Adios Patagonia, Hola Buenos Aires

After spending some time in Puerto Natales regrouping, doing laundry, resting our bodies, getting our fill of scrabble games that we missed while on the trek, and letting the hike around Torres sink in, we realized that we had some extra time.  Both Dave and I thought it would be amazing to try out fly fishing, although neither of us had ever done it before.  So, we went into a number of shops that advertised fly fishing on posters that screamed out, "book your fly fishing trip here" and the responses in spanish were, "oh no, we don't do that here". We were very confused as we were staring straight at the signs, but we eventually discovered after our 3rd of 4th attempt to book a trip, and to or dismay, that the season was unfortunately over.  We drowned our sorrows of this unfortunate discovery in the most delicious chocolate cappuccino and chocolate mousse pie (it is important to support the local economy of course...!) and we decided to rent a car and go car camping right outside the Torres del Paine park. 

We wound up lost on the way to our campsite of preference (if every time I got lost was this strikingly gorgeous, then I wouldn't mind being lost all the time) and ended up on the opposite side of the park. A 45 minute drive, 65$ toll to drive through the park would have been the cost to make it back to our intended campsite. Shockingly, we opted against that. Instead we made our way to a hotel just outside of the park to see if we could camp outside of the hotel. The hotel was closed. After mulling over what to do, a man living across from the hotel informed us there was a Refugio that was open that we could stay in. The creepiness factor of the Refugio (and the fact we saw a clown sign on the drive in with Dave's intense fear of clowns) forced us to set up shop right behind our parked car in an open field.  Dave's tent held up incredibly well in the constant, tent-ripping intense winds! 

Photo by Dave

Zipppppp, shuffle shuffle, zippp...."uhh, Liz, get up NOW" is what I was jolted awake to following morning by Dave.  Normally the grumpy factor would kick in for being awoken so harshly, but one look outside at the pink light kissing the edge of the mountains made me thank his bladder for forcing him to get out of the tent.  It was shockingly beautiful and almost made us forget how frigidly cold it was. 

Photo by Dave - check out this impecable yoga form!

After a bus ride back to El Calafate in Argentina, stocking up on chocolate from there (as that is one of the things the town is known for... Is my chocolate addition shinning through in this post or what?!),  and said goodbye to the gorgeous purebred stray dogs of the town, we have sadly left Patagonia and returned to Buenos Aires.  We are staying in the San Telmo area of the city which has a strikingly European feel to it. Upon our arrival, we dropped our bags off in our very quaint and nice hostel, El Sol de San Telmo, checked out the fashion photo shoot that was taking place on the rooftop garden, and then headed out to the streets, catching the tail end of the Sunday market.  It was booming with people selling an assortment of hippie clothing, jewelry and food and other goods, incredible street performers and musicians and tango dancers. The street seemed to go on forever with people as far as the eye could see.  Even the rain couldn't stop the drumline as they beat and paraded their way down the street with people marching behind and dancing in front as water bounced off their drums.

Photo by Dave

Photo by Dave

We are currently sitting in an outdoor cafe, sipping on coffee and watching a couple passionately dancing the tango in the middle of the cafe. Lunch and a show all in one!

Which way do I look? (Hiking Torres del Paine)

Just when we thought we had seen the most incredibly gorgeous place in El Chalten, we arrived in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park for a 5 day, 4 night trek on the 'W-trail', aptly named for the trails shape (a very inconvenient letter for a trail, which caused backtracking thrice).  After some uncertainty with the weather and the warmth of our sleeping bags, we attended a prep talk and rented a warmer bag and got psyched for our trek.  The bus picked us up from our hostel in Puerto Natales and took us the two hours to the park where the mountains loomed over the rolling hills from every direction and llamas looked up from grazing to see the bus pass by. The sun dramatically broke through the clouds as the weather was constantly changing on every part of the mountain range.  

Photo by Dave- on the way to Campamento Grey

Photo by Dave

We decided to hike from West to East, so our hike began with an overpriced catamaran trip to the Torre Grande Refugio.  It is impressive how many people come here to hike in this park, although not surprising in the least as it is by far the most beautiful place I've had the opportunity to hike before.  The refugios allow visitors who might not normally come and hike for as long because there were rooms that you could rent, food that could be prepared for you, and a small store to purchase highly inflated items for the days trek.  All was very expensive, but a good option for those who didn't want to camp.  They also rented tents and other camping equipment which for some might be a good option as well, although you don't know if they will run out of equipment, and the next Refugio was on average 4 hours away.  We took all of our own camping gear and food which worked perfectly for us.  

Photo by Dave

Camp site Refugio Los Cuernos

Eating dinner at our camp site at Campamento Italiano

Each days hike provided drastically different, and unbelievable 360 degree views.  We hiked on high cliffs through big boulders next to aqua blue glacier fed lakes.  We hiked through hilly landscapes where the mountains surrounded us.  We hiked through blizzards on ridges where the peaks would suddenly appear as the dark clouds moved past and then would disappear just as quickly.  We hiked next to glaciers where the snow would avalanche sounding like thunder.  We hiked through forests (both alive and dead).  We "hiked" through insane winds (as we found ourselves hanging onto rocks for dear life at parts so not to be blown off the edge down to the enormous lake below).  We hiked up steep, steep, steep mountains, and hiked back down them (did I mention they were steep?).  Overall, it was incredible.

Photo by Dave

Photo by Dave

Photo by Dave

Photo by Dave

Photo by Dave - Getting delicious cold drinking water straight from the glacier fed streams!

One of the main highlights was waking up and hiking for an hour in the dark (yes, I shockingly got up early!) to the Mirador Torre lookout to watch the sunrise over the mountains and illuminate the towers that the park is named after.  We had been advised to take a sleeping bag up to the outlook, which we luckily did as it was freezing cold and the winds were roaring.  We had also made some tea which was soul warming.  What an incredible sight. 

Photo by Dave

Photo by Dave

We are now back in Puerto Natales, clean, doing laundry, and figuring out our next adventure.  It has been painfully difficult whittling down the tons of photographs to the few that we're posting now! 

Hiking in El Chalten

(photo by Dave)

We pulled ourselves away from our ongoing Scrabble competition, ditched the ipad, and began our three day, two night hiking and camping trip.  We began on the Torre (tower in English) mountain trail towards Lago Torre, camped near the glacier next to a raging river that fed from the glacier.  The following day we traversed over another mountain towards the Fitz Roy mountain range where we camped our second night overlooking the jagged mountains where we were met with a dramatic sunset.  Unfortunately, both of my camera batteries died midway through the second day, and the iPad can't read Dave's memory card (although we're working on that), so the photos are mainly from the first day. We got some AMAZING ones on Dave's camera so stay tuned for those. Words keep escaping us to describe this incredibly gorgeous area.  Therefore, we'll let the photos do the talking.