Buenos Aires (by Rone)

We had heard lots of good things about Buenos Aires from fellow travelers  hence we were both pretty excited to get to this city after an eventful 3 weeks in Chile.Our first impression while leaving the airport in a taxi was the contrast in colours compared with Chile. There was a lot more green trees and grass compared to the desert where we had just been in north Chile. It was also apparent by looks that BA had a lot more money than Santiago.Our first night we stayed in a lovely B&B in the heart of Parlermo. We arrived very late after a grilling 24h travelling journey, but we went straight to the streets in the search of the well-known “best steak in the world” for me to try. There was a really nice vibe in this trendy neighbourhood, with charming cobblestone streets, bookstores, bars, and boutiques; so we decided to treat ourselves to a proper meal in one of the restaurants. My first experience of Argentinian steak was GREAT, but little did I know it was only going to get better :)

Chilling in our flat

The next day we missioned to another district to book into our new accommodation. I think one of the reasons we were so looking forward to BA was because we had rented an apartment in the city, which meant we had an actual home for a week!  Kaz even found a climbing gym where she was accepted as one of the locals after a week’s climbing at the gym.

BA had loads of wonderful parks, and people were either running, walking, roller blading or even doing some tango dancing in the parks from early afternoon to late evenings. The rest of the city was very easy to get around with a metro, easy walking access and lots of Starbucks for some well-deserved coffee breaks.  

Best Empenada in the world

Well deserved Empenada after sightseeing

Less than £1-sizzling....!

I managed to explore loads of the parks during my runs while Kaz went for climbing sessions. Afterwards we would catch up in the apartment and prepare the most amazing dinners. You could buy 2 massive high quality pieces of steak for about £1.50 in total.  Of course Kaz made me have veggies with this!! The Argentinian Malbec wine from the Mendoza region was also something worth mentioning, I found it to be a very good quality wine and very easy to drink especially with red meat. People here also love their white bread and the bakeries were spoiling us with lots of options. One of the bizarre things here was that almost every 3rd person was walking with a “Mate mug” sipping on it throughout the day. Mate is a traditional South American infused drink prepared from steeping dried leaves of “yerba mate” in hot water. It is served with a metal straw in a cup and everywhere people were walking with their hot water flasks and mate cups. We had a few sips of this at the climbing wall and it literal gives you a VERY STRONG CAFFEINE KICK, but the Argentinians sip it like water here!

 

The story of this vault is that the girl was mistakenly buried alive

We walked about 10-15km every day to see everything we could in BA. One of the highlight attractions is definitely the Cementerio de la Recoleta: This is where all the rich families in Buenos Aires have their final resting places. There were big ornate vaults everywhere, including the famous vault of Eva Perón, which is the most visited vault in the cemetery.

Eva Peron's vault

Karen in  front of yet another fancy vault

At the cemetery entrance

You can’t leave BA without having a good understanding of how famous Evita Perón was. Born in 1919 she was the second wife of President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her young death in 1952 at the age of 33 due to cancer. She is usually referred to as Eva Peron or Evita as in the well-known movie or musical. It was incredibly interesting to go to her museum, to her vault in the cemetery and also visit the Pink Palace. I’ve always loved the movie “Evita”, but to see and hear all the history clips, readings and go through the details of her journey made me really appreciate what a strong person she was. She was very much loved, but also resented by a few of  the Argentinian people.

With the guards in the Pink Palace

For me, I really admired her passion and all the things she’s achieved, and I think her speech on the Pink Palace balcony “don’t cry for me Argentina” just before she died of cancer  must have been one of the most emotional speeches to be observed. A few days later we managed to go on a tour through the Pink Palace where she worked and gave her famous speeches to the Argentinian people. This is also where the current president and polittians work from.

The balcony Evita addressed the Argentina people

 It was extremely interesting to see the palace from the inside on the weekend, with paintings of famous influential people such as sport stars, musicians, politians etc. Pictures of Mercedes Sousa, a well know musician was also amongst one of the people on display. My mum actually recommended one of her CDs to us, so we decided to get one after the Palace visit. From then onwards it was Mercedes Sousa on the iPod at every opportunity  Unfortunately she has passed away now, but she really is incredible!!

Karen in front of the Pink Palace

At the Milonga

We booked to see a Tango show one evening and we were seated 5 m away from the stage. We were both fascinated to see the athleticism of these dancers as we watched the show staring wide eyed. They made it look so easy and stylish, but when we tried some of the simpler moves later that evening we certainly didn't look like them!! After a long day of sightseeing the next day we ended up watching some more tango in the Milongas. A Milonga is both a place where a tango dance will take place, as well as a specific type of tango dance. It started at 8pm and was on a rounded dance floor in the middle of a park. The locals came dressed in high heels, very smart suits and cocktail dresses. This was not the place for beginners, and it was fascinating to see how much passion and style goes into the tango dance.

More sightseeing:

The dogwalkers  really do know what they are doing!!

Well deserved coffee breaks

The Obelisk

In the Japanese garden

Art work in a  park

Our boat in Tigre Delta

We ended up staying a few days extra in BA due to a bus strike that went on for 5 days. But no complaints since it gave us an opportunity to go visit Delta Tigre. It’s a town 28km north of BA and lies on the Parana Delta, and is a weekend and tourist attraction. We took a train for 1h to reach this town and then jumped on a local boat on the river to explore more of this unique town. It seems like all transportation to and from the houses was through the river boats, and all the house were surrounded by rivers and smaller canals.

The water in between the houses

Waiting for our taxi boat

The packbacks still just as big

We eventually managed to buy some bus tickets and left for Colon (Entre Rios) the following day. And so we started our overnight bus journey, leaving the busy city to relax in a very small seaside tourist town.

We stayed in a lovely B&B and had a really relaxing 3 days. It is situated next to the Parana river and about 60km away from El Palmar Park. We went on another adventure and somehow, with our broken Spanish, managed to rent a car for the day. We drove all the way to the park for some walking, sightseeing and I even did a long run in the park. It was stunning: so many palm trees everywhere. A real contrast to our last national park where we were in the desert!

Photos from the park:

Small animals in the park alongside beautiful birds and thousands of palm trees

Karen enjoying the view

Amazing sunset with palm trees everywhere

After 3 wonderful days we got on our 15h bus journey - toward the Iguazu falls. Both feeling very excited to see one the 7 natural wonders of the world.

Chillaxing in Chile (by Karen)

I've wanted to go to Chile for absolutely ages. I'm not sure I know exactly why, just something about the country has always drawn me.

With its 4270 km length and an average of only 177 km width, and with the magnificent Andes running all the way along its eastern border from top to toe, it's a country of vast scenic diversity.

You know how one tends to have a picture in your mind when you think of a particular place or country, well mine for Chile is that of an old wrinkled toothless lady standing outside a ramshackle hut with a bright colourful cloak drawn over her shoulders. But with all the internationalization and recent developments I was wondering if this was just an image of the past. Luckily this was not the case, and although of course there were big cities and roads and smart houses, the underlying Chilean characteristics and love of colour and art still shines strongly.

Church in Caldera

The Chilean people are pretty laid back, adopting the Latin-American relaxed "mañana" (in my own time) vibe. They were generally very friendly and welcoming, but at the same time they are very curt, no frills sort of attitude. They don't speak much English, but with a combination of the little Spanish we have learnt, plus pre-prepared google translations, plus Spanish phone apps, plus some charades, we managed to get by :). What I did find so bizarre is that even after telling them we didn't speak much Spanish they would still prattle off an entire monologue in Spanish and at high speed and then look at us expectantly. Sorry nope, we STILL don't understand Spanish! :)

I loved the colour of Chile. Everywhere you looked there was vibrancy and life.  They are big on wall murals and graffiti. 

Some of the murals were really excellent pieces of art, skilfully done and often with some historical context. The houses are also a variety of colours, especially in the smaller towns. None of this boring white or cream for the Chileans I tell you.

Virgin Mary statue

We started off in Santiago and that was a bit of a let-down. It wasn't quite the trendy or exciting city that we were expecting. We found it to be quite grubby and a little bit boring quite honestly. It had some cool bits to see of course, the Virgin Mary statue on San Cristóbal Hill, the Plaza De Armas, and a few museums and cathedrals, but even now as I write nothing of Santiago really stands out in my mind. Probably the best bit was the wall murals which tended to have quite a dark side to them but were very interesting.

Camping out in Santiago airport - 6am flight

Hot dogs with guacamole - Chilean favourite!

View of Santiago from San Christobal hill

From there we headed all the way down south to Patagonia region where we did our super-awesome-best-ever-experience trek in Torres Del Paine (see separate blog post, April 2013). After that we returned to Santiago, but bypassed the city and instead we jumped straight onto a bus and went 7 hours north to a beach town called La Serena.

La Serena was a welcome change from Santiago, starting with our super sweet hostel lady Maria, who was just so endearing that we couldn't help but want to stay just so she got our money rather than someone else. We had a very chilled beach day, although this still involved getting to and from the beach ... a 1 hour walk from our hostel. We also attempted to visit the Mamalluca observatory with a tour group, but unfortunately there was too much cloud cover, plus a full moon, and so they warned us that the viewing would be very limited and probably not worth the cost. It was up to us as a group to decide if we wanted to still go ahead with it, or else we could cancel and get full refund. So we voted to go back. Northern Chile is famous for its perfect stargazing skies since it boasts an average of only 25 days a year of cloud cover. So the fact that we hit one of those 25 days was a tad unlucky!

Rone braving the heat of the day to get in a run!

From La Serena we headed another 8 hours north to Caldera, where I felt like we really got to experience rural and authentic Chile. It was way less touristy than La Serena, plus a much smaller town and literally in the middle of semi-desert. The stark desert hills on the horizon were mesmerising, and the rugged coastline one of the most beautiful I have seen. 

Market in Caldera

Rugged hills of Pan De Azucar National Park

We hired a car and drove further north to visit the Parque Nacional Pan de Azúcar, with a Bulgarian/New Yorker friend we met, Antonia. The park was stunning, powerfully striking with its barren desolateness.  I know I'll never do it justice with words so will just post some photos and hope they say what I cannot. I really loved it - it was a place that spoke to my soul. 

Parque Nacional Pan De Azucar

Small fishing village north of Caldera

One of the numerous cacti in the park

Stunning views

Captivating coastline

Playa La Virgen

Playa La Virgen is rated to be Chile's most attractive beach, so of course we had to go and see it for ourselves! We managed to negotiate an extra 2 free hours on top of the usual 1 day (24 hours) for the car hire, and so only had to return it at 1pm the next day.  

Just couldn't resist :)

At first light we sped off to see the "Zoologico de Piedras" (stone zoo) which consisted of some interesting shaped boulders, where if you applied some marijuana-like imagination you might just make out some resemblances to various animals. We then embarked on what turned out to be quite an arduous journey to get to Playa La Virgen, navigating some rather dodgy gravel roads.  

Going for a dip

But eventually we got there and sat on the beach to eat our breakfast, and I of course went for a quick dip in the clear turquoise blue water. It was a really lovely beach, but we rated some of the beaches that we stopped at on the drive up to Pan de Azúcar to be better!

"W"onderful Torres Del Paine, Patagonia, Chile (by Karen)

After sitting through an evening of listening to trekkers recounting their tales of wonder and adversities, we were very keen to get out there and experience it for ourselves. The 'W' circuit can be done either east to west, or west to east. The most popular is east to west, and is the way that we're about to follow. However that first evening seemed to be filled with lots of people having gone west to east, and who only had their final day of the trek left - our first day. The one advantage of this of course is that we did get TONS of handy tips about the trek, especially where the hard bits were and where we'd be blessed with some easier terrain.

Chilean and Patagonian flags

What was made clear is that day 3 is by far the toughest, by sheer volume - 28km! And this day has to be done with full backpacks (some days you can leave some of your gear at a refugio along the way). It's not too bad on the meters-climbed scale, but it's a solid 10-12 hour day which is a long time to be on your feet.

The next toughest day is apparently our day 1, which at 20km is no distance to be shrugged off, but it's the altitude climbed that gives it this rating.

We had rather over confidently assumed that we would be able to shave a couple of hours off the given map estimates, assuredly thinking that we're pretty fit and athletic women. However we soon realised after chatting with the other trekkers that the time estimates are quite hard core, and to meet them you really need to keep up a good pace and not stop for too long.

View on the way back down from the Torres (day 1)

There are two ways you can do the W circuit - as a camping nutter or by staying in refugios. Since our traveling backpacks are already 24kg due to schlepping around our climbing gear, sleeping bags and therma rests, we most definitely did not want to add camping gear too. Besides that, it's pretty chilly for camping and my dodgy back wouldn't cope with such a heavy backpack over this kind of terrain. 

Rone with Torres spires in the background

So yip, we've gone with staying in the refugios with full board. You can mix things up by staying in the refugio but cooking your own food, or camping but paying for refugio meals. But we didn't know this beforehand and so have gone the full cushy option :)

Horse-trekking is also very popular!

However, full cushy comes at quite a price ... £100 each a day! Considering this got us bunk rooms and the meals totally lacking in variety or creativity (consisting of things like packet soup for starters, omlette for mains, and tinned fruit for dessert!) we would definitely advise any future trekkers to consider a mix of options. But for now, for this time, cushy is good :)


DAY 1 : Los Torres refugio to Torres Mirador (lookout)

Distance: 20km
Walking time: 6.5hrs
Total time: 8hrs
Total altitude climbed: 900m

Karen soaking up the ambience

What a stunning day! It's impossible to describe with words so I'm hoping the photos will do it justice. What is so mind boggling is how incredible a single day can be. It was a day where all my senses were awakened and vitalised, where I smelt and heard and tasted and felt so much.  Everywhere I looked was spectacular, every sip of water was sweet and delicious, and the air that filled my lungs was crisp and clean. It was magical.

Today was a there-and-back again trek up to Los Torres Mirador (lookout). We headed off at 8:30am with fairly cloudy skies but no rain. The temperature was also fairly mild (I'd say about 8 degrees) and since from the 2km point the path headed steeply uphill for another 4km it was not long before quite a few layers came off.

Strapping up the ankle

My "poles"

I had, rather stupidly, faffed around with making a decision regarding hiring trekking poles in Puerto Natalas (nearest main town to the national park) and in the end didn't get any. On the bus ride to the park I realised what an idiot I was - with a history of back and knee surgery, plus having sprained some ligaments in my ankle taking a heels-over-head tumble down a steep path in New Zealand, I'm the very specimen that poles were originally invented for! :)  Luckily not long after heading off we came across some discarded "poles" - perhaps a bit better described as tree trunks - they were a bit heavy but perfect length, and so I had my poles and a good upper body workout too :)

Lunch spot at the Torres

With fresh legs we attacked the steep incline with vigour and made good progress up to the Mirador in just over 3 hours (10km, 7.5km of which were up!). By then the clouds had mostly gone and the sun shone warmly, so we lay by the lake and gobbled our box lunch and nuts. The 3 spires of the Torres were slightly obscured by thin clouds at the very tops, but since we had a totally clear blue sky yesterday we were had witnessed them in their full splendour and weren't too worried about the whispy clouds that lingered today.

Forest we walked through on day 1

I was however a bit worried about the looong down hill that we were now faced with, but it actually went pretty smoothly. There were a few up bits that the calves complained quite a bit about, but otherwise no problems. The last 1km was on dirt road and was by far the hardest, because of course by then my mind was thinking of a hot shower and cup of tea and my feet were thinking of a relaxing footy massage from Rone :)

Day 2 : Los Torres to Los Cuernos refugio

Distance: 13km
Walking time: 3.5hrs
Total time: 4hrs
Total altitude climbed: 400m

Today was hard because everyone had said it would be easy.  So I set forth with the mindset of a chilled, flat terrain, day. As we hit the first hill and my calves were burning I thought "what the f*ck"! For sure it's a lighter day in comparison to other W circuit days, but in no way would I categorise it as easy.

Rainy day

However I think 3 main factors came into play to make the day that little bit harder 1) there was a light steady drizzle all day, which luckily let up for about 30 minutes and we were blessed with a rainbow over the lake, 2) we had to carry our full trek backpacks, and 3) our legs were on day 2, which if you've ever done any multi-day event you'll know is the toughest day for the body. It's not fresh anymore, but it also hasn't yet adjusted to the activity and got into a groove. Well, I'm certainly hoping this is the case because tomorrow is the big day 3!

A brief break from the rain :)

It wasn't all bad of course :) We had breath-taking views of the lake and mountains and gazed into an infinite horizon. We both felt that this is one of the most beautiful places, and possibly even the top spot, that we have ever been.








DAY 3 : Los Cuernos to Paine Grande, via Valle De Francais

Distance: 28km
Walking time: 8.75hrs
Total time: 10hrs
Total altitude climbed: 800m

Sunrise while walking next to the lake

Our rain jackets were zipped up tightly. The newly bought gaiters were strapped on. The backpack rain covers were out, and all our gear was stuffed into waterproof bags or plastic bags, or otherwise tucked somewhere we hoped would be fairly protected. We stepped outside and were 'jinxed' with clear skies and stars!

The refugio from Day 1 had a black-board up with the next 4 days weather prediction. For day 2 it had 3mm rain and for day 3 it was 7mm. So since day 2 consisted of a steady drizzle all day, with patches of harder rain and one half hour respite, we had mentally (and physically) prepared ourselves for a tuff day 3. That morning I didn't even bother to check if it was raining, I was so sure that it would be!

Sunrise hitting the mountain tops

By 8am we were fed, dollied up and out the door, just as the first rays of light illuminated the sky. Day 1 and day 3 are the key days for clear weather, otherwise there is almost no point as you won't see the spectacular views. Since we had such superb weather on day 1, and such a shoddy forecast for day 3, I was literally jumping up and down in joy at seeing the clear skies :)

Since I found day 2 so hard mentally I wasn't too sure how to go about tackling this day, which covered more than double the distance and altitude. It broke down logically into 4 stages - getting to Camp Italiano (5.5km), then up the French Valley to the lookout (7.5km), then back down to Camp Italiano (7.5km), and finally from Italiano to Paine Grande refugio (7.5km). Having these smaller goals definitely made it more do-able.

About half way up the French Valley

We set off at a good pace, and despite a few stops to get photos of the sun rise glowing on the mountains, we arrived at Camp Italiano at 10am. Here we got to leave our heavy bags behind and just take a light day pack for the walk up to the lookout. After a quick snack of nuts and granola bar we set off again. Not long after leaving the camp we hit a loooong steep section that went on for about 45 minutes, but after that it was a gentle steady up through forest which was very pleasant.

The view from the lookout

The trail went steep again for about 20 minutes which we attacked with vigour. At the top we passed a bunch of fellow trekkers who had stopped for a rest and lunch, but Rone's GPS watch said there was still 2km to go so we determinedly cruised on past them. Suddenly the trail petered out and there was a little sign saying "End". What the??  We scouted around but couldn't see where the trail went, so we headed back to the other guys and asked them if they knew. Oh no, this IS the lookout, they told us. We were very confused but sure enough there was a sign saying "Mirador" (lookout) so we figured they must have got the distances wrong on the map. It was such a pleasant surprise though, and quite funny how we were all gungho passing the other guys and not stopping :)

Lunch spot at the Mirador

On the way back down we figured out what had happened - in the forest the watch kept loosing GPS signal, so it hadn't been tracking all the time and hence gave the wrong distance.

A quick bite to eat by the river

The journey back down to Italiano was very pleasant, arriving there at 3pm. We stopped for a few more bites of sandwich and nuts and choccie, shouldered our heavy packs once more and set off on the last stage of the day. Luckily the terrain was easy going, with no big gruelling hills, and fuelled by the chocolate we ticked it off in just over 2 hours, arriving at the refugio with just enough time to get showered and changed and ready for dinner at 7 :)

Mesmerized by the flow

DAY 4 : Paine Grande to Glacier Grey

Distance: 24km
Walking time: 7hrs
Total time: 8hrs
Total altitude climbed: 600m

Dead tree from a massive fire caused by a camp fire

There was such a hype about the "big day 3" that we didn't really pay day 4 much attention. When we did finally look at the map we realised it put up a pretty good fight against day 3, clocking in with a there-and-back-again 24kms. The terrain however was not at gruelling as the previous day, but thank goodness for that because by now I had definitely developed some creaks, aches and pains.

Sebastiaan, Magriet, Me and Rone

Back in Los Cuernos we teamed up with a Dutch couple who we had been bumping into a lot on the way, and we always ended up sharing bunk rooms with. This worked out quite well since we were all on the same schedule and hence went to bed around the same time (very early!) and got up together (also very early :).

However somehow this morning we all managed to sleep through the alarm and woke up with a start at 7:35am. We quickly donned our rather stinky hiking clothes and rushed downstairs for our breakfast and lunch packs.

Fog hovering on the lake

Today the weather was playing at being mysterious. There were thin wisps of clouds forming streaks across the mountains and clinging to their tops, and fog floated and glided gently over the lakes. But everything was constantly changing - what was at first totally covered in fog would suddenly become clearly visible, only to be shrouded in fog again. The whole day was like this, and in this way we caught glimpses of everything there was to see, but never for too long :)

Glacier Grey

It was chilly close to the glacier!

Glacier Grey was really amazing to see. It covers 270km-squared and comes down into Lake Grey at two points. We walked up to a lookout point about 300m from the base of the glacier, and from there we sat and had our lunch and listened to the glacier groaning as it inched its way down the valley. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any pieces calve off, although we did hear one as we were walking up, but we did see the hundreds of huge blocks of ice floating on the lake.

Pisco Sours

That evening in Paine Grande refugio we treated ourselves to a Pisco Sours (pisco is a local Chilean liquor) and even some red wine. Big cheers went up when we realised it was past 9pm and we were still up!  But as we finished off the last of our wine our eyes were drooping closed, our bodies demanding some well-earned sleep :)







THE END

Sunrise from Paine Grande refugio

And thus ended our trekking in Patagonia :( The next day at midday we had the catamaran ride back to the park entrance, so we were looking forward to a sleep in and lazy breakfast for a change. However I woke up at 7:30 and couldn't sleep anymore, so snuck out the dorm and went outside to watch the sunrise, which turned out to be the best sunrise of the trip.

Admittedly my body was feeling pretty tired, but not as bad as I expected, and I was itching to get outside again. So after breakfast and doing some stretches, I went for a short walk by myself, heading south on one of the trails we hadn't followed yet.

Majestic mountains

I sat overlooking the lake and marvelled at its turquoise blue colour. I closed my eyes and all I could hear was the faint rush of two distant rivers and the gentle tweeting of some nearby birds. The rest was silence.  I stayed for a long time just drinking in the view - mountains, glaciers, lakes, streams and hills.

Catamaran ride back to base

It was extremely hard to leave this beauty and head back to roads and cars and shops and computers. Once you remove yourself from all that and get immersed in such magnificence and solitude, it is hard imagine going back.  But now I have these cherished memories and photos, and a hunger for more trekking :)

So hard to say goodbye!