Puerto Natales

Well, it´s been a busy few days. After meeting up with Paddy and Rebecca on the fun bus, (he from Manchester, she from Perth), and Marie (also from Manchester), the four of us formed the Muppet Team and set off to explore the National Park at El Chalten. We camped out for two nights, the first at Poincenot, at Los Tres, from which you can walk up to the glacier and lake directly below Fitzroy Massif. There´s actually two lakes up there, the second being a beautiful bright blue laguna that looked really deep. We were so lucky with the weather - it was incredibly windy climbing up there, you sometimes had to virtually sit on the ground and hug a rock, but lovely sunshine. It was even windier when we got down, but it calmed down just before sunset, and the remaining clouds cleared to give us a perfect view of the almighty rock! It put on quite a show - beautiful clouds that swirled around the peaks like puffs of smoke, and the sky glowed orange and pink as the sun went down.


We got up the next morning, and walked to the third of the Tres Lagos, at Piedras Blancas. There was another glacier there, a blue one, and we had to scrabble over huge boulders to get a view of the lake. It was only an hour or so each way, but after that we had to take the tent down and walk on to the next campsite at Agostini, at Lago Torre. Didn´t sleep very well at this one, and Paddy and Rebecca´s gas had run out, so we ate biscuits and olives for dinner, and soaked some oats in water overnight to have for breakfast. Not great, but an important lesson to learn! Walked along the side of the lake to a huge glacier in the morning, before packing up camp and heading back to El Chalten. Slept really badly again even in my nice comfy hostel bed, as it was ridiculously windy (again), and the four of us were up again first thing to get a bus to El Calafate.

Arrived there yesterday lunchtime, and went to see the Perito Merino glacier in the afternoon. It was an expensive tourist trap, but very impressive all the same. Think I was slightly hysterical with tiredness though, as I spent a lot of time just giggling like a lunatic at nothing in particular. there were a lot of very rich-looking tourists there, all taking the exact same shot of each other with the glacier in the background. I eventually succumbed to the Disneyland atmosphere, and treated myself to a very expensive chocolate brownie and an Irish coffee, which calmed me down a bit! We all stayed in a lovely hospedaje near the bus station, and then myself and Marie got a bus to Puerto Natales this morning and are now at the Erratic Rock hostel, and Paddy and Rebecca are getting a bus down to Ushaia this afternoon. I may manage to meet up with them agan later, as they´re heading here before getting the Navimag (big boat) to Puerto Montt.

So, am back in Chile again, and giving myself what feels like a hard-earned rest after a busy few days. Will spend tomorrow doing a bit of washing, and getting equipment and food sorted out for doing some hiking in Torres del Paine national park on Thursday. Myself and Marie are thinking of doing the whole circuit, or the ´Q´, in addition to the well-trodden ´W´, so will be a long trip - I think it´s 8 or 9 nights camping out, along with carrying all our gear, so imagine it will be a tough few days. An American girl has also asked to join us, so will be interesting to see how the new team works out. Half of me wishes I was doing it on my own, partly for the feeling of being totally self-reliant, but I´m hoping we´ll have fun, not all fall out with each other, and have an enjoyable experience all round. Fingers crossed... (After going out for some food with the American girl that night, she failed to show up in the morning ready to go to the park, and we later heard from someone else staying at her hostel that she´d been spotted getting on a bus to Ushaia!)

El Chalten

Well I made it here to El Chalten on the fun bus... It left Bariloche at 9pm on Tuesday, but after five minutes the overhead lights stopped working, so we had to spend a delightful hour and a half at the depot while they sorted it out. Not that anyone would have cared anyway, beacause as soon as they got the lights working again and we were on our way, everyone switched them off again and went to sleep. We finally made it here at 6 o´clock this morning, Thursday, an epic 33 hours on the famous Ruta 40. It´s a long way, but really it takes so long because the road isn´t very good - even the ´sealed´ sections are incredibly bumpy, and at some points we were probably only doing about 20km per hour. The landscape was incredibly flat and barren for the majority of the way - nothing in the way of farmland, just desert scrub, and very little in the way of wildlife either - I saw a few guanacos (like llamas), a couple of hares, and a hawk-like bird, along with the rib-cages of a couple of dead animals.



The bus stopped every so often to pick up people in random locations - some of the little towns looked tiny. Then we had a couple of hours at the airport at Perito Moreno (the town, not the glacier of the same name) waiting for a connecting bus, before another trip to the local depot whilst they fixed something on this one too. We finally arrived in El Chalten at about 6 in the morning after a very long 33 hours, and woke up to wind and rain. No-one had a clue where in El Chalten we´d all been dropped, but managed to find a hostel whose door was open so all piled in there. Luckily it was the one I´d emailed anyway, so I had a bed reserved. It´s actually turned out nice this afternoon, but this morning was dismal weatherwise. It looks a bit like North Wales on a bad day - slate grey sky. the town itself is tiny, and has only recently got internet (very slow) and an ATM. After a long bus ride together at least I´ve not met up with some other people to do some of the walks with, although I´m trying to decide whether to camp, or just make the most of the fact that you can do walks wihtin a day, and return to the hostel at night.

Had a brilliant few days walking in Bariloche in the end... I set off on my own on Saturday and walked to Refugio Frey - a fairly easy walk along well-marked, sandy tracks. The refugio was set on the edge of a beautiful blue lake. You could camp there too, but I paid for a bed in the dorm, which was one room in the upstairs of the hut, stuffed full of mattresses not only on the floor, but on a whole other layer above the first layer too. I paid to have dinner and breakfast there too, so as not to have to carry loads of food with me, and all in all it cost about 100 pesos for food and accommodation, about 25 quid, so expensive by traveller standards, but not too bad.

The second day I walked onwards towards Refugio San Martin at Lago Jakob, but the walking was much more difficult - some really steep ascents where at points I had to push my rucksack up ahead of me as I didn´t have the strength to hoist myself up whilst wearing it. I didn´t mind the ascents too much, but the descents were terrifying - there were some fun bits which were very steep but sandy, and you could almost ski on the sand, but there were other bits where I was literally on my hands and knees coming down the rocks backwards. I´d set off early in the hope that if anything happened to me at least there´d be people behind to help, and some did catch me up on the last descent - an Irish guy, Steve, and a gorgeous German guy, Julian, who was only 22 but worked as a paramedic whilst waiting to start a degree in medicine. If I had to be rescued by anyone he was the perfect candidate! They were camping and had a pretty miserable night, as, after a beautiful day the weather turned miserable - rianing, and really windy. They polished off a huge amount of food between them - first a whole packet of spaghetti and sauce, then the remains of a giant bowl of ravioli topped with meat stew that I got given as my dinner but couldn´t finish, then the best part of a whole other pack of spaghetti with more sauce - the rest they took in a ziplock bag for lunch the next day. It still looked like bad weather in the morning, so we all set off together, but the day turned out ok in the end. The walking was really easy compared to the previous day, mainly following a river which was really clear and had some parts which would have made great places to swim had the weather been even warmer. The end bit involved a long stretch back to the main road to get a bus back to Bariloche, but we were really lucky, and just as we were getting totally fed up of the monotony, a couple in a pick-up pulled up and gave us a ride all the way back to the town centre. Great fun, we all had big grins on our faces at this point!

I enjoyed doing most of the walk on my own, but was equally nice to meet up and have some company, and we went for some celebratory food when we got back, which turned into some celebratory beers in their hostel, and ended up as a bit of a late one. When I went to bed there was no-one in my dorm, but woke up feeling a bit rough in the morning to the dulcet tones of the person on the bunk below snoring, and a bare hairy arse sticking out of the duvet on the bunk opposite. Am getting too old for this dormitory malarky! At some point must treat myself to a really nice room somewhere and some decent food. Food here in El Chalten is pretty limited - very litle fresh fruit and veg, and what there is, isn´t great quality, so am having to be inventive to say the least.

Bariloche

Am now in Bariloche and a bit fed up... I spent the last couple of days in a lovely new hostel in San Martin de los Andes, a four hour bus ride south from Zapala. It was a gorgeous little town, set alongside a lake and nestled among mountains, but very touristy in the same way that the Lake District towns are at home. There are a lot of excursions on offer, but it seems to be difficult to get the information and maps to just get up and go out hiking on your own, without your own transport. I spent all of yesterday pottering around, whilst waiting to hear about whether or not I could do a 2 day trip to climb to the top of nearby Volcan Lanin - I couldn´t. So this morning got a bus at 7.45 down to Bariloche, via the Ruta de Siete Lagos, a famously beautiful road that passes through a string of seven lakes. Most of it was over unpaved roads, so slow and bumpy, and I may as well have got the speedier bus instead, as I just couldn´t stay awake, so missed out on lots of the scenery. It was a grey, cloudy morning, but I think that´s just coincidence rather than because I´ve come further south, but all looked a bit dismal anyway.

So I´ve just scoffed down a massive hamburger and chips, and am working out what to do next. I´ve realised that I haven´t really got much interest in seeing small, touristy towns - my whole reason for being here is to get out into the countryside. But how to do that on my own without a car is what I need to sort out. I think if I want to see the Perito Moreno glaciar and go trekking at Fitzroy, near El Chalten, I may have to do it as part of a tour. I´ll then make my way to Puerto Natales, to go to Torres del Paine national park, where I´ve already been in touch with a hostel there which helps people organise their own trips within the park. It also turns out that the owners are friends of James, who led our mountain trip at the ranch. He´s heading down there at the beginning of April, to get a horse he has fit for an endurance ride at the beginning of May. Sounds amazing, and I´m in two minds as to whether to try to change my flight home so that I could stay and do the actual race, but even if I don´t, I will try to meet up with him for some more riding. Right, in the meantime I´m off to find out about hiking!

Yaaaaay! Have finally found the sort of think I´m after, ie. NOT a day spent in a bus looking at the lakes and mountains from the window. Went to the Club Andino Bariloche, where they have excellent information about how to get to the start of hikes, and about refugios you can stay in en route. So I´m setting off tomorrow morning, and plan to spend one night in Refugio Frey, then walk to Refugio San Martin on Sunday, and then walk back to complete the circuit on Monday. There were quite a few people asking similar questions, so I´m hoping that I´ll be able to meet up with some along the way, especially to do the bit between the two refugios. You have to register at the Club Andino, and let them know your plans, but I don´t think they do anything unless someone files a specific report that you´re missing, so have also given the hostel I´m staying in written details of where I´m off to. Have been looking on the internet today as well, and looks like you can do a similar sort of thing in El Chalten - a number of walks are possible within a day, or half a day, from El Chalten itself.

It´s quite expensive to get a bus down that far, about 80 pounds, but then it´s virtually a 30 hour journey, so I guess it´s quite reasonable really. I´m not sure whether to do it in two chunks, or just bite the bullet and get it all over in one go - think I might do that, otherwise I´ll just be arriving in yet another new place and having to work out where everything is and so on...

The ranch...

Wow! Have had a truly amazing month! I´ve decided not to post everything I wrote whilst I was there, as I just don´t think I could do it justice, but suffice to say I´ve had a lot of fun and have loved the whole experience. The ranch completely lived up to expectations in terms of just how remote it was, and one of the highlights for me was the fact that there was no one around to ride back out with me to the midway point when I left last week, so I had to do it on my own. A month earlier, being in that much open space with no real idea of which direction I should be heading in would have terrified me, but riding out with just a small back pack full of the essentials (water, homemade granola, and a few spare clothes), on a beautiful, trustworthy horse, is something I´ll never forget. I shed a few tears along the way, especially stopping for a moment on the crest of a hill for a last look back at the valley in which the ranch nestles. It´s a very special place.



The best thing for me was living so close to nature, not only in terms of location but, for example, chopping wood to light a fire to cook, living in a little wooden house built without nails, showering outdoors looking up at the trees whilst I washed my hair, waking up with the sun, racing to get things done before dark as I had no electricty in my house, walking by moonlight, amazing nights spent lying on horse blankets looking up at stars, seeing shooting stars from my window, sleeping with the windows wide open and feeling the breeze in the night, going to bed by candle light.



Of course, the horses also played a huge part. They live as a herd in El Mundo, a giant valley of a pasture, and have to be rounded up on horseback. I´m not sure who was rounding up whom when I tried to do this, but it was a good laugh! They live a very simple life, only eating what they forage for, and are used less for fun, and more as a means of transport through the rugged landscape. I enjoyed getting to know them - to begin with they were quite aloof - and trying to pick one out of the herd to catch once they´d been rounded up into the corral usually ended up in a mini stampede, me standing in the middle with ten or so horses and a few cattle racing round me in circles. As the days went on though they became easier to catch and I don´t think I´ve ever met such willing, yet reliable horses. You didn´t need to tie them up, just drop the rope and most would stand exactly where you left them. Mana was one of my favourites, a little dun coloured mare, she was the sort of horse that seemed to do what you wanted just by thinking it.



It was great being able to go off exploring, either or horseback or on foot, and one of my favourite places was Confluencia, a spot where two rivers met. There was a great swimming hole there, and I spent lots of time reading, or going for dips in the river and drying in the sun. A few of us camped out for a couple of nights too, riding back first thing in the morning in time to start working, the sun making the mountains behind us glow pink. There´s a graceful row of poplar trees that marks the spot.



I´ve also met some great people, and seen something of a completely different way of life and culture. I´ve made numerous mistakes in drinking mate, a kind of tea, from saying ´gracias´which means you don´t want any more, to slurping it too loudly, but all have been taken in good humour. I´ve attempted to drink red wine in the traditional way, from a squeezy goat skin bottle that doesn´t touch your lips, but you have to squirt it into your mouth. A lot of my clothes have the marks to show that I never quite got the hang of it. I´ve eaten a lot of goat and spent a lot of time laughing with gauchos despite the fact that even after a month I can barely understand a word they say!



My eight day trip up into the high mountains is also something I´ll remember forever. I didn´t want it to end... Reaching places that only a handful of people will ever see, meeting the people that work this land and call it their home and enjoying their hospitality despite the fact that they have so little. The trip had a certain spontanaeity to it, we´d meet a gaucho along the way, and the plan for the day would change - we´d ride over to his puesto, usually nothing more than a little hut made from sticks, and spend the afternoon round a fire enjoying an asado, a side of goat spit-roasted over the coals. One day turned into a complete party in a cave, and I ended up sleeping in the cave under a big pile of ponchos, an unbelievable place to wake up! We ate fish fresh from the river, I was persuaded to eat deep fried fish heads doused in lemon juice, and we´d gnaw on goat ribs in the firelight, or pull a leftover one out of our saddle bags to munch on whilst riding along the next day. We bathed in thermal springs, covered ourselves in hot black mud, and then washed it off in icy cold river water. We were joined along the way by herds of horses, not wild, but roaming freely in the mountains and pastures, shiny coated and galloping and bucking just for the fun of it. All in all, brilliant!

Bring on the next adventure!