Both of these pictures were taken while on board Navimag (the ship that transported us down the chillean fiords to true patagonia). The ride was excellent! It was nice to be able to relax while still taking in some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world. While on board courtney and I passed time by reading and getting to know our fellow passengers. The sunrises, and sunsets were out of this world, and it was an all around awesome experience!After landing in Puerto Natales courtney and I had originally planned on heading straight to Torres del Paine National Park. Famously renowned as one of the most beautifully glaciated mountain regions in the world. There is a very famous backpacking loop through the park that takes five days and four nights, and the plan was to prepare for this trek as quickly as possible and get on the trail. As is the case with travleing, things rarely go as planned. When we arrived it was snowing and the temperature was well below freezing (sounds about right for how far south we are). We changed the plans and decided to head north to the town of Calafate and another world renowned National Park (Los Glaciars National Park in Argentina).
The southern part of the park is home to the perito moreno glaciar. One of the biggest in the world! Instead of taking the usual tourist route of jumping on a bus and spending a couple of hours at the park before returing back to town, we decided to hire a car with some european friends (two frenchies, and one dutch girl). This worked out amazingly well as we got to spend all day taking in the amazing sight. We saw the glaciar shed peices of ice about the size of a house into the lake below in an amazing display of natural force. The day was a bit hampered by rainfall, however it was much much better than camping as we would have been doing further south.
Following this adventure we headed further north in Los Glaciars National Park to the town of Chalten. Here we stayed with a hippie mountainer while making three day treks from our hostel in town. The first day we went to a sweet waterfall, that was an easy hike from town (you know us, courtney and I love a good waterfall). The second day we got incredibly lucky and woke up at dawn to clear skies! We hit the trail for 13 hours and took in some amazing views of the Fitz Roy mountain range. This mountain is also famous the world over for mountaineering, and its sheer beauty. I talked courtney into hiking up a closed trail to the base of the mountain, and boy was it worth it. One of the most gorgeous things I have ever seen in my life (but i say that at least once a week). Above is a picture of courtney at the top. After this crazy day i also managed to talk courtney into waking up at four in the morning for the third day, in order to take in sun rise from one of the amazing lakes we had visited on the previous day. We got lost in the dark, but managed to find the lake just in time to snap off a couple of those coveted sunrise pics. With the rest of the day we hiked to another crazy glacier and took a nap underneath Fitz Roy. What a couple of days!
Following the adventure in el chalten we headed back south to puerto natales to get ready to do the Torres del Paine trek that we had originally planned on doing several weeks before. The weather had turned for the better, and we lucked out with five amazing days! We hired out camping equipment and took in some of the most amazing mountain scenery in the world! Above are pictures of courtney and i on our way into the park on a catamaran with coffee in hand. Thats right i now drink coffee... not that i actually like it. The other two pictures were snapped off at sunrise on the fifth and final day in the park. On the way up the one hour ascent from our campsite courtney was quoted as saying this is worse than torture. We had gone about 70 miles in five days, so she was sort of right. I told her the best things in life were the most out of the way, and you can see throught these two pictures that this is indeed the case. We both agreed that our time in the park was absolutely amazing!Now we are in Puerto Madryn argentina looking at some whales before heading to buenes aires in order to aquire a visa to make it into brazil. Sorry that the end of this post has been so abbreviated, the woman in this internet cafe is kicking me out. I have been stressed out about not getting to do this for so long and now it comes to this... such is traveling. Miss you all!
