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Parque Nacional de los Glaciares, Argentina
Entry 4 of 5 | show all | print this entry |
With a new camera and a recovering body I took the bus to El Calafate in Argentina which is famous as the gateway to Argentina´s Parque Nacional de los Glaciares and met Shane from Cork at the border, who had camped with us on the last night in Torres del Paine. We didnt have too much of a wait on either side of the border but thought at one stage that some apples that an english couple were carrying was going to cause a bus-wide search of other such meat and fruit-like contraband. We ended up heading to the same hostel in El Calafate which turned out to be the best hostel I´ve stayed in so far... anywhere!
Many of the other guys from Torres were also staying there and had got there the day before. We met them looking tired and wet after their "Big Ice" hike on the Perito Moreno glacier. It had been pissing rain all day and they didnt have many good things to say about the hike, they reckoned it was too long (5 hours on the ice plus another couple to and from it) and the shorter one would probably be better. Myself and Shane decided to go for the long one anyway, hoping to get better weather the next day. We had a monster sized barbeque in the hostel and got an extra beer free because the barman reckoned Brian O´Driscoll is a cry-baby. Surprisingly the only rugby slagging in Argentina so far. We ended up staying up way too late with some of the Torres guys and then later on we ended up playing Shane´s guitar with a couple of real reggae-heads that worked in the hostel. Really cool guys, had a great laugh, but maybe not the best idea to be drinking til 4 if you´re due to go on a trip at 7.
We had to drag our drunk asses to the bus a few hours later to get out to the glacier. The park itself has over 200 glaciers, most of which are advancing, at least 12 of which are massive, it also has the biggest ice-cap outside of the polar regions, several massive lakes and some amazing trekking at its northern end. The glacier which we were due to visit and hike on is not even close to being the biggest but it is still 5km wide, 30km long and is the most famous. It´s well known because you can get very close to its face and also because of a natural phenomenon which happens every few years when the glacier advances across Lago Argentina cutting off one arm of the lake from the rest. This causes the water to rise more in the lake on the north face of the glacier as the lake is taking in water but has nowhere to drain it to. A small tunnel forms under the front of the glacier and eventually enough pressure builds up and the front of the glacier collapses. When we were there the water at the north face was a whole 7 metres higher than the other side!
There are a whole series of walkways to let you get close to the face and no sooner had we got there that a massive chunk crashed off into the water with a massive thunderous splash. Our guide seemed happy because you could be waiting there for days to see that happen. After a very short 15 mins or so we all piled back on the bus which shuttled us over to a wharf where we got on a boat to get to the south shore of the glacier from where would start the hike. The weather was gorgeous and warm and we hiked for about an hour to where we could pick up and fit our crampons and get on the ice itself. The glacier is so wide that we were only trekking on the outer edges which only moves 15cm a day (the middle moves 1.5 metres!) so the ice doesnt get as bunched up and its more like a moonscape than the craggy peaks in the middle so there was no need to tie us all together for safety. It was a really strange experience walking with the crampons on, you have to be careful not to catch them on each other or you legs so everyone is walking around like a bit of a zombie at first. We saw amazing ice formations, deep blue sink holes and even got to climb into some small crevices. We also got to have a picnic on the ice next to a little lake which had formed on the surface of the glacier. Really beautiful, had a numb ass afterwards though... naturally.
I didnt find the hike long at all, the good weather made all the difference, it would have been very cold if the wind had picked up and miserable in the wet. When we got back to the boat we were given whiskey on the old glacier rocks and chocolate. Man they know how to treat people who´ve been walking all day! We finished off the evening with more quality all-you-can-eat BBQ, more steak than I´ve even seen and some beers with a few other Irish people into the hotel who tricked us into staying up late drinking again.
You can see the pics from the glacier here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgaffney/sets/72157605073996097/show/
We spent the next day bumming around the town, buying bits and pieces and getting ready for the hiking that we had planned for El Chalten. Ended up having another massive feed of BBQ, beers with the rasta guys and playing guitar - Shane is really good for someone who has just been playing a few months!
We next moved on up to El Chalten at the northern end of the park for a few days trekking around some of the most spectacular mountains in Patagonia. The town is only about 25 years old and was set up to claim the territory for Argentina after some disputes with Chile over the borders. Chile still claims certain parts of Argentina... I can see why they try, when the global warming heats up they´ll be one of the countries worst affected. In fairness Argentina still claim ownership of the Malvinas Islands too (the Falklands). Anyway, its a tiny place, with just a few streets but you can go hiking from your front door which is cool.
We were due to meet up with Gordon and JP and after some confusion everyone managed to find each other. The first day was fairly cloudy and although it wasn´t raining most of the highest mountains were hidden. The scenery still managed to be beautiful though. We headed up towards a glacier on the side of a mountain with a few others from JP´s hostel and after taking a wrong turn we decided to save time by crossing to where we now knew the track to be. We had to go through seriously wet, boggy land to get there and eventually came to a river which was too wide to cross so had to make it back up-river to a bridge and lost about and hour and a half, it was still beautiful hiking so I didn´t mind a whole lot. We eventually got to the glacier after scrambling up a short valley with massive boulders. Really great views of the glacier in front of a small lake, but we had to turn around pretty quickly to avoid walking for too long in the dark. I let the lads wander on ahead after a while and I managed to see Fitz Roy through the cloud, it´s a really imposing mountain, easily the highest in the area and is still a difficult mountaineering prize - many people have died trying to climb it. Needless to say we finished off the evening with some booze and brownies in a german micro brewery no less. Poor Shane had to get up to get a 7am bus back to El Calafate to catch a plane up north and it was just comical seeing him trying to get up the next morning. I woke up a 7:05 and woke him up, he ran outside and the busman said he couldnt wait so he ran back in effin´ and blindin´ then ran back out and saw the bus stopped a few hundred yards down the road then grabbed his stuff and ran back out, doors slamming all over. A minute later he was legging it back for his wallet. I dont know how he managed to catch that flight.
I met up with JP a couple of hours later (after arranging to meet Gordon further up north) for what turned out to be one of the best day´s trekking I´ve ever had. The day was glorious, the clouds just about stayed away from the tops of the mountains and we had great craic as well. He´s a very very funny guy, a smart one too! We spent about 10 hours trekking to several lakes, seeing many great views and managing to catch the sun setting behind Fitz Roy itself. Now´s probably a good time to tell you that the photos are below... Btw Flickr uploads them in reverse... ie last photo taken is the one you´ll see first. http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgaffney/sets/72157605073986733/show/
The last day in El Chalten was again a bit cloudy, we hiked across a fair bit of snow and a lot of ice to a look out point above one of the lakes which we had seen the day before. We managed to take a bit of a detour which took us away from the peak which would have given us a better perspective on the surrounding countryside but with the clouds on top of the mountains we really wouldnt have seen too much more. We decided to head back to El Calafate that night to the same hostel for what turned out to be the best ánd most steak I´ve ever had at one sitting. Everyone has to come to Argentina, even if its only for the steak.
We met a couple that night (Talía from Colombia and Javier from Barcelona) who had just finished a course in documentary film-making in Buenos Aires and were out to make some films around South America. Talíá was delighted to hear I was into documentary and heading to Colombia so she gave me the low-down on several places to visit and how to avoid a kidnapping :)
We met them again the next day as we were renting cars to head out to Perito Moreno again. we caught up with them just before the entrance to the park and they sped through to avoid paying the entrance fee while we had a ranger practically run out in front of us thinking that we were going to try to avoid it too.
It was great getting to spend more time at the glaciar face without having to rush and myself and JP found some paths that got us down pretty close which neither of us had seen the previous day. There were very few people around so late in the evening so it was really peaceful and you could really appreciate the scale and noise of the massive cracks opening up in front of you - some the height of a house! We managed to see another massive chunk falling off, probably about the size of a lorry and managed to catch it on camera. We were well chuffed with ourselves heading home and we also picked up a Spanish hitch hiker who left managed to leave his tripod in our car but found us later on, a bit flustered.
So that was that for El Calafate and El Chalten, lots of people spent the evening hanging around the hostel til 4am in the morning when the buses were leaving to Rio Gallegos. I was sorry to be splitting up with JP, we´d had some great laughs together, but he was heading south and I would be continuing onwards and upwards to El Bariloche, a 29 hour bus trip!
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