Woke up early and the wind had died down a little, but
still not enough for me to put the pop top up while I got dressed and packed
away my sleeping bag etc. Surprisingly
all the Dragoman tents were still standing, and I had not burned Troopie down
last night in my efforts to cook my supper (yummy local chorizo sausage, spuds
and boiled veggies – I eat quite well on the road !). And I wasn’t feeling too stiff either,
although I ended up with a big blister on the bottom of my heel (odd place for
a blister !) and it is quite sore today, so I might postpone the walk to Mt
Fitz Roy for a day, explore El Chalten a little, and then drive the 30 or so
kms up to the end of the road and find out what is up there. It was also bitterly cold this morning – I
had jackets and my furry Alaskan hat on right from the start !
After packing up, I drove into town and just slowly
explored. Down at the southern end I
found a delightful little map and sticker shop open (I needed a Mt Fitz Roy / Ruta 40 sticker for the car !) despite it not yet
being 9 am, and got chatting with the delightful owner, a gentleman called Oscar. He was intrigued with my journey, and despite
the fact that I only bought a couple of stickers, he insisted on giving me a
couple of excellent local maps for my use.
The backdrop for his little shop is the hill behind the town, and behind
that, Mt Fitz Roy – What a back drop !
Although he was complaining that there were so many telephone and power
poles obstructing the view, and that a new town council has just been elected
and apparently he is hoping they will clean up a lot of the messy
infrastructure of the town. It would be nice if they did. He then wanted a photo of my car, and while
we were chatting told me his daughter Robina runs the Waffleria just down the
road that is apparently very popular.
She has spent some time out in Tasmania, and reckons it is very similar
there to El Chalten. (Cold and wet and windy ?!!) A very pleasant start to the day.
I then went further down the road and found the
Panaderia, from which you could clearly smell the delicious fresh bread smell
wafting across the street. I went in and
they had fresh warm French bread sticks straight out of the oven, and then
something else caught my eye – Freshly baked empenadas – Wooo ! So I got 4 of them as well – For my
elevenses. Trouble was, they didn’t last
till eleven !! As I went on down the
road, I saw a local guy I had been chatting to in the campsite a bit who was
hitching south out of town, so I went over to say goodbye, and we shared a
couple of the excellent empanadas right there on the side of the road. Even as a local he reckoned they were pretty
good ! I then set off north on the dirt road towards Lago del Desierto.
The walk to Mt Fitz Roy I want to do is off this road, so
I wanted to check that out for tomorrow, and also just explore up the
road. I didn’t even mind the dirt – it
is only about 35 kms, and I had all day to do it ! The Rio de las Vueltas flows right beside the
road for a lot of the way, and if the river rose one inch in some places, it
would flood the road ! About 20 minutes up the road we left the Los Glaciares
Nacional Park, and from there on it was largely private land. Just outside the park was a camp site, and it
looked absolutely gorgeous. I knew I had to stay there, so I thought I would go
to the end of the road, and if there was nothing there, would come back to this
place for the night. We then passed the
Hosteleria El Pilar which is where you can park the car to go for the hike to
Mt Fitz Roy, so got that spotted for later and moved on up the road.
Criss-crossing the river on old metal bridges with a 6 MT
weight limit, we came to Lago Condor, with its lovely backdrop of snow covered
peaks and glaciers. Somewhere around
here I saw a lone hitch hiker and I decided to give him a lift – It was only
about 20 kms to the end of the road anyway !
Turned out to be a French lad living and studying for a year in
Santiago, and spending his summer vacation hitch hiking through Patagonia. I had to move all my stuff around to get his
pack in the back, but he was an interesting lad. You could tell he had been camping out in the
bush for a while though – Obviously deodorant is not something back packers
feel the need to weigh themselves down with !!
We got to the end of the road where there is a barrier
across it saying “foot traffic only”.
This is the start of the Lago del Desierto which stretches for about 6
kms, and then only 15 kms further north is the Chilean Border, and Villa
O’Higgins, the bottom of the Carretera Austral road that I was driving down
last week. The French lad was walking /
hitch hiking back to Chile and on to Santiago.
The water flowing out of the Lago was SO clear it was unbelievable –
Apparently the fishing is good around here and we had passed a couple of people
fly fishing as we drove up. At the very
end of the road is an Argentinian Carabinieri post, presumably due to the
proximity of the border, and just 100 yards back is the Estancia Lago del
Desierto, with signs up offering camping and food and hikes etc. I decided this would be a good spot for a
rest day (for my legs !), and went in and made my enquiries with a great local
gaucho type hombre who was busy cooking carne and sausage on a big
barbecue. He and his wife got me sorted
out for camping – His wife managed to speak without moving her lips (I think to
keep her false teeth securely inside her mouth) but this meant that my limited
ability to understand spoken Spanish was further impaired, and she would not
stop talking ! I can honestly say I did
not understand one single word she said in 10 minutes – It was a good job she
wrote me a receipt so I could see how much I had to pay !!
I then set up the van before going for a wander. There is a very rickety rope footbridge
across the river which is the only way to go if you are hiking north, and then
a cute little 6 pew chapel beside the road, that based on the number of candles
burning obviously has people stopping in.
The camp site itself is gorgeous, in a forest that reminds me very much
of 100 Acre Wood. (No heffalumps spotted, however.) There is an old log cabin that has a sign
saying it is the property of the National State of Argentina, so I presume is
some kind of historical building, and
there is a rather fine tumbledown old wooden building obviously used for open
fire cooking when the weather is less friendly.
By now I had worked out that there was a Laguna Huemul and accompanying
glacier up in the hills – You can see a couple of glaciers from the van, so it
can’t be that far away. So off I went, expecting a nice little amble though the
countryside.
Initially the walk takes you through this delightful
forest with an ice cold river flowing down beside you. It really has the feeling of an enchanted
forest, and an ideal little stroll for a “rest day”. Then suddenly it got steeper – A lot steeper
! And before I knew it there were even
ropes strung between the trees to help you pull yourself up the steep bits
!! So much for a rest day ! From there it only took another 30 minutes or
so, but it sure was a strenuous 30 minutes.
Suddenly I came out above the trees, and there to my left
was Mt Fitz Roy – I was now behind it compared to where I had been yesterday,
and unfortunately it was still covered in cloud – But it was there. 5 minutes further on I came over a crest and
there was the ice blue Lago Huemul, being fed from the glacier right above it. A beautiful sight, and well worth the hike –
Even though my legs didn’t think so !
Looking to my left (south) I could see all the way down the valley I had
driven up from EL Chalten this morning, with the couple of lakes clearly
visible. Behind me was a row of jagged peaks running up beside Lago del
Desierto, and ahead of me the Glacier Huemul, along with a couple of others off
to the side. I sat around up there for a
while enjoying the view, and hoping that Mt Fitz Roy would clear – But to no
avail, so I headed back down through the forest to the camp site.
On the way down, I got to thinking. If all the mountain peaks were always clear,
then seeing them would not be very special.
It is the very fact that seeing them is something you are occasionally
“permitted” to do when the weather is right, that makes the viewing so very
special. It’s a bit like eating wine gums, especially
Maynards, of which the black ones are my favourites. But they only put a few black ones in each
packet – So when you finally pull one out, it makes it special, and you say (if
you are a black wine gum fan) with a smile, “I got a black one”. If ALL the wine gums in the packet were black, and you never had to eat a red or
an orange one to get to the next black one, then the black ones wouldn’t be so special,
would they ? Well, it’s the same with
mountains – You have to accept the cloudy ones because that then makes the next
clear peak so special. Well, that’s my
thought, anyway, and thinking about it kept me occupied all the way down the
mountain to the camp site in Hundred Acre Wood, which was “a good thing”, as
Pooh would say.
Back at the van I promptly fell asleep for a couple of
hours, exhausted, and then cooked spag for supper – Not too much wind up here
tonight !! Some local red wine to help
the spag go down, and some fresh crusty bread from the Panaderia this morning
to accompany it all - Hey life in
Patagonia is pretty good !
Especially when that bloody wind dies down a bit !!
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