled in our room and then headed out to explore the town. It was raining, very windy, and overcast. There were not a lot of people out and about. El Chalten is quite small. We stopped at a restuarant and Rick had a beer, a locally brewed red ale, and I had a Diet Coke. That evening we went to a great restaurant called La Tapera. We both had big Argentinian steak which was delicious.