Across the border to Chile and Torres del Paine

We head for Chile again, and this time we do cross the border for a 3 day stay.  We are staying in Chile’s most famous, and beautiful, national park – Torres del Paine, across the Andes from Los Glaciares.

In Patagonia, once you stray from Route 40 – the national road that extends the length of Argentina – tarmac is soon replaced by roads of hard packed grit covered with loose stones.  We travel in a roughty-toughty explorer bus which has no problems covering the ground – unlike the poor touring cyclists we pass at regular intervals, their bikes laden with panniers front and back.  I’m oh so glad to be in that bus! 

But we still have to negotiate the border controls. Chile and Argentina may share a 6000km border, but the European concept of open borders has not taken root here.  The border control process is either a job creation scheme or represents national paranoia of the highest extreme. Luckily it doesn’t take 6 hours (as it does in Mendoza region) as most people crossing at this point are tourists, but we still have to

1)      get off the bus to have our passports exit stamped in Argentina

2)      fill in entry forms and customs forms for Chile

3)      drive through no-man’s land to the Chilean border control

4)      take all our luggage off the bus and have it x-rayed – making sure to first eat any apples lurking at the bottom of my backpack - never shall an argentine fruit make it over the border, or vice versa

5)      get our passports entry stamped for Chile

6)      get ripped off changing Argentine pesos for Chilean pesos at the coffee shop 

In fairness, no. 6 is our own fault as, for once, we failed to do any research either on exchange rates or to find out that our hotel in Chile does, in fact, accept credit cards – note to self, don’t believe everything you read on Trip Adviser.

At first glance Chilean Patagonia looks a lot like Argentinean Patagonia.  A few kilometres from the mountains everything is flat.  The Patagonian steppe is dry, arid and peppered with low-lying vegetation, mainly small round bushes and clumps of grass, which are enjoyed by a few fat sheep, guanacos (llamas without woolly coats), enormous rabbits – or hares – foxes, and ostrich-like rheas.  But, as with the whole of the Andes, most of the rain falls on the Chilean side, so gradually the steppe turns greener and more lush.  Chilean sheep require fewer square kilometres of steppe to graze on and fatten.   

Despite the green, it is still dry.  And Torres del Paine suffered major forest fires around Christmas that closed the entire park (nearly 600,000 acres) for 10 days and the area around the Grey Glacier is still closed. A helicopter bearing a water scoop lands next to us when we stop to pay our entrance fee and we see smoke rising in the distance during our stay there.  We also see the effect of the fires as we take the scenic route to our hotel. The lakes and mountains here are stunning, with black and grey crags towering above forested slopes – many now burned and blacked - in turn rising out of vast lakes of glacial blue waters.  The fires flashed over roads, rivers and lakes pushed on by the high winds which are normal at this time of year.  Only a change in wind direction saved the area from greater devastation.

Fortunately, the area around our hotel, which nestles below the Torres has not been affected by the fire.  We have not been backpacking our way round Argentina, but even so our previous hotels have been modest by the standards of Hotel Las Torres, our home for our 2 nights in the park.  There aren’t many options here, and given a choice between a smart hotel and camping, there’s only one thing to do. We know it’s going to be expensive – but we’re going to enjoy it.

Climb every mountain - to Mount FitzRoy and back

We catch a bus north, to spend a few days in another part of Los Glaciares national park El Chalten is barely more than a village and still has the feel of a frontier town. Outside of high season, the local population is just a few hundred strong, but this is hiking and climbing country and their number is boosted by friendly young Argentinians eager to spend time in this dramatically beautiful area and work a season or two at the hotels, hostels, camp sites, bars, restaurants and outdoor shops that support the growing tourist trade.

The Park Rangers’ office is a compulsory first stop for everyone entering the town. Not only to find out about the range of trekking trails, but also to receive instructions on behaviour in the park – sticking to the trails, no smoking except in town and on campsites, no camp fires, all waste to be brought back to town, etc, etc.

The mountain range here is instantly recognisable as the logo of the Patagonia clothing brand, and the jagged sheer black peaks of Mount FitzRoy and Cerro Torre attract some of the world’s best mountaineers.  We content ourselves with walking up the trails to viewpoints and base camps and leave the vertiginous climbing to others.

We arrive at lunchtime, so on day one we walk for a couple of hours to viewpoints on either side of the valley.  The sun is shining.  It is very beautiful.  It is also very, very hot. And the dust covered trails are tinder dry. You can understand the park ranger’s stern restrictions on smoking and fires.

Day two is set aside for our longest hike.  The Laguna de Los Tres trail is billed at the best in the area. It is 8 miles one way, with a final steep climb of 400m to the blue lagoon nestling under the giant granite walls of Mount FitzRoy.  We set off uncertain that we will make the final climb, but with a contingency plan to veer off the route to a viewpoint for Laguna Capri under the Cerro Torre if we don’t.

It’s another hot, sunny day but – heeding the local advice to dress like an onion as the weather is so unpredictable - we set off with our knapsacks on our back stuffed with fleeces, waterproofs and lunch. We only need our packed lunch and lots and lots of water., refilling our bottles in rushing glacial streams and, when we finally zig zag our way to the the top of the trail, in the turquoise blue water of Laguna de Los Tres itself.  Yes, we did it!  And what a view. A row of dramatic peaks rising out of the blue lagoon and set against a clear blue sky.    We are very privileged.  El Chalten, the original Indian name for Mount FitzRoy means “volcano” – it is shrouded in cloud so often, they thought it was constantly smoking.

But then we have the long walk back.  The steep rocky descent from Laguna de Los Tres takes nearly as long as the hour long climb up and my knees are grateful for the hired walking poles.  At the bottom of the hill we take off boots and socks and step into an ice cold stream.  The sensation on my feet is so intense, it’s like an ice-cream headache.  But it feels much better when I put my boots back on.  Just as well as we have a 3 hour up and down walk ahead of us to get back to the hotel.  It’s a long walk home, but the thought of the cold beer waiting for us, and the wonderful views keep us going. 

By the time we hit town again, we have been on our feet for 10 hours.  A long, hard, but incredible day.  We fall into the first bar in town and down a well-earned beer.  And ten fall into the hotel’s warm, welcoming swimming pool to ease my aches and pains.  And finally, treat ourselves to a fantastic steak and a bottle of Malbec at Fuegia, a great little restaurant close to our hotel – so we don’t have to walk too far.  The meal is like nectar and staff are charming but not great at adding up.  They try to undercharge us.  Twice.  We do our own calculation and pay the right amount.  Not sure if they realised their mistake or just thought we were very generous tippers! 

We have most of a third day in El Chalten, as our bus doesn’t leave until 6.30pm.  Not enough time to do another full day’s hike (thank goodness!) but we manage a 3 hour walk to the Cerro Torre lookout under another brilliant blue sky.  It couldn’t get better than this.

Big Ice - Perito Moreno glacier

We take two flights and most of the day to travel south, to El Calafate in Patagonia.  At this point in the journey, I expected to break out the jumpers and long sleeve t-shirts lurking at the bottom of my bag.  But no.  At 6.30pm, it’s sunny and warm with not a breath of wind.  Could it be that I’ve over-packed?  Again!

El Calafate is the gateway to Los Glaciares national park and is named after the bushes that grow in abundance all over Patagonia.  Their berries both look and taste like a cross between blackcurrants and blueberries. If you eat them, it is said, you will return to Patagonia.  So we do, straight from the bush and in a scoop of delicious ice cream. The local tourist board is probably behind this saying as the town owes its existence to tourism and is growing fast to cope with increasing visitor numbers. But it is still tiny in comparison with the other cities we have visited, and has more in common with an attractive ski resort – though as it has the compulsory casino, it must be an Argentine city. 

We are up early the following morning to vist the Perito Moreno glacier, part of the southern Patagonian ice cap, the 4^th largest frozen  area in the world after both Polar regions and Greenland.  Surprisingly it is not high in the mountains.  This is a temperate glacier region, and the foot of the glacier is not far above sea level, surrounded by forests.  The reason there is so much ice here is down to geography. The moist air from the Pacific falls as snow over the Andes – as much as 800m a year – and compresses down into a dense mass of ice, which moves slowly down the mountain.  In Perito Moreno’s case, the movement is not so slow.  In summer, the inner part of the glacier can move by 3m a day, while the outer part moves more slowly at around 25cm a day.  The constant movement at different speeds, coupled with the melting of the glacier as it reaches lower levels causes the cracking and calving.

But while most glaciers are shrinking, Perito Moreno is growing.  It is actually classified as stable, as the ice calves off at one end in pretty much the same ratio that it renews itself at the other. And it is a truly breathtaking sight.

It measures 4,500m across and soars 50 or 60m above the turquoise blue lake it spreads into. It is HUGE, though it not the largest in the park, just the most accessible. At the moment it splits the lake in two, as the ice has reached land to form a dam.  This happens every few years and causes the depth of the lake to rise on one side of the glacier.  Eventually, the pressure of the water finds a path into ice in the narrow channel and sets of an explosive series of calving to open the channel, until the glacier advances once more.  I’m sure we saw the start of this happening, and will check over the coming weeks to see if the channel opens once more.

We spend over 2 hours on the viewing platforms taking photographs and videos, Within the first 10 minutes we see two huge chunks of ice – possibly the size of a bus - calve off the face of the glacier and fall spectacularly into the aptly named Iceberg Alley, with an explosion of sound.  You can hear the ice creaking and the sound of water running inside it, and find yourself staring at fissures in the face of the ice, convincing yourself that they are indeed getting wider and longer and that this section is the one to fall next.  Cameras set to video, we watch and wait.  And wait.  And watch.  And in anticipation of the next great fall, set the video running and overlay our very own David Attenborough commentary.  But do we capture the calving on film?  Of course not.  A watched glacier never calves.  Though we do see two more awesome falls on the other face of the glacier later in the day when my camera is stowed in my bag.

But the spectacle of calving is just part of the story.  There is the sheer scale of this vast expanse of glacial ice; the immense peaks and troughs of its surface; and its incredible blueness, an optical illusion due to the compactness of the ice so light takes longer to reflect.  To find out more, we put crampons on our feet and hike the ice for an hour and a half.  The ice has its own landscape of peaks and valleys, streams and gushing waterfalls, blue ice holes and caves.  It is a magical experience.  And as it draws to an end, our guide has a final surprise – a liquid picnic of scotch on the rocks, with freshly gathered glacial ice, naturally.