Coming back from the most awesome Paso Huemul circuit we were a little tired, and went out for dinner. Upon time to pay, Maaike’s Debit card (which masquerades as a credit card while abroad) bounced. Hey ho, that’s life we thought, having had issues with Debit Cards while travelling.

Or so we thought.

A day later, after the bus back to El Calafate, Maaike tried to get cash out of an ATM, again, no joy. This was a little more worrying because the card had worked OK in ATMS.. mostly. Anyway, after that we went back to the campsite we were at to check the bank balance. $-6.73. What? Then saw a whole bunch of withdrawals on the 9th Feb. Upon closer inspection they were all from the Philippines, which was somewhat strange, seeing as we weren’t actually in the Philippines. They’d drained the account. $2,700. Somewhat annoying/terrifying/worrying.

We emailed the bank immediately of course, then tried to Skype. Internet kept dropping out, so eventually we decided to go to an actual real-life telephone and call out. It was expensive, but nicely reassuring to talk to the bank. They basically said “we’ll take care of it” and to email their fraud department (which we duly did).

Since then, being somewhat paranoid, I have reduced my credit limit on cards, and only put 1K or so in any accounts which are actually linked from anywhere. Exposure has been reduced. Maaike’s card has been cancelled (we have 5 more … we’ll be fine ;).

We’re not sure where they skimmed the card (and pin number – more worryingly). If you’re interested in this stuff, then the all about skimmers section on krebsonsecurity has a lot of interesting (and somewhat terrifying) info on it. It’s big business this stuff, and, frankly, impressive. I mean within days? they’d copied the details over to the Philippines and taken out almost 3K. Our bank refunded us the money the same day!, but someone is out of pocket. In a small way reminds me of the ladykillers. Worth a watch sometime :)

Remember kids, always cover your fingers when typing in your pin code, give the ATM a bash to see that nothing is obviously loose, and just hope they don’t have thermal sensing..

This goes down as the best multiday hike I’ve ever done. The “Paso del viento” circuit from El Chalten. As I mentioned in the last post, we were lucky to hear about it from overhearing a French couple. They unfortunately only had 3 days (and you need 4) so were unable to do it. Hey ho. The hike has two Tyrloean traverses on it (crossing rivers) so you do need some extra gear. The park authorities do check you for this before you go, so you have to have it. They also assess you for experience. Now, strictly speaking I’ve never done a tyrolean before, but as I’ve been climbing for 20 odd years I felt happy saying I had. But that link above was quite useful to check over what needed to be done. We hired an extra sling and carabiners for securing the backpack to the wire separately from ourselves (just makes it easier to cross).

We got our gear from the very lovely Polly at Viento Ouest.. she was one of the loveliest people we’ve dealt with so far… can highly recommend. It was only 90 pesos for the harness slings and carabiners, an an extra 30 I think it was for the extra sling for the rucksacks.

So, started our hike out of El Chalten. First stop, Lago Toro. Nice walk in, you have views out to Fitzroy for a while too, before descending into the valley by the lake.

It was a windy night, and we were a little worried about the next day, as we did have the tyroloean and the “pass of the wind” to pass… however, it calmed down a bit and by the morning it was OK.

The next day off to the paso itself. They don’t make the way completely obvious, at least at the start, probably to deter people? Not sure. I’d cheated anyway and downloaded the entire route onto my GPS (my navigation has deteriorated a little, but the GPS really is great ;). Anyway, first stop, the tyrolean traverse. From the Tyrol region in Italy, it is a way of crossing between two points via a wire. Our crossings all had pulleys, which cuts down on friction and makes the crossing easier. It’s still quite a bit of work, especially when going “up” on the other side of the crossing.

We had the normal sling + carabiner, + another carabiner. We also hired another sling + 2 carabiners for attaching the bag to the wire (as you can see in the picture of Maaike doing the crossing). You attach the bag directly to the wire and the other end clipped into your harness, so it’s dragged along as you cross. It’s funny, death wise it makes little difference how far you fall once it’s “far enough”, but, having a raging torrent of glacial water running underneath you does up the ante somewhat. It’s all well and good “knowing” that you know your stuff, but quite another to put it to the test ;) Anyway, it was fine, easy even. We met a lovely French couple (Guillaume and Alexan) who came up behind us at the crossing… Maaike asked Guillaume to double check, but all was in order :)

After the tyroloean, it’s slowly up alongside a glacier to the pass itself. This was probably trickier than the tyrloean itself, as the path had (we think) been partly nuked by a landslide in one place, so it was a little looser than it could have been. Anyway, on up the slope…

Then up towards the pass, the excitement of wondering what view we’d see was huge! I knew that we’d see the ice field, but not really sure what that would be like! I mean yes Antarctica.. but, I dunno, we didn’t get that high so didn’t get to see never-ending stretches of snow.. quite.

My pictures don’t really do it justice unfortunately, but wow, what a view!

Then you drop down the far side and along to the campsite at the refugio (basic hut). The wireless password didn’t seem to work.. most odd. We did try a new flavour of porridge/rolled oats. Chocolate. What a thing of beauty that was (we’d had a plain flavour for the last 3 weeks and were quite over it!).

The only bad thing about the campsite was the lack of a toilet, and really, lack of nice places to go. That coupled with… hmmm, less socially minded people meant there was the odd bit of old toilet roll and accompaniments around the place. Not so pretty.

Met a Dutch-Italian climber there (David) he’d just completed all his objectives (Fitzroy, Cerro Torre and another), and was wondering what to do next! He showed us a video from the top of Cerro Torre, enough to give you vertigo!. He was having a “rest day” and doing our entire hike in 2 days. ;)

Next day, followed the glacier along and up to the Huemul pass. There were some tricky little steps and a bit of a hike up to the pass, but pretty straightforward really. Quality views all the way, it really was special, and nice views down to Lake Viedma with little icebergs carved off and floating about.

Then came the trickiest part of the whole hike I think, the descent back down from Huemal. On the map it’s marked as a dangerous descent, and they’re not kidding. The exposure wasn’t insane, in that if you fell you were unlikely to fall all the way down!, but, it was very steep and mostly loose dusty soil over rock, really not the nicest surface to be walking on. I was definitely happy when we both reached the bottom safe and whole.

Found our little campsite. At least, I think we did. It wasn’t marked, but it looked nice a nice enough flat enough spot, and people had definitely camped there. I went for a little wander up the hill behind in the evening and there was some nice light on the icebergs.

Then an easy enough day out – another tyroloean to cross at the end, but we were experts by this stage.

The only downside really was getting back to El Chalten. There used to be a route from the end of the track back to town, but it has been bought and there were conflicting messages as to whether it was open or not. In the end we tried to hitch – a car did stop, only had one space, Maaike took it (felt very guilty for leaving me, so she says ;), and I failed to get a ride, leaving me with an 18km walk back to town :( I did manage to get a lift 6.5km out of town, but it was still not the best end to the walk. That said, I had my podcasts & language lesson podcasts so I used the time well enough ;)

All in all, I think this is the best hike I’ve ever done! Would highly recommend, but it is for “experienced” hikers I think.

Took the bus from El Calaphate to El Chalten. My advice would be, when you book the bus, insist on getting the seats at the front on the top deck. That way you’ll have a stunning view all the way there. It’s really magic seeing Fitzroy and Cerro Torre rise out of the plains. These walls are legendary amongst mountaineers (which I’m not!), but it was still wonderful to see them in the raw.

The town of El Chalten itself was lovely actually. Somewhat expensive but not awfully awfully so, and they have some very nice touristy places (like a decent ice-cream shop!.. nyom). We had planned a few walks to do while here, to Fitzroy and Cerro Torre, and to go O Higgins. However, when we were in the information place, we had our big map out and some French tourists were looking at it, and asking about a 4 day hike that we’d not considered which looked and sounded amazing. It did require getting a harness & slings & carabiners, as there were two tyrolean traverses to navigate. When we tried to book the gear, it was all out for 4 days (at least) so we opted to the walks to Fitzroy and Cerro Torre first. Good job too as it gave my stomach time to settle itself.

Just a 3-4 hour walk in to Fitzroy, but very nice views all the way along.

Then there’s a good hour walk steeply up hill to get to the final views. Worth it for sure.

I was too lazy however to get up at 5am again and walk all the way up the hill for the sunrise. No, I just got up at sunrise instead and had a look to see what I could see. Far easier ;)

Then the following day headed to Cerro Torre, there’s a nice little track which brings you from Fitzroy across, without having to go back to town. Hot day… stunning views though.

I’m no mountaineer, but the top of Cerro Torre looks damn hard, exiting out from the rock into the overhung mushroom of snow. It’d be awesome to climb it, but I’d want to be guided up there!. I dunno, I think those days are gone, and, while I’d love to be up there, it’s just a little bit too far outside my risk appetite zone, and you really have to be extremely single-minded about it. Anyway, great views and a nice little campsite too.

Next day, back to El Chalten itself. This time we stayed in the campsite (way cheaper option, and a nice place – worth thinking about if you do have a tent).

Torres Del Paine. At one time, maybe even now, voted the “best” hike in the world, by people who vote on these things. It’s a stunning place all right, no argument there. Big granite massif carved out by glaciers popping up out from the plains.

Our objective here was the circuit (called the O), opting to do it in a fairly leisurely 10 days. There’s a more popular (very busy) shorter walk called the W .. you can see here the two different tracks. The circuit turns into the W..

It was hard enough going for the first few days. While we did have mostly dehydrated food, 10 days is still 10 days, and I was definitely happy that we had become at least a little bit fitter after our previous few weeks hiking out of Ushuaia. We started at Laguna Amarga, then headed to Seron for the first night. Annoyingly, the dataset I’d downloaded for my GPS I hadn’t checked properly, so the route wasn’t in it. Completely unneeded as you’d have to be blind to miss the trail, but still.. one to check for next time. There were these handy little maps around the place, handy, if quite misleading. The heights and distances never seemed to be accurate, but it did give you a rough idea of where you were, and the sort of terrain you were going to be crossing, and it was always a lovely surprise when you thought you had 3km to go, but actually only had 1.

The national park is a National Park, however, there is private land ringing some of it, and they certainly make the most of the tourist dollar. The campsites on the private land (including Seron) charged more, and gave worse service than did the ones on the National Park. In fact, the best toilets we found was at the free campsite at Torres. Maaike has banned me from taking / putting up pictures of toilets. Personally I think this is a shame, feel free to comment ;)

So, onwards and slowly upwards – next day to Dickson. Nice views of the back of Torres, if somewhat covered in the snow which had been falling up higher that day.

We were lucky in that the weather turned quite foul later in the evening, but after we had put up the tent. Hurrah. Not quite sure what the future was going to bring, as in 2 days time we were going over the main pass (Passo John Garner) at 1180m, and they do close the pass. Next day, up to Campamento Los Perros. We had completely terrible views on the way up… and it was very very cold, and rainy. It was bucketing down in fact. There was a shelter at the camp which everyone hung out in trying to keep warm. The pass had been closed that day, so the campsite was actually very full, as it had 2 days of people there. I congratulated myself again on choosing a tent were you put up the outer first before the inner.. so many tents get this backwards, and I simply don’t understand it. Anyway, our tent was perfectly dry and warm, but I still slept that night in my down jacket, and I wonder how many of the inexperienced / less well equipped people had a very cold night. We did see people hiking in jeans..

Next day, the weather had improved (wind had dropped) and the pass was open, so off up we went. It was still quite windy at the top, a lady in front of me got blown over!

Then Glacier Gray appears, and all is forgiven. That really is a magnificent sight, and we got to enjoy it for the next two days. That night we stayed at Camp Paso, a free campsite. When the sun came out again, we went a little way from the camp and took some more pictures, it’s just stunning in the sunshine – all the colours come out, and you can see the relief better.

Then it was time to make our way to Refugio (and camp) Gray. On the way we saw an injured person being stretchered out.

It was a stark reminder of how cushy we have things in NZ. In NZ I do take all the precautions I can while hiking, but I also take a locator beacon. If something bad happens, I pull out the beacon and a signal gets sent to a satellite and they’ll be in touch with the rescue services, generally meaning a helicopter comes and gets you. All for free, due to the wonderful thing that is ACC. I’m not sure what, if any, payment this patient would have had to make, but no helicopter for them :(

Camp Gray was where we joined the W (popular) route. Certainly the numbers of people increased hugely. Saw a fox there, seemed quite used to people. It was also the first refugio I’d seen here. Comfortable looking places I must say!

Great views back up to the glacier, it really became a much more three dimensional structure.

Next day it was on to Paine Grande camp, nice place, if open (hurrah for tunnel tents which are good in the wind) And a picture from the tent facing the other way… we FEASTED in the shop though. Maaike had 3, yes 3 eggs, and we shared a TIN OF PEACHES. It was a feast.

Next day up to another free campsite (Italiano) that we’d booked from Puerta Natales (thanks to Isidor for suggesting that one, as it was full otherwise). We then also did the hike up to the mirador (viewpoint)s.

Then a long, but fairly cruisey day to the main campsite – Las Torres. Another one on private land. We had a very nice dinner with some English (Rob and Chris) & Greek (Georgios) astronomers from Southampton University Supernova group we’d met on the circuit and played leapfrog with for most of the trip. They were great fun! I was most impressed with Georgius, who was doing the circuit as his first ever hike. I’m not entirely sure that he knew what he was getting himself in for, and I’m not sure how many times he thought he was going to die / wanted to go home, but he did make it – and well done him!

Rob spotted someone looking at the hill at twilight with a camera, and thought it was odd so went to have a look, and that meant we got to see Puma! Just hanging out.. Somewhat grainy pics, but it was low light. Someday when I’m rich I’ll get a faster lens.

So, saying goodbye to the Astronomers, we headed back up the hill to the Torres campsite.

The aim here was to getup for the sunrise over the torres. The ranger told us the sunrise was at 05:15, but I should have checked the GPS which put it at 06:30… Maaike opted to go up to the lookout the same day, and then see what she felt like at 04:15. So, this pics is Maaikes.

I got up at 04:15 and decided that I would head up the hill. It was dark when we got there, but you could see a light way up on the cliff, where a climber was also waking up, getting ready to tackle the rest of the route.

I was looking at the torres thinking about how unfortunate it was that I wasn’t seeing the sunrise, and then thought about getting up and looking back towards the East… and was rewarded by this quite nice sunrise!

It was getting late in the morning for getting back, so I started back down the hill… promptly getting very slightly misplaced (rather than actually lost) which was a damn good thing, as it meant I delayed my descent by about 10 mins, which was the time it took for the sun to find a gap in the clouds and give us the last of a sunrise on the Torres. A lovely sight.

Finally, back down the hill, and the walk back to Laguna Amarga for the bus back to Puerta Natales. It was nice to do the hike, glacier gray a definite highlight for me, but I’m not sure I’d rush back to do it again, I think I prefer slightly less majestic places which are a little quieter. I guess that’s the curse of being the “best hike in the world” :)

Funny, all through Torres Del Paine we’d been fantasising about the dinner we’d have to celebrate my birthday, however, upon getting back to town I was vomiting for a good 4-5 hours, and then had a somewhat upset stomach for another week. Good dieting mechanism that’s for sure.

We left Usuhuaia by bus to Punta Arenas (Chile). Will miss those sunsets… I’m not sure what the longest border in the world is, and while I’m sure a quick Google would sort that out, I’d lay a bet that Chile and Argentina would have to be up there. Chile does have biohazard controls on entering the country, much like NZ does (so no meats, cheeses etc.) you have to get a boat to leave Tierra Del Fuego as it’s an island. Who knew? You probably, but I didn’t.

Punta Arenas was a nice enough place actually. Wasn’t really expecting it to be, but it certainly was. We could have taken the bus all the way to where we wanted to be (Puerta Natales), but that would have meant getting it at 11pm or something, so opted instead for breaking the journey in Punta Arenas. Admittedly didn’t get up to much, except for going to an ATM and getting some cash out (a somewhat novel experience coming from Argentina). Had a nice sushi, very nice little hostel (Downtown Hostel – Hostel Del Centro), and that was that.

First impressions of Chile were certainly positive though. Seemed fractionally friendlier (Argentina already seems nice enough), definitely seemed to be more prosperous / functional. Again, super brief impressions and based on very little, but still.. good.

Very thankful for the Open Street Map app – as discussed previously – OsmAnd+, really makes finding your way around easy. Managed to find white fuel (coleman gas) – called Bezina Blanca here. Couldn’t find it in Argentina. While my stove is the MSR international, it’s happier burning the cleaner white fuel, so got 1L of that for the walk around Torres Del Paine. Also got a couple of (very expensive) dehydrated meals. If you’re coming internationally and going hiking, my advice is to bring stuff from home if you can. Also, replaced my camelbak water bladder as it had sprung a leak. Very nice being able to find good outdoors shops. Again, cheaper in Punta Arenas than in Natales, or so we were led to believe ;)

Next morning, a bus to Puerta Natales, gateway to the Torres Del Paine massif, our ultimate destination in Chile. Puerta Natales is another nice little town. Definitely catering to the tourists, which it could do a little more for I think, at least food wise. I reckon you’d make $$$$ if you bulk imported freeze dried meals from NZ and sold them there.. not sure how easy it’d be to get setup.. but there’s definitely a market!! Great little hostel in Little Patagonicos… well, the rooms were a little noisey, but the internet worked well enough, the kitchen was well supplied, very clean, and the staff was extremely helpful. Nice place, would recommend. If there was one disappointment, it was that our room looked out onto a beautiful brick wall, rather than the absolutely stunning landscape which the raspberry pi would have done justice to in terms of a timelapse ;) And yes, I searched for available wall sockets, buffink. In fact, annoyingly the Americanish style wall sockets they have here, have a very slightly smaller diameter than the adapter I bought in the airport… seeing as we’re only going to be in Chile for the one hike, I didn’t bother getting a new one. I still love love love my multiplug adapter though, that worked fine. If you can find one of these, get one… best thing ever.

Went out for a crepe and a coffee for my birthday, opting to wait for a meal until after we get back from the 10 day hike.. Maaike also smashed me at Tantrix (the day before my birthday luckily, so the day wasn’t completely ruined ;) … she has the beautiful green loop.