David and Enid's Travels

Penguin art in Maritime Musehm

We took a taxi this morning to the Museo Maritimo y Antiquo Presidio.  This is actually the old penitentiary which was here in Ushuaia, but it is now a museum both of maritime, especially Antarctic maritime exploration, and of the penal institution.  Part of the display showed mannequins of prisoners in their cells with descriptions of their crimes.  They ranged from political prisoners, to obviously mentally deranged mass murderers.

Cells in the prison museum

We walked back to our tour company’s office (Antartur) and spoke to them about tomorrow’s activities..  We got clarified what we will be doing on the hike and rafting, and what cothing we need to wear.  We also found the name of a good restaurant for lunch.

While waiting for the restaurant to open we walked by a jewellery store.  They had some interesting pink jewellery, “Inca Rose”.  We found a really nice pendant for a necklace, so Enid has a nice souvenir of our trip to Argentina.

After a nice lunch at the “Andino” restaurant, we walked to the pier, and got the tickets for our trip to the penquin colony.  It is about 85 km east of Ushuaia on an old estancia, which has been turned into a natural history preserve.  To get there they took us in very large 4 wheel drive buses.  About half the road was gravel, but not all that rough, so the vehicle was probably overkill, but it looked impressive.

Aong the drive we passed through a valley in the Andes.  The mountains, akes and streams were nice.  At the pier of the estancia we boarded a large Zodiac boat, which was covered, and took a short 15 minute ride to the penquin island.  One of the passengers was terrified.  She was in tears the whole way across, holding tightly to her boyfriend with both arms.  Enid and I thought it was a rather pleasant boat ride. The two 200 HP outboard motors certainly pushed us along quickly.

Magellanic penquin

At the island were hundreds and hundreds of penquins.  They were mostly Magellanic penquins, but there were also maybe one hundred Gentoo’s, and three King penquins.  The kings are much larger and more colorful, but they are brand new occupants of the colony, having only been there for about two months.  They are not sure if they are just transients, or if they are looking for a new place to colonize, as they have not been found in this area before, normally being in colder regions.it

Magellanic penguins

At the end of the tour of the colony we went to a small cetacean museum with displays of many whale and dophin skeletons. Though this area once was one of the world’s main whale harvesting areas, now the museum is doing conservation work.

We did not arrive back into Ushuaia until almost 8:30, so it was a long and full day,

Street sign in Ushuaia

Once again our private driver showed up, right on time this morning, and took us to the El Calafate airport.  This is a very modern airport, but doesn’t look as if it has a lot of traffic.  Since it is a private airport you must pay an exit tax of 38 Argentine pesos per person in order to use it.

The flight to Ushuaia took a little over an hour.  When we arrived our ride was waiting to take us to the Hosteria del Recodo.  It is a very nice small hotel, and our room is probably the largest we have had on this trip, so it doesn’t feel crowded.

Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world.  It is not very large, a population of about 50,000 and it looks almost like every outpost city that we have ever been in.  It reminds you very much of places like Inuvik in the North West Territories, or St. Anthony in Newfoundland.  The buildings are painted in many bright colors. However, unlike either of these two cities, Ushuaia is bordered by very tall mountains, open only on the south to the Beagle Channel.

Strictly speaking it isn’t all that far south. It’s latitude is at 54.8 degrees south, almost exactly the same as La Ronge, Saskatchewan which is 55.1 degrees north. Home in Prince Albert is 53.2 degrees north. However, the weather here is definitely different. When we arrived today it was cool at 7C. We would definitely consider that a very cool July day (the equivalent date here in the southern hemisphere) at home.

Shore of the Beagle Channel

We went for a walk down to the ocean after we arrived. We wore our fleece and rain coats to cut the wind, and our toques and gloves. We walked to the mouth of a small river, the Rio Pipo where it enters the ocean. We also went to the city cemetary. We were struck by the number of graves of young children, far, far more than we would see in Canada.

Bee on lupine

Today was a free day with no scheduled activities.  We walked to the centre of town, a bit over a kilometer from the Cauquenas de Nimez hosteria.  At the corner of the main street is a park, a full block square, that is about the history of this area.  There were many dioramas of Pietro Moreno and also Charles Darwin, two important investigators whose work led to the preservation of this area. The park has a number of roses, which we found a bit strange as the weather here is so cold, though it isn’t extremes of weather, only going down to about -10C in winter, and up to about 15C in summer. There were also some lupine, a flower that we have seen a lot of in the ditches, both here and farther south in Chile.

After this we went into most of the stores  along the  main street that looked interesting, shopping for souvenirs.  Enid got a small miniature of mounted dried flowers for her wall at home.  I got a Patagonian wool hat, complete with ties.  At least it will cover my big ears in the cold back home!

We ate a a restaurant that specialized in lamb.  They were barbecuing it in the front of the restaurant, over a wood fire.  The lamb was very good, but way too much food for us.  We should have ordered one plate and split it.

Ducks in the Laguna Nimez nature reserve

After lunch we bought groceries, then walked back to the hotel.  I went to the Laguna Nimez nature reserve, which has an entry fee of 45 pesos, and a nicely laid out birding trail around the lagoon.  I saw many kinds of water birds, hawks and ducks.  There were some flamingos but they were quite a long way away across the water.  It was very windy and cold today; however they have a couple of permanent blinds in the park, so there you  could get out of the wind and take pictures.

Flamingos in Laguna Nimez

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Our tour van for the glacier arrived right on time just after 8am. We drove about town for half an hour picking up others. The very first stop was for three young Canadian travellers.   One of them, a young woman from Peterborough Ontario has taken a year off work and is touring South America starting here in the south and then going north.

Our tour guide explained the various kinds of topography along the 80 km drive to Los Glaciares National Park.  It was not long after the park gates that we saw the glacier.

I was very surprised.  I had expected something much smaller.  Instead this is a very impressive glacier.  Of all the glaciers we’ve seen, this is second in size only to the tidewater glaciers in Alaska.

We took an hour long boat trip to the face of the glacier.  During the tour so many people stood on the glacier side of the boat to take pictures that the boat had a definite list.  It was a large catamaran, so in no danger of capsizing, but it was heeled over several degrees.

Next we stopped at the glacier viewpoint.  After eating a couple of empanadas for lunch we walked along the catwalks that have been set up for visitors.  These are very impressive, and cover almost 4 km of trail.  We stopped at different spots to take pictures and to listen to the ice.  Creaking and thunderous cracks were accompanied by large blocks of ice falling into the water.  Huge wave surges followed along the edge of the glacier as these blocks calved from the face.

One of the most interesting aspects of viewing this glacier is that you see it from above.  You can see the thousands of tremendous crevasses that cover the glacier for many kilometers back from the water’s edge.  The clouds lifted a bit just before we left to return to our hotel.  This gave us a much better view back to the ice field, almost thirty kilometers in the west, and gave us a much better perspective on just how large the glacier is.

Small waterfall along the hiking trail

We were shocked when we went to check out this morning to find that if we paid cash in Chilean Pesos that we were charged an extra 19%.  No where had we seen anything mentioned about that.   If we paid with our credit card it would be tax free (in American dollars).   However we wanted to get rid of our extra Chilean money so we had to pay the extra.   My opinion of this very, very overpriced hostel, for it is no better quality than that, though it charges 5* prices.   At the conversion price it will have cost us almost $70 apiece for one meal a day and that a buffet.   My trip advisor review when I write it will be very negative.

Wind storm in the water

However we did have a very nice hike this morning.   We walked toward Lago Nordernskjold and just after passing a small lake along the way turned and walked cross the open plateau toward the large lake.   It was sprinkling rain a bit though the clouds were broken enough to also let the sun through.  
Most importantly, there was little wind. However out on the lake far away at the end we could see such heavy winds that the water was being lifted like most into the air. It almost looked like a water spout. We did not go right to the shore of the lake as it was steep and though we could have made it, it would also have been a longer walk back uphill.

Andean condor

We’d seen some condors flying high above us and one landed on a rocky point half a kilometre or more away.   They are such large birds that could see it clearly. As we walked back up the hill from the lake it flew right over us, very close. They are impressive birds.

We were not at all confident about the transfer to El Calafate as things seemed rather sketchy. We knew we were to get a transfer at 4pm to Laguna Amarga and that there was to be a bus at 4:30 for El Calafate. But we really didn’t know which bus it would be and there were several there. I asked an English speaking young couple and they said they thought there were two buses that went to the border, and then we would transfer to a bigger bus.

At about 5 the second of two small buses arrived. A guide was there and sure enough our names were on his list. However our luggage went on the other bus. We left first but a way down the highway the second bus, with our luggage, passed us. We wondered if we would ever see our luggage again, especially after we stopped at the Chilean border and our bus would not start again. Finally, to loud cheers and applause, we got going and reached the Argentine border. There was no big bus there, and the bus with our luggage was also gone.

But, about kilometre down the road, we did come to a highway bus. When Enid asked about our luggage the response was “no problemo” but since we hadn’t seen it we were getting less and less confident. It was now 11pm and getting dark. We had no idea where our hotel was but suddenly the bus stopped near the outskirts of town at a different bus. We asked the tour guides for a group of Dutch tourists and she checked with the driver

Yes, this was our bus and they took us directly to our hotel, luggage intact. That was very nice since we are a long way from the town centre. Though it was late, almost midnight, the desk clerk was there and took us to our room.

However when he opened the door someone was already there! He did find us another room. Though it was the most worrisome day of our travels, once again all has been well arranged.

Enid in the wind on the trail to Torres del Paine

It is reported that Patagonia is one of the windiest places on earth.  I think that is probably true.  At least it was windy enough today that one could almost think they were on the southern prairies of Saskatchewan!

We started hiking up the long trail to the base of the towers this morning after breakfast.  It was sprinkling rain very lightly, but the wind was whipping the trees about, so I would estimate it was around the 70 or 80 km/h range in gusts.  We climbed up the hill in a steady procession with many others, almost as if we were on a pilgramage for about 3 km, and 350 m elevation gain.  That was about 1/3 of the way there.  Enid’s hip was bothering her very badly, and it looked so cloudy at the top that we doubted you would even see the towers as it was so cloudy, so we decided to turn back.

Views from the trail to Torres del Paine

Fortunately we got really good views of them yesterday, though perhaps not so close up as we could have gotten today, so that I don’t feel like we missed much, except a lot of exertion in very miserable conditions.

Pack horses on the trail

We decided to make this a rest day, so spent the afternoon in the hotel reading.  We were out in the lobby area beside our room where there are a couple of large couches.  Every once in a while we would hear loud bangs as a door or window or part of the building slammed in the wind, and the wind was howling.

It may now have died a bit, but it is still very windy outside.  The clouds which were overhead all day have cleared.  However, there is a very heavy bank of them over the mountains to the west.

Tonight at dinner we met a Canadian couple close to our age. They had been robbed in Buenos Aires. That had certainly given them a negative attitude towards Buenos Aires and they felt it was a very dangerous city. We have been so fortunate so far as all our experiences have been good.

The Hotel Las Torres and the Paine Massif

The forecast we saw yesterday was definitely wrong.  It called for clouds, and high winds of 60 km/h.  Instead it was a beautiful sunny day, with hardly any clouds, and the wind was never too strong.

Torres del Paine from the campground

We asked at the reception desk if there was a way to see the Paines Towers without hiking all the way up.  The desk clerk said we should go back to the area of the Refugio and Eco-camp which is about a km from the hotel, so we did that.  From there you do get a pretty good view of the towers, and since it was a nice day the view was grand.

Torres del Paine from the Seron campground trail

We kept on hiking uphill on the trail which actually circles the park, though we only went about 7 km up the trail before stopping for lunch, and then turning around.  It was not too steep, gaining a bit over 250 m of elevation, before levelling off. We saw a number of backpackers, heading we supposed towards the campsite at Seron.

As we were nearing the top of the hill we heard a lot of shouting below us. At first I thought it was some dogs barking, but soon realized instead that it was two gauchos on horseback rounding up a herd of horses. There must have been close to 50 horses, and they drove them up the hill along the trail toward us. The walking trail goes through a bit of a draw, and they pushed the horses up over the top of the draw, rather than through it. We could not see the horses until we reached the end of this draw, at the base of the next hill to climb, but we could hear the thunder of their hooves above us. It was very, very quiet where we were walking, except for the noise of the horses as they galloped by.

Not too much further we came to a fence and gate with a style. We walked through and a few hundred metres on came to a rather muddy area of the trail. This is because the horses walk along the fence line, so they have chewed it up. We came across the horses standing in the middle of the trail, and a single male backpacker who looked to be either very tired, or afraid of the horses (or probably both). I just whistled at the horses and they moved off the trail, and we walked by, as did the other hiker.

Small yellow lady-slippers

This part of the trail goes through a forest of old trees. Some of them are quite large diameters, but none of them are tall. We also saw many colorful flowers, and a number of large Patagonian bumblebees, which are about two to three cm long, covered with orange and yellow hair, and very fast flyers.

Laguna Azul

We stopped for lunch, a nice spot with a big old log for us to sit on, some ways along the trail after passing the highest point. To the east of us was Laguna Azul, and we could also see rapids in the Rio Paine far below us. A number of backpackers passed by as we were eating, some carrying extremely large packs. The man that had been having so much trouble at the horses didn’t make it as far as our lunch spot before we left, though we did see him lying in the grass not far behind us as we returned.

There were a few mosquitoes, though generally the wind kept them away. The wind definitely picked up by noon, but we only really noticed it in the spots that were wide open.

Looking down towards Los Torres hotel

As we reached the end of the trail we took a detour, having to walk back a short way, so that we went to the store and office of the refugio. There was a sign saying that you could buy meals, at about half the cost of the hotel, but of course we have no idea how good those meals are. There were a few cans of tuna fish, some potato chips, and some large cans of fruit, but not much else available, so you really do need to bring the food you want in with you.

The camping area is very nice. There were quite a number of tents and backpackers set up there. It is a large area, and I saw tent sign post numbers up to 80, but the sites are not crowded together.

As we arrived back at the hotel we stopped to talk to the Alaskan couple driving in a homemade camper (it looks like much of it is just made of wood with a corrugated fiberglass roof). We thought they had driven all the way, but they had not. They have driven it around Canada and the US, but then they shipped it to Chile on a boat. They did talk as if they were someday planning to drive it back.

Cuernos de Paine

We had a nice breakfast, early, this morning at the hostel, as we had to catch the bus at 7:30.  When the bus had not showed up by that time, the lady that cooked the breakfast began to get concerned, so tried to phone our tour company.  She got no answer, so tried again, and then the bus showed up.  We turned out to be the only English speakers on the bus, so the guide, Umberto, spoke personally to us before repeating everything in Spanish.  It was almost as good as a private tour.

We stopped at many hostels and small inns around town, picking up a couple of people at each, until we had a load of about 16.  Fortunately we were the second stop, so we got a seat at the front, which made the long, long day on a rough road much easier on Enid’s back.

Our first stop was at the Mirodon cave, where we spent about half an hour in the very large cave.  After that we continued on the paved road to the tiny town of Cerro Castillo, where the bus stopped to allow use of the restrooms, and create a small amount of tourist business for the area.

Guanacos

The paved road ended not long after that and for the rest of the day we drove on a narrow gravel road.  We stopped along the way at many viewpoints, to see the scenery and the wild animals (rheas and especially many guanaco). 

Cuernos de Paine

As we drove further into the park the large Paine Massif began to dominate the landscape.  Throughout the day we navigated part way around it.  The horns of the Paine (Cuernos del Paine) are very beautiful rugged peaks of black volcanic rock overlaying much lighter sedimentary stone.  Throughout much of the day the top of the highest mountain, Cerro Paine Grande, was obscurred by clouds, but you could see the large glacier very near the top.

Falls on the Rio Paine river

We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant on Lago Pehoe.  It was incredibly windy.  Just before this we had stopped at a beautiful waterfall on the Rio Paine.  It was as windy, or even windier there, but the views of the waterfall and of the Cuernos del Paine were spectacular. Just after lunch, while waiting for the bus, two large raptors came snooping in. They were probably chasing some of the small birds. They landed in a large tree and many people stop quite close to photograph them. They had some food stashed in the tree as one of them was eating what appeared to be a rabbit leg. We believe that they were black caracara.

We also drove in to Lago Grey, but couldn’t see too much of the glacier, only a few icebergs floating on the water.  It took a long time to cross the bridge over the Rio Pinto, as it has a load limit of 6 persons, and another large tour bus pulled in at almost the same time as us.      We rushed to the lake, and back, and there was no one at the bridge on the way back.  We got back to the bus before everyone else.  The trip would hardly have been worthwhile except that we saw an Andean Condor circling overhead as we came back.

From there on it was just a long and jolting bus ride back to the park gate at Laguna Amarga.  Our guide phoned the hotel when we got there, and our transfer ride arrived in about ten minutes.  We coud see the Torres del Paine as we arrived, though they were partially cloud covered.

We checked in to the Hotel los Torres, which is one of the nicer hotels in the park, though it’s location is what really makes it special.  The hotel is rustic, but it caters to high end clientelle, and certainly pricey.  Tonight after supper we had a beautiful sunset with golden clouds touching the peak of the Paine Massif.

Puerto Natales

We left Puerto Varas at 9 am, were driven to the Puerto Montt airport, where we boarded our plane, right on time, for Punta Arenas.  Our ticket information said in-flight snacks, so we were very surprised to get a noon meal — chicken salad, nice roll, and desert.  We’d prepared our lunch to take with us, so we ended up eating it later in the day.

Llamas along the highway

Our driver was waiting at the airport, and we soon were on our way north almost 250 km to Puerto Natales.  It was very nice to have a private driver, as he stopped along the way for us to take pictures of some Nancy (rhea), flamingos, and wild llamas.

The highway between the two cities is very good.  The countryside reminded us a lot of the coulees you would find in southern Saskatchewan, or somewhat like the foothills of Alberta (though much flatter).  It appears to be all ranching land as we passed several estancias, but I saw no planted crops.

Our driver spoke about as good English as we do Spanish, so we made out describing animals as well as we could.  He was very interested in bears.  We saw why as we entered the town of Puerto Natales, for there is a large statue of a Mylodon, a prehistoric animal which looks somewhat like a bear (but  was apparently a herbivore).

Black-necked swans in Puerto Natales

Our driver delivered us to the Erratic Rock 2 hostel where we have a small, but clean, room.  We walked to the shore of the Pacific Ocean, though it is in a large bay so the water is very placid, and saw many ducks and black-necked swans, as well as many cormorants.

We then stopped at the grocery store to get stocked up on lunch supplies for the next four days.  We hoped we would get carrots, but there were none in the store.  We did get a couple of potatoes which we cooked in the microwave of the hostel, and two frozen hamburger patties which we fried. After supper we packed all the food into our suitcases, trying to keep from squashing our bread.

Latitude sign in Puerto Natales

We are at a very similar latitude here to home in Prince Albert. The weather is a bit cooler than we would generally have in mid-July, but then the climate here is moderated by the ocean. Now is their summer of course, but it is much milder here in winter. However they get a great deal more snow, so that the nearby mountains are quite glaciated.

Lake Llanquihue and Orson Volcano

Today was planned as a rest day, and we needed it since we’ve been going steadily since we left home a week ago yesterday.  This morning, after breakfast in the hotel, we asked for a map at the front desk, and for the location of an ATM.  The desk clerk showed us where there is a bank in the centre of town, about 3  kilometers away.

The walk was nice, along the shores of Lake Llanquihue.  Early this morning it was cloudy and cool, looking as if it would rain, but by noon as we headed to the bank it had cleared, and there was a strong breeze coming across the lake.

Fisherman in Lake Llanquihue and Orsono Volcano

Not far from the hotel we came to a small pasta and pizza restaurant, so decided we would stop for lunch.  It was good that we did, as there was nothing more until we came to the center of town. We had a really nice Italian style pizza.

Fishermen in Lake Llanquihue

After going into the bank, and getting some Chilean pesos, we thought we would change the bills into smaller amounts.  However, we waited in line for a bit, and then felt that actually the bills weren’t so big that we would have trouble with them, so left the bank, and crossed over into the park where we divided the money between Enid and myself.

As we sat on a park bench, there were several workmen sitting in the shade — it was just lunch time — and they had obviously been setting up a large tent.  A gust of wind lifted one side of the tent, and all the supporting poles fell out.  Then the tent collapsed on that side, and tipped so that all the supports came out on the other side as well.  It made a lot of noise, and caused a bit of excitement with the people in the park.

After that we crossed over to a “Patagonia” store, more for curiosity than anything else, to compare prices.  It would cost quite a bit more to buy Patagonia clothing — which of course is actually made in Vietnam — here in Chilean Patagonia than in Canada.

On the corner was a fruit vendor.  He offered us a sample of some white cherries, they were delicious, and so we bought a kilogram.  Having our dessert purchased, we decided we might as well buy some more groceries so we can prepare our own meal tonight and tomorrow.  We found a supermarket and got some vegetables, bread, meat, and cheese.  As we were paying for it, the amount registered on the till, but I am so unused to the money, I took out the wrong — much too large bills — and the clerk tried to tell me it was wrong.  Fortunately there was a woman behind in the line who spoke English and straightened me out!  Once again we have found nothing but very friendly, helpful people.

Historical Lutheran church in Puerto Varas

We walked back along the lakeshore.  Now in mid-afternoon there were a number of people either sitting in the sun on the beach, or swimming.  There was a very strong wind.  We saw a hat blowing along the beach, and Enid pointed it out to some people lying there.  However, it must not have been theirs, as they ignored it.