El Chalten & El Calafate - Argentina 2014

El Chalten, a 3 hour road trip from El Calafate through sparse barren land known as ‘The Steppe’, punctuated initially by a lake we had to skirt and a river we followed and criss crossed multiple times.  About 130 kms from El Chalten, we had made our first sighting of the already imposing form of Fitz Roy Mountain.

driving across 'The Steppe' - Fitz Roy in the distance

El Chalten is a quirky, eclectic, rustic, unpretentious little village situated at the northern end of Los Glaciares Nat. Park.  This little village, nestled between mountains next to a river with the imposing form of Fitz Roy Mtn. (3,405m) as the primary backdrop, was founded in 1985 as a result of a land dispute between Chile and Argentina.

El Chalten

Our initial late afternoon meander throughout the village uncovered a lot of construction underway, but most of the existing buildings were in some way unfinished, irrespective of whether homes or businesses.  Normally it was the 2^nd storey still to be completed in some way, so it was quite normal to say an operating business on the ground floor and a ladder going to an open window of the floor above.  We think there is some form of tax due when a building is completed, so they simply don’t.

Then there are the DOGS, many many dogs.  We had noticed the same thing in both Ushuaia and El Calafate, with lots of dogs of all different breeds, colours and sizes just roaming the streets.  They were all quite indifferent to us as we at times had to walk amongst them, but there’s just a lot of dogs.

After a very nice dinner at a wonderful little restaurant at the far end of town, we settled into our equally rustic hotel room.  There was little spare room, old eclectic fittings and both of us had to duck our heads as we moved around near the end of the bed, which was very comfortable.

Beep… beep… beep!  Why do we do this to ourselves, 7am, the alarm buzzing and pitch black outside.

With camera and tripod on backs, our warm red jackets on and Rob with her little torch in hand, we headed out to climb along a small dirt track leading to the top of a hill behind the Nat. Park building.  Should only take only take about 30 mins one way to the top we thought.

We had been told by the park rangers when we visited them the afternoon before, that the hill was the best place to view sunrise on both Fitz Roy Mtn and Cerro Torre (3,102m), so long as the weather was good and it was.

It is interesting climbing up a hill following a dirt track using the light of a small torch to show us the way and the frequent rocky obstacles.  At least we weren’t the only ones on the side of a hill in the dark, as we could see 2 other torchlights jiggling around above us about 15 mins ahead.

El Chalten from the hill, the sun starting to touch Fitz Roy

Slowly but surely, those beautiful red colours started to crawl their way down, not just Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, but all the other mountains surrounding them.  So was our climb into the darkness worth it?

Cerro Torre on the left and Fitz Roy is obvious

Our climb down off the hill was a lot easier in growing sunlight and soon we were back in our hotel enjoying a good breakfast because we were going to need a good breakfast as we learned later that day.

Now the words ‘trekking’ and ‘hiking’ are not ones we use or consider very often, especially after the “its only a medium trek!” we did in Laos awhile back, which left us almost scarred forever.  But here we were in El Chalten, the trekking/hiking ‘capital’ of Argentina, so what are people to do after a 1hr return jaunt up a hill early in the morning, go hiking of course!

So with backpacks on and having found the bakery to buy our small lunch to take with us, we headed out of the village following the track towards our goal of Laguna Torre, which is a glacier lake near the bottom of Cerro Torre.

The Rangers had warned us that the first part of this hike was a fairly constant climb out of the village.  Now we don’t particularly like the words climb and tracks together, but here we were on our way into the mountains.

The track did level out, well sort of, actually occasionally, but we walked on through some really stunning scenery, the form of Cerro Torre jutting into the sky ahead providing the constant motivation to keep going.  We rested fairly frequently to catch our breath, take in the views or refill our water bottle form the many crystal clear streams.

on the trail to Cerro Torre

Being the time of year it was also meant that the colours of autumn were consuming many of the trees and shrubs, which surrounded us.  The track despite its regular undulations, wound its way like a snake through thick stands of small deciduous southern beech trees, around a lake of dead looking trees or followed a fast flowing river.  

At times we were in open country then just minutes later, thick 2-3m foliage brushing our shoulders, our track almost disappearing from view at each bend.

Cerro Torre and glacier surrounds

Then into view, almost surprisingly, came our complete eyeful of the jagged rock spire of Cerro Torre looming above the mass of glaciers feeding the lake at its feet.  What a stunning place to sit quietly, like the few others that had also reached this point, absorb the views around us and have lunch.

Our trip back, whilst almost a rewind of the outward journey, was slightly different.  Our bodies were beginning to protest, ever so gently at the start and the need for rest breaks increased.  

We made it back to the village naturally but the walk back to our hotel seemed to take forever.  

Well it did take longer than normal because we stopped at one of the microbreweries for an ale and Rob did something quite different and probably not seen before.

So for those of you wondering, after our early morning hill climb, the Laguna Torre return journey had taken us 7 hrs to complete the 22 kms and to keep the description simple, at the end of it we were f****d!

We opted for a really simple meal that night; a shared vegetable soup and chunky lamb stew from a café very close to the hotel.  We got chatting to our waiter who spoke very good English, after 2 years working in NZ.  He told us that we were very lucky with the weather and that it was very out of character.  We also asked him if there were many animals in the mountains.  “Yes” he said, “there are lots of pumas, I saw one only a few days ago on the Laguna Torre track”.  The looks on our faces may have suggested we thought pumas were a bit of a myth so he went off and brought back the photo to prove it.  The long hot showers before dinner were helping but we were keen to see what our bodies wanted to tell us in the morning.

Well we didn’t feel too bad whilst having breakfast next morning, so do we do this hiking thing again and back up… yep!  So our plan for this day was to head out towards Fitz Roy to reach 2 locations, the Mirrador (viewpoint) and then the Laguna Capri.  Again this would mean a constant climb out of the village using a track at the far end of it and 6 kms to reach the Mirrador, then about another 1 km to reach the Laguna.  So off we went… again.

The climb out of El Chalten this time, whilst not steep was more constant and kept going for about 2/3rds of the 6kms.  The track wound itself once it leveled out a little, mainly amongst beech forest and the colours were great.  This hike actually seemed to iron out some of stiffness from the previous days activity.

the view as we climb out of El Chalten

So this time in front of us stood the magnificent Fitz Roy Mtn in all its abrupt glory as it did again when we reached the lake and surrounding autumn colours providing a stunning foreground to rise out of.

Fitz Roy Mirrador

Laguna Capri

So in 2 days we had managed 35 kms of, yes we will use THAT word, ‘hiking’ and we thoroughly enjoyed it because of everything that surrounded us as we took each step.  If you like to go hiking, try El Chalten and to think we almost decided not to come here.

In memory of the climbers who have died

We had one last walk around pleasantly quirky El Chalten, before heading back to El Calafate, and found a very very small Chapel of Austrian design called Capilla de los Escaladores, built in memory of all the climbers who have lost their lives here since 1953.

For more photos of El Chalten just click on the link below:

2014 - Hiking around El Chalten

Back in El Calafate

what a steak!

Don’t normally talk too much about food but we only had one night in El Calafate so enjoyed a fabulous meal to celebrate our time in Argentina.  Argentinian steak is simply excellent as was Rob’s superb lamb ravioli  accompanied by simple roasted vegetables, all just delightful.

Argentinian BBQ

Before checking out the next day and flying to Santiago, we did manage somehow to have yet another amusing experience.  We mentioned a bird reserve in a previous post, so we thought we would try walking to it after an early breakfast to try and get some shots of flamingos.

There is a short cut Cat & Cal showed us from the hotel down to the main street, which involves walking down some steps, through the bus terminal and then down some more steps.  When we got to the bus terminal, we went through the first door, through the terminal and when reaching the 2^nd door to go out the other side, were greeted by 5 dogs just sitting in front of the door.  We gently pushed it open, the dogs all looked at us, moved and we stepped outside.  All good so far.

Well it must have been those red coats of ours of ours we were wearing to stay warm, or something else, BUT those 5 dogs started walking with us and if we stopped, they stopped, if we walked, they walked.  No matter where we walked, down the next set of stairs, across the main street and off down the back streets, they stayed with us.

Darian and his 'mates'

Interesting!  To add to our experience, other wandering dogs would come out to either renew old friendships but others would come out to protect their territories.  At times there were 8-10 dogs circling us as we walked.  On a few occasions ‘our’ pack of dogs would all charge off to chase another dog or cat sitting behind some local residents fence and this would invariably mean that resident coming out and yelling all sorts of things in Spanish either at the dogs, us or both.

in the middle of the main street

Well we and our dogs did find the bird reserve and guess what, not a single bird of any description in sight so we re-traced our steps, our 5 dog pack faithfully keeping company until we reached the bus terminal and we were able to stop them getting through that first door.  What a relief, because we had visions of them wanting to join us at the hotel.

So we bade El Calafate and its dogs our final farewell and headed off to the airport on our way finally to Santiago, Chile via one night in Buenos Aires.  

Argentina has certainly provided us with some wonderful experiences.