After getting back into Puerto Natales we showered and headed out for food. After a pretty miserable 5 days of eating Alex decided he needed to order most things on the menu. I went off to get a patch of Torres del Paine for my backpack (I collect patches as we go along) and got back to the resto to a massive glass of red wine. Ideal. As predicted Alex’s eyes were bigger than his stomach but we did manage most of it and only left with some pizza which we could have on the bus the next day. That night we slept very well!
The next morning we were up at 6 for the bus back to El Calafate. We got, what we worked out from speaking to the bus companies, was the first bus of the day. We wanted to try and beat the border control queue. Alas. When our bus pulled out so did 2 others. How?! They said they left later. Another classic South American flexible time situation. Anyway. This time the border was quick and we soon found ourselves checking into our hostel which we booked as it was opposite the bus station. We walked into town and sampled one of the local beers during happy hour. We had also seen a nice Parrilla grill during our previous time in the town. However tripadvisor didn’t speak fondly of it so we embarked on a food mission.
We ended up at the number 1 on TA which was one of our best meals on the trip to date. It was exactly like fawlty towers. Absolute chaos! But the food was immense. It was a bit of a walk out of town and we didn’t quite know what to expect. After a wait for a table (whilst the only waiter chatted to everyone rather than clearing tables and seating customers) we finally had a table. It was a classic Parrilla grill so it was meat or meat (in case you’re interested, we chose the meat). There were a few different cuts on a board. Pick the cut and choose your cooking time. Simple. We chose half a litre of house red which was poured from a massive vat. We didn’t expect much from it but it was surprisingly nice. The rest of the evening (we were there for about 3 hours in the end) went by with us in fits of giggles as the waiter got more plastered on his beer he was swigging and the chef throwing different meat on the grill. For some reason we got a top up of wine and then another 2 bottles came out over the rest of the evening for us “to share” with the people at the next table, a couple from England who we’d got chatting to as we were waiting for our food. Around midnight the waiter told the 4 of us remaining that he was leaving for 5 minutes. And he did! When he came back (more like twenty minutes later) he said he couldn’t remember if the other couple had paid or not. The whole thing was brilliant and definitely one of our best nights so far.
The next day we felt a bit jaded and had a chilled morning. That afternoon we got the bus to see the Perito Merino glacier. Alex’s knee was still playing up so we decided to treat ourselves to a boat trip to see the glacier. This was a one hour trip bobbing up and down next to the glacier. It was freezing cold and quite a long hour! After the boat we walked along some of the trails and so I think we saw the glacier from most angles! By the end we were a bit glacier’d out and had about an hour to wait for the bus. Back at the hostel we cooked dinner and got an early night as we were still knackered from the trekking.
The next morning we collected our clean laundry which is always a highlight for us. When you only have about 2 t shirts there is nothing better than when they are clean. That afternoon we were off to El Chalten to do another 2 day hike to see the mountain Fitz Roy which is the logo for the Patagonia clothing brand. Everyone seemed to be wearing Patagonia kit. I mean I know we are in the Patagonia region but wearing the clothing brand head to toe seemed a bit OTT. We were just a bit jealous as we didn’t want to pay £50 for a t shirt even though it had a really cool bear on it! Anyway. Our bus set off with an eta of 3 hours. About an hour in an extraordinary event happened. It suddenly became extremely windy and one of the big double windows literally blew out. We watched it fall away. Luckily no one was hurt. At the time we were in hysterics. But then when we finally stopped the driver couldn’t tell us how long it would take for us to be on the move again so after an hour of waiting Alex managed to get us a lift with a couple in a car. Winning. We got dropped off at the campsite we had found online, checked in and then went for a browse around town to collect some supplies for the following 2 days. We bought wine in a carton so it was easy to carry. Classy! We ended up drinking half of it that night which made it easier the next day!
The next morning we dropped our kit off at the campsite luggage storage, picked up some brekkie from the bakery and set off. As we were only going for 1 night we both just had our small day packs so they were very full. The bonus of that is that we have to start eating our snacks asap so our bags get lighter….! Day 1 was about 22km. We stopped off at a few lookouts along the way and passed a very cringe scene of a backpacker playing his guitar next to a lake whilst his friend sang. We couldn’t have walked past them fast enough. Who takes their guitar on a hike?! The campsites in the park are free and you just pitch your tent wherever in the designated zone. There were 2 long-drop loos at either end of the zone so the key thing was knowing the wind direction as the smell was pretty rank. We found a good spot and by 3pm our tent was up and we had nothing to do.
The campsite was at the bottom of the Fitz Roy peak and we would be doing a hike to see the sunrise at a lookout point the next day. After an early dinner (accompanied with cheap wine that we were swigging from an old water bottle – classy) and bed we got woken up by some very noisy people walking through the camp on their way to watch the sunrise. It’s unbelievable how loud people can be at 4am and think their behaviour is ok! We got our warm kit together and set off with head torches. The climb was quite steep and took us about an hour. At the top we were welcomed with awful crowds of 20 year olds who were playing loud music and drinking beer. Talk about ruining the scene for us. So we walked past them and found some rocks to hide behind to drown out the noise. The sun started to come up and we were treated to some beautiful views, with the red and orange rays bouncing off Fitz Roy and the freezing glacial lagoon below it, which was very cool to see. By 630 the sun was properly up and we started the climb down as we wanted some more sleep!
After a couple of hours snoozing we had a leisurely morning walking to see another glacier. We got back to the campsite, quickly took down our tent and soon we were making our way back down to the town, so another 20km of hiking today. We’d covered over 40km in total so we were pretty tired and Alex’s knees were really feeling it (they’d swelled up again) so we were looking forward to a bit of down time. Our first stop was to eat a choripan, an Argentinian favourite and a take on the hot dog. We wolfed it down but it didn’t touch the sides, so we wandered down to road and settled in for beers, burritos and nachos at the local craft beer joint. It felt good to sit down and eat something that wasn’t made on a camping stove, and Alex took a moment to put his leg up to try and reduce the swelling. We then headed back to the campsite to collect our belongings and rather begrudgingly parted with some cash to have a shower (we didn’t think our fellow passengers would appreciate ten hours on a bus with us not having showered).
I’ll hand over to Alex to take you on our journey north to the Chilean Lakes.
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