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February 20, 2018

Today we did a beach walk along the Grey Lake and boat ride to the glacier in the park. We left late, at 11, so we had a relaxing morning. It was very, very windy for the beach walk. We walked across a suspension bridge and a rocky area that was really, really, really windy to a little island from which we could see that Grey glacier and an iceberg. Here are pictures from our walk.

The lake water is grey from silt from the glacier. The silt is so dense that it prevents sunlight reaching the bottom so there is very little plant and animal life in the lake.

After our walk to the island we crossed the windy, rocky area again and returned to a picnic area for lunch. Then Rick and I had to walk back across the rocky area to get the boat to the glacier. The rest of the group went for a another walk.

There were about 10 officers from the PDI, policia de invescionnes and 2 dogs boarding the boat with us. We didn’t realize it but the boat was also dropping off people to do the W trek, a famous 4 day trek through Torres Del Paine. The officers were going to the drop off point because a woman had gotten lost in the woods. One free pisco sour was included with the boat ticket. Interestingly the officers drank their pisco sours while on the way to start their mission. Also we visited the glacier before dropping off the officers.  It seemed weird to us that they didn’t get dropped off first.

The glacier has three fronts moving into the lake. The ship went quite close to all three and gave people plenty of time for pictures. The glacier was beautiful!  I thought they did quite a good job. Here are pictures from the boat ride.

After about an hour of moving around the glacier we went to the W drop off point and the officers, dogs and a couple of trekkers got off. Then we headed back. We had to walked back across the windy, rocky area.  Four times in total across the rocky area.

We returned to the parking lot and found our van. It was almost 7:00 so we had assumed they had taken the rest of the group back and come back for us but we were wrong. They took the rest of the group on a long walk. One of the people we talked to didn’t go on the long walk because they had gone on a really difficult walk yesterday and his big toenails were black. They sat in the cafeteria for several hours. Needless to say they were angry, not at us, but at Patagonia Camp. I agree this walk was not handled very well.

We didn’t get back until 8:00 so we went directly to dinner. Our friends from the ship had already eaten since they heard we would be back until later.

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February 19, 2018

Today we are on the fauna excursion. We saw lots of guanacos, a grey fox, condors, cara cara, upland geese, and ibis but no puma 😕. Here are pictures of the animals we saw.

It as a very gentle walk which ended at a rock overhang. Under the rock there were cave paintings that have been carbon dated to 4,000-7,000 years ago.  Here’s a picture of the cave paintings.

 

Additionally we stopped at several lookouts.

Here is a picture of our new friends, Chris and Jim.

When we got back we hooked up with our friends, David and Alison, from the boat. We had a fun evening with them and Jim and Chris.

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February 18, 2018

Here are pictures from our yurt window of the sun rising on the towers.

Our excursions today are the mirador and condor walks. The first hike was considered easy and the second was medium. Here are some pictures from the first hike.

After the first hike we went to a picnic area for lunch. We had selected our lunch at the briefing the previous night. At the lunch site there was an armadillo who was very cute. Here are pictures

The second hike was steeper than the first but not too bad. We saw a couple of condors while hiking. Here are pictures from the second walk.

We returned to the hotel and had a drink with Jim and Chris. The hotel had a lamb tasting before dinner. Similar to the lamb roasted at the ranch, they seem to rub salt on the meat before they grill it so it’s too salty in my opinion. We also had dinner with Jim and Chris. It was a great day.

 

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February 17, 2018

Today is a travel day. We are headed to Patagonia Camp in Torres Del Paine. We met another couple, Jim and Chris, at our hotel that are also headed to Patagonia Camp. They left at 8 while our car was scheduled for 9. We had a very nice driver and a very nice car. It took about 3 hours. We saw lots of guanacos and rhea on the way. I didn’t get a picture of the guanacos but here’s a picture of the rhea

We had to show our passports at the Argentinian border and then again at the Chilean border. We had heard horror stories that it took 4 hours at the Chilean border so we were glad it only took us about 45 minutes.

After we cleared the border who did we meet but Jim and Chris. We were all transferred to a Patagonia Camp van. None of us could figure out why they left an hour before us. We drove about another hour and a half to the camp. Much of road was rough and unpaved.

We had lunch and then were ushered to our yurt. The view from our yurt is fantastic. Here are pictures of our yurt.

That evening there was a briefing about the excursions for the next day. We had dinner after selecting our excursion.

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February 16, 2018

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.

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February 15, 2018

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.

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February 14, 2018

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!

 

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February 13, 2018

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.

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February 12, 2018

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, nobody slept well last night.  This morning we continue to have large 6-8 meter swells, that’s higher than anything we have seen so far, and 45 kn of wind.

We had breakfast with Adam, the bird naturalist. He has been down here for about 15 seasons and has run diving programs on several trips (our trip does not have a diving program). He was telling us about a season in which he did four trips. On the first trip a 38 year old man with a heart condition died while diving, on the second trip a man fell down the stairs and fractured his skull (he didn’t die) and on the last trip someone committed suicide by jumping off the boat. Surprisingly Adam came back.

Again we had two talks in the morning
1. The history of Ushuaia and Tierra Del Fuego. I started out at the talk but had to leave to come back to our cabin and take a nap.
2. Our expedition leader, Hayley Shepard, attempted to kayak around S. Georgia to raise awareness for the albatross. She showed a documentary entitled Soul of the Sea about her trip. It was very moving and I recommend you try to watch it.

During the lectures the waves were up to the windows on the  third deck.  Just to give you a sense of how high that is, the portholes in the cabins on the second deck are above the water line.

In the afternoon the doctor on the ship gave a talk on how to live until you are 100. The basic message was be mindful and avoid stress. Then we had a meeting about disembarking. During the meeting we entered the beagle channel and a pilot came aboard to guide us to the dock.

That night there was a captain’s reception with champagne and a special dinner. It was bittersweet because we have made many friends on our trip.

We spent the night tied up to the dock. No more rocking and rolling.

Here’s the finally map of our trip.

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February 11, 2018

We slept in at least a little bit this morning. The sea has flatten out quite a bit. We had two lectures before lunch:

1. Diving in sub zero waters-very interesting but no thank you for me
2. ICEolation- 4 years ago, our kayak guides, Sophie and Ewan, spent two weeks kayaking for 100 miles along the peninsula. They filmed their journey and it is being made into a film entitled ICEolation. Information about it can be found at ICEolationfilms.com.
And one lecture about the Antarctic climate after lunch.

In the evening, we played balderdash with the crew. They selected five scientific terms and then six of the staff gave definitions and we had to pick the right one. All of the staff have wonderful senses of humor so it was really quite funny.

We are going through the Drake passage so the seas were quite rough and everybody had trouble sleeping. You would roll across the bed with the seas. Also the boat would slap the water which would wake us up. Nobody had a good night sleep.