Argentinian Patagonia
We arrived in BA Thursday night on a flight from El Calafate, 1700 miles south of here. Yesterday morning was glorious - we got to stay in bed past 6 am. What a luxury! Last night we went to see a traditional tango show (at El Viejo Almacen). The musicians were amazing and the dancers were unbelievable (and, in case I didn’t mention it already, super hot!!). The dancers reminded Melanie and I a lot of what we look like when we dance. NOT! If I were a judge on Argentina’s Got Talent they’d definitely get my vote.
[Btw, next time I write a Travelogue from one of our trips I think I’ll bring along a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus to increase the pool of superlatives I can choose from. For you young’uns out there who have no idea what Roget’s is, ask Siri 😎].
We’ll be spending the next couple of days checking out the sights here before jumping back on a plane on Monday. But more importantly, let’s get you all caught up on the remainder of our trip through Los Glaciares National Park in Argentinian Patagonia.
Last Friday, we travelled by bus from Torres del Paine across the border to El Calafate, Argentina located on the southern shore of an enormous glacial lake called Lago Argentina, and considered to be the gateway to the Perito Moreno Glacier. The glacier itself covers an area the size of Buenos Aires and we spent the next morning walking around the glacier. Every 5-10 minutes we heard what sounded like thunder, but which was actually the sound of massive blocks of ice calving from the glacier and crashing into the lake.
Although I had been a bit disappointed that we had not had time to hike on the Grey Glacier earlier in our trip, we traded what had been planned as an afternoon of leisure for an afternoon of crampon hiking on the Perito Moreno Glacier (for those of you who are unfamiliar, crampons are metal spikes that attach to the bottom of your boots to improve traction on snow and ice while hiking).
The scotch on the rocks - straight from the glacier - was a great way to end the hike!
A quick aside to mention that our trip was made extra special because our hiking group was the best we’ve ever travelled with. 15 of us - 13 from the US and our dear friends Jean Pierre and Annamaria from Europe (we met them on a scuba diving trip in Mozambique two years ago and they feel like our travel soulmates) ranging in age from 32-65 years old. A number of our “Grupito” members were accomplished hikers, having climbed Kilimanjaro, Machu Picchu and Everest Base Camp, and among others, the group included 3 doctors, a physiologist, a veterinary tech, a pharmaceutical sales rep and, most importantly, a brand manager at a wine importer who had the arduous task of choosing the wine at dinner most nights. So we were well taken care of (though I added little to the mix, as my experience in “delegating”was not in high demand…..).
From El Calafate it was on to El Chalten for another 50 miles or so of hiking in the Fitz Roy range over the next 4 days. El Chalten is considered Argentina’s Trekking Capital, though it only has a few thousand year round residents and retains a very cool honky tonk vibe.
The toughest hike was 15+ miles with over 3000 feet of elevation gain to Lagunas de los Tres. Thankfully, the views of the Fitz Roy massif were not obscured by clouds. Rather than trying to find the adjectives to describe the views we experienced, I’ll let you judge for yourself (though photos really do not do it justice).
The next 2 days were Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day, so they took it easy on us - we only did hikes of 12-13 miles each day 😎. [NB: A hint for anyone out there who might consider a hiking trip: when your hiking guide says you will be covering “undulating terrain”, what he really means is “UPdulating terrain”, i.e. lots and lots of hills.]
Most notably, we hiked to the shores of another glacier lake with incredible views of the ice-capped 10,000 foot peak of Cerro Torre.
By the by, more than one of you have accused Melanie and I of being a little bit (or more than a little bit) crazy. I can’t remember whether it was Einstein or Nietzche who said “everything is relative”, but to be clear, there’s “crazy” and then there’s “CRAZY”. For an example of the latter, I’d introduce you to Lucho, our assistant hiking guide in El Chalten. An accomplished climber, last year Lucho summited Cerro Torre - one of only about 400 people who have ever done so! In my book, a couple of the climbers he summited with surpassed CRAZY and clearly qualified as LOCO EN LA CABEZA, as they took “the easy way down” - flying down with paragliders they had carried to the summit. In case you’re interested in giving it a go yourself, check out the video of their ascent and descent on YouTube - it’s called “Cerro Torre Climb and Fly”.
Well, that’s a wrap for the Patagonia portion of our trip, which in my book definitely qualified as EPIC. Apologies for the length of this post - I’ll try to be less verbose in the future (a perennial problem of mine, I know). Not only did we complete 100+ miles of hiking, but I ate Guanaco prepared 6 different ways (grilled, stewed, empanadas, tartare, carpaccio and meatballs) as well as sweetbreads and cow’s intestines. What could be more epic than that? I’m not usually an adventurous eater but they do love their carne down here, and when in Rome….
A big shout out to my trainer, my chiropractor and the stairs at the Harvard Coliseum (all 1147 of them) for the weeks they spent getting me in good enough shape to complete all of the hiking. And special kudos to Melanie who due to a variety of injuries was not able to train as hard as she would have liked, but still kicked my butt on many of the hikes!
And I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to our guides from MT Sobek: our lead guide for the whole trip, Rodrigo was nothing short of amazing - the best we’ve ever had. Our driver, Rodrigo, not only kept us safe (and our naps undisturbed) on our sometimes long bus rides, but was a great guy and an accomplished wildlife photographer to boot. And our local guides in both Torres del Paine and El Chalten, Cristian and Lucho, were incredibly knowledgeable, personable and helpful.
I’m told that Santa knows if you’ve been naughty or nice, but - despite that - I hope not too many of you got lumps of coal in your stockings on Christmas morning! 😜 And to those still celebrating Eight Crazy Nights, Feliz Januca!
Next stop Rio de Janeiro!
Con Amor Desde,
Elan and Melanie
P.S. A sad footnote to our windy day adventure last week. I mentioned in my last post that the hiking trails in Torres del Paine had been closed due to the wind. Our guides later confessed that on a scale of 1-10 they had been at a 9.5 in terms of their concern over getting all of us through the hike safely, and for good reason. It turns out that 3 hikers (not from our group) had suffered very serious injuries due to the wind, and there was one fatality. Glad to have dodged that bullet…..
P.P.S. A happy footnote to counter the previous one. Last week I decided to impose a complete news boycott (except for Boston sports teams, of course) at least until the end of our trip. I can’t tell you how much happier a person I am. You might wanna give it a try….
P.P.P.S. And as if I wasn’t happy enough, the wine expert in our group told me about a wine from Oregon that is without question my new favorite - and I haven’t even tried it. See if you can guess why:
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