Most Important Message for my Gran: GET BETTER SOON! Thinking of you, and sending you lots of love. N.xxxx
Up hill and down dale
Well, something like that anyway. Because we hadn't had quite enough exercise in the Torres del Paine, we decided to head off for El Chalten, in the Parque National Los Glaciares in Argentina. Home to Mount Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre, it's quite stunningly beautiful, she says, running out of adjectives. Just getting there was an adventure. Back over the border from Natales. Arrived in El Calafate, the nearest town to the Perito Moreno glaciar, and a town that is used by tourists as a stopping over spot and not much else. Didn't like it terribly so we stayed for lunch and hired yet another 4WD with some lovely folk we met (Olga and Thijs) to get us out of there.
5 hours and about 150km of gravel track later, we arrived in Chalten. Couldn't see much as it was midnight. Late night pizza and beer never tasted so good. The town has only existed since 1985. Dust roads. Lots of trekkers. Funky restaurants and cafes. Own brewery. Oh dear.
Minor walk to look at minor glacier next day. Following day, walk on bigger glacier wearing crampons and other instruments of torture. Luckily didn't fall down any crevasses. Looked a right plonker trying to get across a Tyrolean rope bridge (attached by a carabina to a rope, you pull yourself upside down and backwards across a river. Not a good look for anyone.) Ate in a 'Cocina Argentina' restaurant (apprently pumpkins are part of traditional Argentinian cooking: who knew?) Next day, Sunday, stupendous walk, and lazy picnic ('twas Sunday after all..) along the valley which runs alongside a good chunk of the Chalten mountain range, Fitz Roy, Cerro Torres etc. It differs as a range from the Torres in that it's frighteningly jagged along it's top (in comparison to the Torres tall column like mountains), like a tear across the horizon. And we even got to see the peaks, which, because they generate their own clouds (wind condensing or something) is quite lucky.
Then a welcome (not) drive back to Calafate, quick peak at the enormous PM glaciar with bits falling off it, making a sound like thunder, and then a quick flight to BA. The urbanite in me is very happy to be back where there are roads, people and buildings made of something other than wood. Also good to catch up on the news - tried to decipher Sunday's events on Spanish telly in Chalten. Failed. All caught up now tho' thanks to a good website I know. :o) And it's warm here - hurrah!
Oh, and you wouldn't know it was Xmas apart from the odd tree in shop windows.
Up hill and down dale
Well, something like that anyway. Because we hadn't had quite enough exercise in the Torres del Paine, we decided to head off for El Chalten, in the Parque National Los Glaciares in Argentina. Home to Mount Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre, it's quite stunningly beautiful, she says, running out of adjectives. Just getting there was an adventure. Back over the border from Natales. Arrived in El Calafate, the nearest town to the Perito Moreno glaciar, and a town that is used by tourists as a stopping over spot and not much else. Didn't like it terribly so we stayed for lunch and hired yet another 4WD with some lovely folk we met (Olga and Thijs) to get us out of there.
5 hours and about 150km of gravel track later, we arrived in Chalten. Couldn't see much as it was midnight. Late night pizza and beer never tasted so good. The town has only existed since 1985. Dust roads. Lots of trekkers. Funky restaurants and cafes. Own brewery. Oh dear.
Minor walk to look at minor glacier next day. Following day, walk on bigger glacier wearing crampons and other instruments of torture. Luckily didn't fall down any crevasses. Looked a right plonker trying to get across a Tyrolean rope bridge (attached by a carabina to a rope, you pull yourself upside down and backwards across a river. Not a good look for anyone.) Ate in a 'Cocina Argentina' restaurant (apprently pumpkins are part of traditional Argentinian cooking: who knew?) Next day, Sunday, stupendous walk, and lazy picnic ('twas Sunday after all..) along the valley which runs alongside a good chunk of the Chalten mountain range, Fitz Roy, Cerro Torres etc. It differs as a range from the Torres in that it's frighteningly jagged along it's top (in comparison to the Torres tall column like mountains), like a tear across the horizon. And we even got to see the peaks, which, because they generate their own clouds (wind condensing or something) is quite lucky.
Then a welcome (not) drive back to Calafate, quick peak at the enormous PM glaciar with bits falling off it, making a sound like thunder, and then a quick flight to BA. The urbanite in me is very happy to be back where there are roads, people and buildings made of something other than wood. Also good to catch up on the news - tried to decipher Sunday's events on Spanish telly in Chalten. Failed. All caught up now tho' thanks to a good website I know. :o) And it's warm here - hurrah!
Oh, and you wouldn't know it was Xmas apart from the odd tree in shop windows.
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