This is the end... of the World - Ushuaia

Getting to the end of the world by road is quite tricky... First, looking at the map, you'll see that the borders are such that you need to do several border crossing if you want to drive from Argentina to Ushuaia (still in Argentina...).
There is no bridge to cross the Magellan strait (shown in the next couple pictures).

The boat transporting the bus does not look as new as the ones in Stockholm's archipelago, which is a bit crazy, but at least, there was an entire team of dolphins following us, apparently ready for a rescue operation...

The last 400kms are quite painful since there is no asphalt road (eventhough I was getting used to it...). But the landscapes of "Tierra del Fuego" are breathtaking.
Ushuaia has about 50 000 inhabitants, and live mostly of tourism (id est : it is a totally overpriced town). For only 4000 us$, I could buy a last minute ticket for a 10 days-cruise to Antarctica, but I did not (only because I have my plane tomorrow...).
It is situated right on the Beagle Channel, which is the number one attraction here (there is also some skiing, but now is off-season).

On the Beagle Channel...


Onk onk onk...
Some Cormorans :-)

The very famous lighthouse on the Beagle canal...



Today, the weather is not so nice, and Miguel just got his flight back to Buenos Aires, so I'll just chill, reading my spanish book, and drinking hot coffee. Tomorrow I'll fly as well to Buenos Aires, where I should meet Gustav.

Puerto Natales

After the trek, I was quite exhausted, so I slept the two hours on the bus ride back to Puerto Natales. Unfortunately, we did not have much time in Puerto Natales because the bus to Ushuaia was booked for the next day, first thing in the morning. Puerto Natales is a lovely town, in the Chilean fjords.

News express

Just to let you know that I am alive... I am just coming back from a 3days and three nights trek in Torres del Paine.
I am still in Puerto Natales (Chile) tonight, but I'll hop on the first bus tomorrow to Ushuaia, my last stop in Patagonia!
Pictures to come when I get there... (if I get there...)
So the next posts will be about snow storms, avalanches, heavy rain and cold nights...

Torres del Paine - day 3 - Summer

At last... A day with a really nice weather. We got up at 4am to do the 1 hour climb to the Mirador before sunrise. Unfortnuately, it was a little bit cloudy still, so we did not see the pink color on the Torres, but we still have a nice sunrise. The Torres are really spectacular.
The next picture was taken from the mirador de las Torres (which have very inventive names, such as Torre central, Torre Norte, and Torre Sur...). I particularly like the mirror image in the lake.


We then went back to the camp, packed everything, and made it to the 14.30 bus. Obviously, this last day was like summer, which made it really difficult to leave...

We had been warned that it is quite common to encounter the four seasons within a single day in Torres del Paine... Well, in my experience, it has been four seasons in four days, but this experience was definitely worth it!!!
Oh, and you can't even imagine how good was the shower back in Puerto Natales...

Torres del Paine - day 2 - Spring

At breakfast, there was only one subject of conversation... How damn cold was the night. It was snowing in the morning at the camp. Thank you again to my sleeping bag, I slept non-stop from 9pm to 8am.

This day has been the longest one of all. Mainly because we did not have so much time to do the circuit. We walked about 9 hours (with the bags, this time)... and eventually made it to the last campground around 7pm. The weather was extremely windy, and still a bit cold, but way better than the day before.
The sceneries along the lake are breathtaking.

The base camp is the highest in altitude, which is perfect to get early to the "Mirador de las Torres", the most popular trek in the area (which can be done in one day as well).

For those who were wondering how we made it without water...

Torres del Paine - day 1 - Winter

You may have noticed on the previous pictures, the first night's sky did not look so good for the next day... So indeed, we woke up this morning with a tent absolutely soaked with water (it would not have been so much fun otherwise...). The night was also quite cold, I am glad I had taken my new sleeping bag. After a good hot coffee, we went to the next base camp. Two hours of walkin' in the rain later (singin', not so much), we made it to the second camp. Luckily, we had one hour without rain for lunch, and setting camp.


We then went without the bags for a 6-hour trek up the "Valle del Frances". About 100 vertical meters later, the rain had turned into snow (and obviously I was still wearing shorts, it dries way faster :-) ).


I saw countless avalanches, a couple of them really massive. (the next picture is from Miguel...)

At about 19h, we had a really good dinner (pasta for 4, just like the day before).

Torres del Paine - day 0 - Fall

So, Yesterday, we left El Calafate and arrived in Puerto Natales quite late. We then woke up at 7am this morning to pack a few things, rent some equipment, book bus tickets, buy food... The idea of the next couple days is to do the world famous "W circuit" in Torres del Paine. It is very common to leave with needlessly heavy bags since the weather can change very fast (About 18kgs each, for three nights, without water).
At 14.30, we took the bus to the entrance of the park, and at 17h30, a catamaran to the first base camp.

After having set camp, we went to the mirador of glaciar Grey. The weather was very Fall-like. Big clouds, but not really raining... yet.


We came back to the camp at 22h, cooked, had a glass of wine and went to bed (then I realized that the tent was not more than 1m80 long)...

El Calafate, Glaciar del Perito Moreno

Soooo... Today I went to el Parque Nacional de los Glaciares again (Oh, no...). I saw the only non-recessing glacier. It is a wall of ice (50 to 60 meters, believe it or not...) falling into a river. Did anybody see the last opus of Ice Age by the way? It is also te glaciar moving the fastest (the speed is 1 to 2 meters said the guide, but it might be carrots, cows or whatever - stupid engineers...). Thanks to that, it is quite common to see massive parts falling into the water, splashing everything in a 50-meters radius.

Tomorrow in the afternoon, I'll hop on a bus to Puerto Natales, Chile. From there I plan on doing a 3-days trek into "Torres del Paine"... Don't worry, I won't go alone since it is forbidden. I'll probably need Friday to rent a tent, pack the necessary food and equipment for the 3-4 days. Hopefully, the water is drinkable pertty much everywhere here, so I will not need to carry 10 liters!

Pffff.... After 2 hours and 20 pesos, this blog is eventually up to date!

El Chalten, Parque Nacional de los Glaciares

After the two-day journey along Ruta 40, I stopped two days in El Chalten. There is basically nothing to do in Chalten apart from trekking! I went the first day trekking with two girls, scottish and british, and a spanish guy (with whom I'll trek in Chile a couple days). We left at 9am to see "El Fitz Roy", a really beautiful mountain (but the top is quite hard to reach!). After lunch, we split because we guys wanted to walk more, and we went back to town at 8pm. It was really exhausting, but great!.

El Fitz Roy

The second day, I went alone for a 5-hour trek to another glaciar (alone because it was supposed to be an 8-hour trek and I only had 6 :-) ).

El Glaciar y el Lago Torre

I made it in time to take my evening bus to El Calafate. Then again, sunset (picture taken from the bus)...

Ruta 40

At last I got on the bus at 6.45am yesterday morning... The trip was two day long (yes, on the bus). The landscape was not as boring as I would have thought (I had been told several time "Patagonia is the same all the way long, steppa, and some rabbits or flamingos"). It was also a real adventure since the road is unpaved most of the way. A rock literraly destroyed one of the bus window after 6 hours on the first day (so we had to stop about 30 minutes to tape the whole thing).

A couple hours after that, the petrol tank fell on the ground (which meant another hour stopped on the side of ruta 40). The number of cars we saw passing during this hour would fit on the fingers of one hand!

The good thing about this second stop is that it occured right during sunset! We then arrived at the hostel in Perito Moreno, Santa Cruz at 11pm.

After a really good night of sleep, we left at 10am for the another 700kms offtracks... The scenery was changing a lot. To the fans of beep beep : I DID see roadrunners!!!

The arrival on El Chalten was fantastic : another wonderful sunset, this time with mountains in the background....

PS : I am writing all this from El Calafate, and my computer is really bad, so I just picked up randomly some pictures (the preview is worse than the one on the mini-screen of my camera!).

Bariloche, last day...

I stayed longer than I would have thought in Bariloche because I wanted to wait for the first bus going down "la Ruta 40"... The last day I went trekking to "El Refugio Lopez". The scenery was very different from the one I saw two days ago from Refugio Frey, but was as great... Here are a couple pictures taken from the top.

I cant wait to head South tomorrow, although these last couple days were le-gen......