|
  | |  |
Back from Torres del Paine
Entry 13 of 18 | show all | print this entry |
Wow! 2 weeks in Patagonia have flown by so quickly. I`ve never done so much hiking in my life before. I remember not wanting to hike again after doing the Salkantay 5-day trek in Peru a few years back.
I discovered that Jim and I were so much more productive when we were apart. We couldn`t get on the same flight to El Calafate. In Argentina, they only have a set number of seats available to foreigners at a cheaper price. There only seemd to be one seat available each day.
Whilst Jim was on the plane to Patagonia I went to a technical tango class for women at the Centro Borges Cutural centre. It was very good, difficult though. I managed to scratch my lower left leg with my high heel. Afterwards I headed for the zoo. I wanted to see the snow leopards but in hindsight I don`t think I should´ve gone. Some of the animals looked so sad.
I managed to lose my map of Buenos Aires in the zoo. I had planned to go to the Museo National de Belle Artes. Being the type of person who gets lost all the time, having a map is pretty important to me. However, I somehow managed to figure out which bus to take and found it with little difficulty. Success, yeh!! The art gallery was big with a huge range of artwork. It has paintings by the likes of Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh along with Argentine artists. I saw some people taking pictures so I thought, oh you`re allowed to take pics in the galleries here. So, I started snapping away and 5 minutes later there was announcement sating that taking photos are not allowed. Ooops!
Dinner time was a bit lonely so I was looking forward to seeing Jim the next day.
I first flew into Ushuaia. It looked beautiful with snowcapped mountains surrounding the airport. I wanted to spend a bit of time here but it wasn`t something of interest for Jim.
When I arrived into Calafate I headed to the airport bus ticket booth and to my surprise there was Jim. He`d come to meet me. How sweet!! He´d been very productive and found out plenty of things to do in Patagonia. Cool!
El Calafate is a small town but an expensive tourist town. The hostel we stayed at was nice with lots of facilities. Our room had heated floors, what a great idea! The next day we went on a short horse ride around Calafate. It was a nice way of killing time but not a `must`. My horse seemed to like being at the front and whenever it heard another horse trying to overtake it would up it`s speed.
The next day we did the big ice hike at Perito Moreno glacier. It was expensive but definitely worth it. We were so lucky to have good weather, would`ve been awful in the rain. Jim had done his research on the weather too. We`d done a glacier trek on the Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand before but this one was so much more impressive. We were lucky enough to see part of the glacier calve off. My camera was having serious problems. It would turn off at the best photo opportunities like when we were by ice caves. The glacier was different shades of blue. So beautiful! After 4 hours on the ice and a bit of hiking, we were exhausted. We slept so well that night.
Where I stayed:
Hostel Kawasgar
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Patagonia, Chile or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
