Patagonia Pt.2 - Perito Moreno, Fitz Roy & Torres Del Paine

El Calafate is a small town on the shores of Lago Argentino, quite a quaint place in its own right, though primarily in existence these days to serve as a hub for a couple of key tourist attractions - in particular the incredible Perito Moreno Glacier, located about 80km away in the ‘Los Glaciares National Park‘. This immense Glacier is 30km long, 5km wide, towering some 60m above the water with a further 120 meters below the surface of the lake. What makes it so exceptional aside from it sheer size & beauty, is the fact that it is constantly advancing - up to 2 m per day, as opposed to most other glaciers around the world that are currently retreating. Huge icebergs are constantly calved from the front of the glacier, crashing into the water below creating a continual natural spectacle.

We booked a trip that involved some trekking on the glacier with the aid of crampons: firstly we walked around the manmade walkways at the face of the glacier, taking in the panoramic views of the glacier, then taking a boat across the lake getting up close to the front of the glacier (obviously avoiding the constant falling chunks of ice the size of our boat) and then spent a couple of hours trekking on the ice avoiding the many crevasses and sinkholes, witnessing some of the purest bright blue colourings within the ice & topping it off with a glass of whiskey complete with ice chipped straight from the glacier…..nice.

After Perito Moreno we moved on a few hours through the Patagonian wilderness to the small town of El Chalten - a place only established during the 1980’s due to the influx of people wanting to hike in Fitz Roy Mountain range that it sits at the foot of, not to mention the political reason for Argentina to claim the land & create a town before neighbouring Chile did - the ongoing dispute over Patgonian territory being one of the biggest bones of contention between the two nations these days. El Chalten only has a population of approximately 1800, & only installed its first & only ATM during late 2008. Prior to that, a nominated resident would collect everyones bank cards and pin numbers and make the trip to El Calafate once a week to get cash out for everyone... now thats putting your trust in someone!

Being part of the Southern Continental Ice field & Los Glaciers national Park, the area has some of the most stunning scenery and it is all accessible within a day hike from El Chalten. We did a few day hikes (in preparation for the 4 day trek we had coming up through the Torres del Paine National Park further south in Patagonia), through beautiful woodland, watching insane Magallenic woodpeckers nearly knock themselves out banging the trees so hard.... past the foot of glaciers taking in the views of the Fitz Roy Massif and Cerro Torre - some of the highest peaks in the area and were not disappointed with the views… well once it had stopped snowing and the sun came out anyway!

Back in El Calafate, we opt to indulge in the ‘Patagonian Lamb’ as a treat…. a whole lamb, split down the middle with legs splayed out on a type of crucifix, slow roasted (all day) over burning logs. After being advised to only order 1 main meal between 2, the banquet that came out did not disappoint… 3 different joints of meat on a hot plate with roasted vegetables…. Easily the best lamb we have ever tasted!

The next day, 5 hours on a bus through a never ending bleak landscape, we crossed the border into Chile to the town of Puerto Natales the gateway to the Torres del Paine National Park.

Puerto Natales is a very cold & bleak Patagonian outpost, the two main highlights of the town itself we found to be the hostel we stayed at - ‘Patagonia Adventura‘ - run by a very friendly & helpful couple who helped us plan the logistics for our 4 day trek through the Torres Del Paine National Park, & a coffee shop that specialises in all variety of hot chocolates & all manner of chocolate based delights called La Dulceria…we’re putting on a bit of weight in Argentina & Chile by the way!

So after a couple of days waiting for the weather to clear up a little in Puerto Natales, we made our way out to the Torres Del Paine National Park to spend the next 4 days trekking around the ’W-route’. Fortunately the park is well equipped with mountain refuges at various convenient intervals during the route, saving us from the pain of camping. As it turned out the refuges weren’t even like the basic mountain refuges we had in mind, but at least 2 of them were as well equipped as hotels - the only difference being all the beds were in dorms.

The park itself is hailed as the finest National Park on the entire continent, & from what we saw we’d be inclined to agree. It is a mass of glaciers, ice bergs, turquoise lakes, windswept forests, huge granite towers that drive up vertically 3000 meters out of the ground, a set of peaks known as the ’Cuernos’ - or ‘Horns’ in English, due to their resemblance of their unusual shape, coupled with their distinctive two tone black tops & lighter coloured base, combining to make for a very unique & striking landscape. During the 4 days we experienced all four seasons of weather conditions - a couple of days of sunshine, a little rain, the unbelievable winds that Patagonia is famed for & even 3 inches of snow on the ground one morning.

Just to touch on the wind again for a moment - it really is like nothing else we have experienced before, it almost always blows from west to east, coming in off the huge expanse of the Southern Pacific Ocean without any land mass to obstruct its force until it hits Patagonia. It is the main reason why this area down at the southern tip of the continent is so synonymous with tales of ship wrecks. 95% of all trees in Patagonia are either bent over in a left to right direction or completely devastated due to it’s power. There are more dead trees & snapped trunks in Patagonia than anywhere else certainly we have ever seen, & it can make for quite an apocalyptic landscape.

On the second night of the trek we were upgraded from the dorm room we had booked to our own private log cabin, which initially seemed like a real result, we quickly started having second thoughts when the wind picked up so ferociously during the night that it felt like the rather flimsy log cabin was going to get blown away - literally the whole room including the bed would move when each gust would hit. It was quite an unnerving experience, the log cabin was sat on the shore of a lake, & as the wind was gusting you could hear it approaching ferociously across the water, we were bracing ourselves for impact every time the gust made it’s way off the lake onto the land & came crashing into our cabin with terrifying force. We’ve never wished for a wind ‘off switch’ more than we were that night. The only benefit of being kept awake all night by the wind, was that we were awake to see the sunrise, our cabin being at the foot of the eastern side of the Cuernos peaks, the sunrise cast a dusky orange pink glow across the entire face of the peaks - of which we could get some nice photos without actually having to get out of bed…small mercies & all that!

The four day trek around Torres Del Paine was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far, it was nice to be able to do it in the Patagonian spring time as well as there were far fewer people on the trails than during the peak summer season - we only passed a handful of other people on the trail each day so we were really able to appreciate the remoteness of the place of the magnitude of the landscape - unforgettable.