Posts Tagged ‘hiking’

For our second day out at San Pedro de Atacama, we decided to visit a very famous couple of valleys near the town. Our tour was run again by CosmoAndino Expeditions, who ran our tour of the altiplano, and whose guides and equipment we found to be really nice. We were lucky to meet a couple who had been on the last tour we took, and had a great time chatting with them and enjoying the scenery! Their talk of packing much of Chile into a 10 day trip really made us appreciate the luxury we have by taking our year vacation – time to relax.

Our first destination was ‘Piedra del Coyote’, a place with a really dramatic view over a valley, and with a precarious rock outcropping whose image frequently graces postcards and tour books:

On A Cliff

The day after the San Fernando Vendimia was my dad’s last day with us.  We decided to have a final birdwatching expedition to try to get the number of species seen up – after all, we had a bet.  We headed back up north towards Santiago and went to the Rio Clarillo National Park to try our luck.  On our way we had to stop for one last reineta lunch, which was really tasty, but HUGE.

Up to this point I haven’t explained about the road signs in Chile.  Or the maps.  Navigating in this country is surprisingly difficult.  There is an unpleasant trend for stuff to be signposted once or twice and then the signs just disappear.  And then there is a T junction and you have to randomly pick a way to go.  And then when you finally realize you’re going the wrong way you turn around and realize that there are more signs to where you are going, but you couldn’t possibly have seen them from the direction you came in.  Many towns are not marked on the maps (we had a map in the guidebook and one we bought).  You pretty much need a combination of lucky guesses, a willingness to turn around several times, and a lot of extra time.  It can be hugely frustrating and very time consuming to get anywhere.  We managed ok, but on this trip to the park we spent over an hour lost if you count both coming in and going out.  We made it eventually though.

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Justin has been doing an awesome job filling you in on our “W” hike, but we’ve been really busy since then as well, so I’ll try to catch things up!  We had a day of recovery after all of the hiking and two awesome nights at our favorite hostel in Puerto Natales.

The next stop on our agenda was El Calafate, Argentina which is known almost exclusively for its glacier.  We took a bus to get there and had a very easy 6 hour ride, spending only an hour at the Chile-Argentina border crossing.  We weren’t quite prepared for what El Calafate would be like since it was pretty different from Ushuaia and Puerto Natales.  Firstly, it was EXPENSIVE.  Especially the food.  Secondly, it seemed to be built just for the tourists and while the other towns had shops for tourists and tours for tourists, this place had a kind of Disneyland overpricedness to it.  We were very lucky though because we stayed at a wonderful hostel (Hospedaje Lautaro) run by an incredibly welcoming family who did masses to ensure that we could make the most of the glacier and the town.  They also provided a very tasty breakfast each day.  We were also able to save a bit of money by using the kitchen instead of the overpriced restaurants.

The first night in town we cooked dinner and then went and did a little beer tasting at the local brewery, Sholken. The beer was interesting!  We agreed that their pale ale was the favorite, but the dark beer tasted EXACTLY like beef jerky.  They must use hickory or something in the process.  I have never had a beer that tastes like meat before!

Beer tasting!

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Camp

Check out Part 1 here!

Having awakened in camp fully rested, we had a nice breakfast of (you guessed it) oatmeal. However, we had a stroke of genius – prepare it using some of the apple flavored drink powder that’s left over from our water bottles! It was surprisingly good , given that we were just throwing apple sugar on top. Being equipped with our apple juices, we set off for the magnificent Valle Frances, the middle leg of the “W”. This is a day hike of about 3 hours each way, up from the valley floor to a mirador in the center of a circle of mountains.

You might think that a two-day horse expedition was enough. We might have been ambitious to think otherwise, but in fact we began our next adventure on the same day that we had our second horse ride. We decided to trek in the Torres del Paine national park, a very famous place in Chile with some spectacular alpine and glacial scenery. However, one does not simply hike for a few hours in Torres del Paine! The park itself is a 2-hour drive from the nearest town (Puerto Natales) and is too large and varied to see even a fraction in a few hours. So we decided to do a 5 day trek instead!

El Mapa - The "W"

Before we departed for horseback riding, we made some preparations. Our backpacks are a perfect size for us, but our stuff is more appropriate for sleeping in hostels than for camping. We rented some of the equipment that we needed at “The Erratic Rock”, a hostel run by some Canadian ex-pats that runs an informational talk (in English) and rental shop.

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After another full day bus trip we have made it to Puerto Natales, Chile.  The big thing in town (actually 2 hours out of town) is the Torres del Paine National Park and we´ve got some pretty good plans for making the most of it!  The past couple of days we´ve explored the town, met the mascot, had some Cristal and the strangest pizza I´ve ever tried and spent a lot of time preparing for the park.

Town Mascot

The national park is just a few kms outside of Ushuaia, and there are plenty of busses that run back and forth throughout the day.  We decided to do a moderate hike along the water, rather than to climb the giant mountain in the park, and we were rewarded with some amazing scenery.  The day started off gray and windy, but wound up sunny and windy with perfect temperatures for hiking!  Click any of these photos to see the gallery from the hike.

One of the many bays along the way

Mountains across the Channel

We had a beautiful sunny day, so we decided to hike up to the Martial Glacier, just outside of town.  There is a chair lift that goes part of the way up the mountain, which is pretty awesome because the hike after that to get to the glacier is extremely steep and we were glad to sit and watch the views both after hiking up from the town and then after the steep trek to the glacier.

View from the ski lift

The glacier itself was not as impressive as the ones we saw in New Zealand, but the views of the town and the landscape were just awesome.  Click on either of the photos in this post for more pictures!

Glacier!

Volcanic Rock

Pretty desolate

 

It was windy up there

Red Crater

Emerald and Sapphire Lakes

 The woman in this picture isn’t just sitting down to rest.  This slope was very steep and very slippery, so everyone pretty much slid down.  She happened to fall just when I took the picture.

More Red Crater

 It was hard to take too many good shots because the weather was really questionable and I was mostly focused on hiking.  That night we found a DOC campsite (free!) at a river and got to have an awesome swim to wash all the dirt away.  Such an amazing day.

We were pretty sore the next day though, so no hiking at all.  We drove up a mountain instead – Mt. Taranaki. 

Mt Taranaki with cows

Favorite NZ beer so far - in Christchurch

 The next day we continued up the coast and stopped in at Kaikoura – known for its whale watching and sea life.  We didn’t go out on a boat, but we did go on a hike that was full of seals and birds.  There was a Red-Eyed Gull breeding colony along the way and birds just everywhere.  The beach there was pretty unique too.  Really unusual rocks.

Birds

Beach walk at Kaikoura

Baby gull

Really crazy rocks

More birds

 On our way back through town after the hike we noticed a wine bar, so we checked that out.  It had something I’d never seen before, but Justin had in Italy – wine dispensing machines.  They would give you either a small taste, a half glass, or a full glass and just keep track of the prices of what you drank so you could pay at the end.  Pretty nifty!

Cool wine dispenser