Antarctica and Patagonia 2016: Off the beaten track in West Patagonia

Tuesday Feb 9th - A free morning in El Chalten. Most of us slept in a tad, wandered around town, bought souvenirs, and paid a last visit to the great icecream shop Domo Blanco. Like the whole of Argentina, including Buenos Aires, the footpaths are a disaster area - uneven surfaces, potholes, ridges, and in El Chalten edges made of huge pebbles. I managed to trip over one and come crashing down onto both kneecaps twisting my left ankle in the process. Not fun!

Mt Fitzroy on the welcome sign and in the background

morning tea stop on the steppe

After leaving El Chalten we returned to the famous Ruta Cuarenta (Route 40), heading to Gobernador Gregores for the night. There was lots of bumpy gravel road; we are now well and truly off the tourist circuit. Route 40 runs the whole length of mainland Argentina for over 5000 km. We passed a memorial to exploited workers, hundreds of whom were killed when the army decided that was the only way to end their strike in 1920. The general who ordered the massacre was murdered a year later by the brother of one of the killed workers; he got his just desserts.

There were interesting entree choices for dinner tonight: guanaco, lamb’s tongue, cow tongue, rabbit, tripe. I shared the guanaco and lamb’s tongue - both very good as was the main dish, a veal speciality.

mononument to slain workers

Wednesday Feb 10th - we did a walk around town to see the historic sights, then headed off to Las Cuevas de Las Manos (Caves of the Hands), a world heritage site due to its well preserved cave paintings dating back 9000 years. Getting there involved lots of driving through emptiness on gravel roads, sighting lots of guanacos and rheas. Franco’s eagle eye spotted an armadillo and we all piled out of the truck to take a photo of it in Franco’s hand. After the caves we drove on to spend the night at an estancia of the same name.

armadillo

Cuevas de Los Manos

nearing the estancia

sunset at the estancia

To while away some of the hours travelling we had a trivia quiz where Mel tested us on things we had seen, tried or been told about so far on the trip. I managed to win in spite of not knowing the colour of Franco’s watchband, and not being able to name any of the appetizers we had at the restaurant in Punta Arenas. I did however know who won Chile’s independence, when Magellan discovered the Straits, and how to spell Ushuaia. The prize was a mate set (pronounced mar tay). Mate is a herb from the yerba tree. It’s a national drink here - read about it in Wikipedia.

Thursday Feb 11th - another long driving day, crossing back into Chile for the second time. Before the crossing we passed through the small town of Perito Moreno, the same name as the famous glacier. The town has nothing to see, but does have an airport. Some time ago Dustin Hoffman flew in by private jet to see the glacier. He must have been really pissed off to discover the glacier is 1000km to the south, and that due to increased wind he could not fly out the same day. We crossed into Chile at a tiny rarely used border so that we could get good views of Lake Buenos Aires. It’s huge and part of it is in Chile where it’s called Lake General Carrera. This lake drains to both the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. After border control out of Argentina it was a one hour drive on a bad road to border control into Chile. We had lunch in this no man’s land; it was the first time the wind prevented us from eating outside. We ended the day in the big smoke - the town of Coyaique with a population of 50,000.

lunch on the truck

lake Buenos Aires

Friday Feb 12th - we are travelling on the scenic road called Carrera Austral (southern highway). It runs 1200 km near the coast and is advertised as being the most scenic road in South America. Today it was through green valleys with mountains around. Our lucky run of weather had to end; it rained all day. In spite of this we did a 2 hour hike in El Bosque Encantado (The Enchanted Wood). It is a temperate rain forest with lots of lush greenness. The walk ended at a river where we had waterfall and glacier views. Given the forest’s name I looked hard for the Magic Faraway Tree as I had heard that the land at the top was the Land of Pisco Sours; sadly I could not find it. Our accommodation tonight is in rustic cabins with wood-burning stoves, very necessary to dry all our wet gear. We are right next to the fjords that join the Pacific Ocean.

walk in El Bosque Encantado (Enchanted Wood)

Saturday Feb 13th - the eco-tourism place we are staying at is fantastic. All the food is cooked fresh on-site, including bread and home-made jams. Last night’s hake was caught the same day and was delicious. We are in the middle of the Andes in an area that gets 4000mm of rain a year. A short distance to the east over the Andes they get only 50mm of rain. Patricio, the owner, took us hiking to the top of a waterfall. The water from that fall supplies us with apparently the purest water in the world. He sells it to a company who bottles it (on-site) under the name “Ice Swan”. It is sold only to high-end establishments. During the bottling process classical music is played; they claim it changes the structure of the water somehow - hmmmmm!!

Sunday Feb 14th - the rain eased and we did a half day walk to a lookout overlooking a hanging glacier and waterfall. Then it was more driving on the Carreterra Austral to reach our farm stay near Futaleufu, famous for its river and rafting.