Patagonia and especially El Chaltén makes mountaineers' hearts beat faster. Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre – as well known as Mount Everest and for me the most beautiful mountains on our planet. And so we woke up in the morning after a night jolting ride over corrugated iron of the worst kind, alternating with sections of large, round piles of river pebbles that you could only swim over and Zacharias' chassis banged, and we actually clearly looked the Fitz Roy the distance. Of course not completely but about 2/3. Immediately, we got going, had breakfast, packed and drove off. It was about an hour from here. Shortly after we left, we picked up Angel, a gaucho who worked at an estancia in El Chaltén.
The mountains kept getting bigger and there was more and more movement on the streets. I had already been to El Chaltén in winter (i.e. August/September) in 2014, back then for an expedition to Cerro Riso Patron on the west side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, there was nobody in the mountaineering village and fox and hare said good night. Everything was different today. It was packed with backpackers, hikers, mountaineers and other tourists. But sure, at the foot of these mountains I should have known that. We first stopped briefly at the Panadería and then drove about 12 km from El Chaltén to the Río de las Vueltas campsite. A beautiful small campsite in the middle of a southern beech forest far away from the hustle and bustle of the tourist resort.
The next day, we took a taxi to El Chaltén and hiked to Mirador Cerro Torre, which is about 2.5 km on the trail to Laguna Torre. It was quite a tough hike for Luisa, but we took our time and she walked the whole way (there and back) herself. Jonathan also walked a lot, but then had to get on my shoulder or in the manduca from time to time. The day was terrific - few clouds, lots of sun and a very good view of the two mountains. Fitz Roy was great to see, but the Torre was hesitant. In the evening, back in the village, there was a large portion of fries for the children and burgers for us. Then an unexpectedly huge ice cream, because Patagonia is well known for good, handmade ice cream. Just before we drove back to the campsite, we happened to meet another couple that we had already met at Chacra Holandesa in Uruguay - what a coincidence.
The following day, we got to know a very nice family from near Stuttgart, who are on the road with their converted Magirus fire brigade (-> www.vierim4x4.de). The children immediately played wonderfully with each other and we finally left at noon to go climbing. It was wonderful, solid rock, sun and a little Patagonian wind. Jonathan made his first meters of climbing on the rope (where could you build a better base for that than in El Chaltén?) and Luisa was finally able to climb again after asking us again and again when we would finally be climbing again. Last but not least, Chris Sharma strolled past us just before we left. We had agreed with the family that they would stay another night and have a barbecue in the evening. So we bought some beer in the supermarket and excellent meat in the only carnicería in El Chaltén.
The Stuttgart team left early the next day, and as always, it took us quite a while before we got loose. But that day the visibility was unbeatable. It was the perfect day for the summit (if you have ambitions), no wind, no clouds, just the mountains and us. Ergo, we didn't really get going, and when we got going we had to keep stopping to take pictures again and again. Back at the crossing to Ruta 40, we met the new travel friends who were just uploading their pictures to the cloud in the free satellite SOS WLAN. After a quick hello and goodbye, we parted ways. They continued north to Perito Moreno National Park and we continued south to El Calafate and Glaciar Perito Moreno.
About three hours later, we reached El Calafate, a real city with an airport. Anyone who wants to go to El Chaltén flies here. The town is accordingly touristy and there are many backpackers and just as many hostels. We went to a supermarket and a gas station and stayed on a thin tongue of land in Lago Argentino with a perfect view of El Calafate. The next day we hurried a bit with our morning procedure and set off for the Perito Moreno Glacier. This will be familiar to some. A world-famous glacier that calves into a lake and actually offers a bit of action every few minutes in the form of ice chunks or entire icebergs breaking off.
The journey getting there was unspectacular and the glacier is well developed for tourism. Hundreds of buses drive from El Calafate to the park every day, and there are also permanent shuttle buses from the parking lot to the starting point of the hikes "along" the glacier front. All hiking trails are not laid out on the ground, as you would expect, but on footbridges to prevent tourists from climbing all the way through the forest. Since we were there relatively early in the day, it wasn't that crowded, but it was still well attended. The morning is probably not the best time to see a lot of ice falling. But we were not denied and directly in front of us (about 300 m) a mighty piece broke off the glacier and landed with a crash in the water.
In the evening we actually wanted to continue, but somehow we didn't make any headway and so we spent another night on the beautiful headland. The next morning, we tried to get money at the post office in El Calafate (it took 1.5 hours because so many others also wanted to get cash via Western Union) and then headed south to Torres del Paine and Punta Arenas .
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