Hiking at the End of the World: El Chaltén

Day One in El Chaltén

We wake up at the crack of dawn on Monday and don our thermals, ski jackets and hiking boots after a decent but basic breakfast at Estancia La Quinta. It's a beautiful, clear blue-sky day, cold but warmed by the sun, and we get a lift to the start point so that we can walk all the way back into the town. We're heading to see the spectacular views of Mount Fitz Roy (Cerro Fitz Roy) and Mount Torre (Cerro Torre).

The bridge to nowhere near El Chaltén

Along the way, there are several views of the beautiful peaks of the two mountains, culminating in the most incredible views from the top of a lower peak. 

Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy

It takes us about five hours to reach this point. The walk is harder than we expected, with lots of uphill climbs, but we make it in several hours to the top of a breathtaking blue lake called Lago de Los Tres, where stop for lunch. As you can see by the photo below, looking down onto the blue lake means being way up high on a mountain, and the lunch stop is freezing cold with biting wind. But the sun is still shining and we eat our packed lunches with glee. Alfredo, the ranch owner, has sneaked a hard-boiled egg into our packs and we're delighted.

Lago de Los Tres

The trek back down the mountain is almost as hard as the hike up it but we know we're on the home strait. Or, at least, we thought we were...

Two hours later, we think we're just about to reach the town when we see this sign to El Chaltén and another that says we're 10km away. 10km!! We have long since run out of food and are exhausted, blistered and starving. I feel like I'm in Into The Wild...

Handy sign

Another two hours later, we reach El Chaltén and collapse, utterly spent and in unbelievable pain. We have walked 25km up and down hills and it has taken us 9 hours. Hungry as we are, we cannot walk an inch further and stop at the very first restaurant we see as we enter the town from the top. It looks toasty warm inside with a fire roaring and, even though there are no customers, we couldn't care less. I see the sign for Patagonian lamb and we're in. We immediately take our boots off, such is the pain, and relax.

Two hours later, we leave, full of lamb and red wine and make the short-ish walk back to Estancia La Quinta. 

Day Two in El Chaltén

We wake up on Tuesday morning aching and sore from head to toe, with stuffy noses and a cold brewing. Both of us are fit and healthy, with me having run a marathon a month ago, but we weren't quite prepared for the hilly 25km hike of yesterday, so day two is about taking it easy. We go for a shorter, two-hour walk and have a simple lunch at a basic and simple place called Fonda Ahonihek in the town.

At 6pm, our coach departs El Chaltén for El Calafate and, on the way, we pass this sign, just to prove that we really are at the end of the earth.

A long way from ... pretty much anywhere!

We arrive at Esplendor El Calafate, which is supposed to be a boutique hotel but is actually part of a larger chain and is a pretty big hotel. The reception staff are pleasant but not exactly friendly, and the restaurant is upmarket but empty. We choose to dine there anyway because it's too late to venture out, but the restaurant is way overpriced and is the kind of place where you feel uncomfortable with waiters standing over you and where you feel obliged to buy expensive bottled water.

That said, the interior design including the reception and rooms is absolutely stunning, with funky touches like antler lampshades and cow-skin stools to sit on. The rooms are very comfy and cosy and the view of the town from the hilltop location is pretty good.

 

The Patagonian Airport Cat

On Sunday morning we get just a short lie-in before heading to Jorge Newbery airport for our flight to El Calafate in Patagonia. The Irishman is here to stay for 10 days and we figure we should make the most of it and go to Patagonia since neither of us has ever been. I've planned it all down to the last detail.

On arrival 3 1/2 hours later in the tiny airport of El Calafate (I say tiny, but it's like Heathrow compared with Santa Fé airport), we are greeted by a black cat, to whom the airport is evidently home. The cat is on duty surveying the arrivals, though I don't think he has any drug-sniffing capabilities, sadly. I love cats, so El Calafate immediately enters my good books.

The Calafate airport cat

We have pre-booked and paid 190 pesos each for the return bus from El Calafate to El Chaltén, where we're planning to spend the next two days hiking. However, our pre-booked bus isn't due to depart until 18:30, and it is only 15:40. I feel a bit scammed by the tour operator I used in Buenos Aires because there are buses leaving from the airport immediately and we only need to pay an extra 50 pesos each. Not ones to dwell (well, not usually), we say 'sod it' and pay the extra money to arrive earlier. We still don't end up leaving until about 16:30, but hey ho.

A few hours of beautiful scenic driving later (ok, ok, I slept through it...) we pull up outside Estancia La Quinta, a smallish one-storey converted ranch hotel with lots of land, nestled behind a mountain. A big white dog comes bounding up to meet us and soon after we're greeted by its owner, Alfredo, a warm, friendly man with good English, who is expecting us. We're planning to go hiking tomorrow so he talks us through the best walking routes and asks if we want a packed lunch. We do. 

We dump our stuff in our basic, cosy, heated rooms and accept a free lift from Alfredo into the town. You can walk the half-hour or so trip into El Chaltén but we're tired and pretty hungry and the drive is only five minutes.

We have a delicious meal at La Tapera, a wooden-lodge style restaurant that seems to be the main restaurant in town. I've heard lamb stew is the Patagonian thing so I fill myself with hot liquid and meat for the day of hiking ahead of us. It's cold outside and we're wrapped up in ski jackets and hiking boots, so the open smoky fire in La Tapera is more than welcome. 

The view of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torres from El Chaltén at sundown