Our First Rest Day

CI:  We've been gone for more than an week now, and it's been quite a trip so far.  Today we're in El  Chaleten, a small town in Argentinian Patagonia and taking our first day "off".

We landed in Santiago, Chile on March 31st after an unremarkable flight via Miami.  We had almost 10 hours in layover, so we checked our bags at the airport and headed into the city to wander around.  Unfortunately, it was Easter Sunday so there was nothing much to do and most shops/restaurants were closed.  We walked for a few hours around the town center. Our first impressions of Santiago: there are policemen everywhere (several on every block in the area we were in, which was the city center.  Is the city especially dangerous or is this some kind of jobs program?)  and it's filthy (there was trash everywhere and the river through downtown literally had bags of garbage floating in it).  We'll be back in Santiago for a few days in about a week, and hopefully with more time we'll have a more positive experience.

The first few days we spent getting our travel legs.  Stupid things we have done so far:

1. Found out the hard way that very few places accept credit cards and that ATMs are unreliable--we arrived in Punta Arenas with only cents to spare
2. Nearly missed the bus to Puerto Natales--Apparently this region of Chile pushed daylight savings time back an hour but didn't update the cell phone networks (?!) so we were an hour off
3. Catherine left her bank card in an ATM somewhere
4. Brought two sets of size 3 knitting needles and no size 4 needles, which of of course are the ones I need. Rectified in Puerto Natales.
5. Brought raingear and boots that only aspire to being waterproof--totally inadequate for Torres del Paine
6. Not bringing all our adapters.  Apparently Argentina uses the same adapters as Asia (?!) and not the one used by the rest of South America.  Fortunately they've retrofitted one outlet in our hotel room.

After another flight and a bus ride, we arrived in Puerto Natales, which is the gateway town to Chilean Patagonia.  We stayed in a goofy little hostel called Erratic Rock which is run by some hippy dippy expats from Oregon.  We had a private room about one foot bigger than a twin bed in every dimension right next to the shared bathrooms.  Apparently s-traps haven't yet made it to Chile so it was pungent to say the least. The outfitter next to the hostel runs a very helpful orientation talk about trekking in Torres del Paine national park--highly recommended if you're planning to travel without a guide.  They also rent all the gear you could possibly need, although if you're willing to hike in rented hiking boots you're braver than me.

We ended up with an extra day in Puerto Natales before our trip to the park due to a kerrfluffle with the airline, so we spent the morning of the 3rd kayaking in the bay.  It was a lovely day and it was fun to see the town from the water.

On April 4th we finally headed into Torres del Paine national park.  Torres del Paine is the most famous area for trekking in Patagonia-you've almost certainly seen pictures.  There are two main treks to do: the Circuit, which takes 7-9 days (although we met a crazy ultra marathoner whose plan was to run it in one day) and the "W", which takes five days and hits the main highlights.  If you do the W you can do the trip staying in Refugios the whole way and not have to carry a tent (they will also feed you and rent sleeping bags so you don't have to carry any gear at all, although we brought our bags and a stove to cook breakfasts and some dinners).  I can't speak for what is like in summer, but I was really, really glad to be sleeping indoors.  The weather was truly foul for a lot of the trip and a tent would have miserable.  It rains part of every day and drizzles for much of the rest, and it's cold (high of ~45, low below freezing) but what was really brutal was the wind.  I have never experienced wind like this--not in Newfoundland, not at the top of Sublette right before they close the lift.  We met people who were literally blown over, and one night two Belgian girls we met had a guy wire ripped out of their tent and the tent blown away with all their stuff inside. Luckily, a tree stopped it from swimming in the lake.

Torres del Paine is magnificent. Of all of the places I have been, Patagonia may be the wildest and most rugged.  Walking in these mountains it feels like you're hiking off the end of the Earth.  The landscape changes all the time from desert to forest to Andean steppe to high alpine to subarctic to glaciers every kilometer or so.  Words won't do it justice, so here are some pictures. More pictures are available on the album.

 

Some thoughts about the hike, in no particular order:

1. These are long hard days, especially if you've just spent the last six months sitting one your butt writing a dissertation.  We had two days of 10+ hours and three more of 7-10 miles with a fair amount of elevation.  If you stay in the Refugios, though, you can do the hard parts with only a day pack.  We are both a little worse for the wear and glad to take today off.
2. Bring serious foul weather gear, including a pack cover.  And trekking poles.
3. The map they give you is pretty detailed, but the contour intervals are every 250m (which is crazy coarse) so you get all excited about a a relatively easy day only to have it actually be thousands of vertical feet.
4. If you eat all your meals there and rent sleeping bags, the Refugios are crazy expensive.  Lik $100+ pppd expensive.  We saved a lot cooking our own breakfasts, one dinner, and carrying our bags.  They are good about gluten free, though.
5. There are rainbows everywhere! We saw several a day, including one in a lake, created by the wind whipping up a spraw. It's a phemonenon I have never heard of, much less seen.

At the end of the hike we bused back to Puerto Natales for the night.  We experienced quite a bit of local color that evening.  To wit: the two-hour laundry guy (who must have been at least 65), upon becoming concerned at my poor circulation after shaking my hand, attempted a diagnosis.  He pulled out a chart that looks like reflexology except for eyes, stared deeply into my eyes for an uncomfortable length of time, and then told me that something was wrong with my vagina (the chart said so!). Then he gave me a name to google and told me to eat right for my blood type.  We ate dinner at a local dive bar with terrible food and cheap alcohol and shared a table with Pedro and Marcello, who bought us several drinks and were exceedingly patient with my broken Spanish. (I was doing great until we got to the subject of gun control).

Yesterday we spend mostly on the bus getting from Puerto Natales to El Chalten, Argentina, with a several hour excursion to see the spectacular Perito Moreno glacier.  We're here for the next few days at a lovely B&B with a double bed (!) and a private bathroom (!!) for more hiking and some R&R.  Then on to Buenos Aires.

You are probably waiting for the part of this blog where Mark goes on and on about food.  The food has been pretty uninspired, though, so we'll skip that this time.  We've cooked some and eaten our some.  So far, food has not been cheap (actually nothing is cheap--fingers crossed for Boliva and Peru) although wine is.  Gluten free has not been too much of a trial with the exception of an inadequate perusal of the ingredients list on a granola bar.  Dairy free AND gluten free is flat out imposslbe so that's out the window.  My hands are holding together so far. So far, the trip has been relatively easy.  Me speaking some Spanish is useful, but probably not necessary.  It is occurring to us that we were way too ambitious with the amount of stuff we're fitting in to this trip; this will definitely be a "highlights" tour.  Next time we'll know that seven weeks is really only enough for two countries, max.

Ciao for now!