**Our Trip & Itinerary**

Upon completion of the O-Trek in Chile, we returned to Argentina for six additional days to explore more Patagonian beauty across El Chaltén and El Calafate. To break the eight hour drive up, we spent one night in El Calafate on the way from Puerto Natales to El Chalten, but in hindsight would recommend simply making the whole journey in one go. We spent three full days in El Chaltén and two full days in El Calafate, which was a good split in time for us. However, if we were to go back we would definitely try to spend more time in and around El Chaltén, as there are so many day and overnight trails to explore.

El Chaltén

Our second trip to Argentina began by picking up a rental car in Chile and making the four-hour drive through low clouds and steadily falling rain towards El Calafate. Our overnight stay in El Calafate was pretty uneventful and left us wishing that we would have just gone directly to El Chaltén, primarily because the newly improved roads cut our travel time nearly in half. On our second morning, we set out after a tasty gallon of caffeine from Calafate Coffee Roasters and were rewarded with one of the planet’s great roads. The drive from Ruta 40 to El Chaltén is spectacular on a clear day, with ever present views of Fitz Roy and the surrounding Andes. Even though the speed limit is 110 kph, we felt inspired to take our time, stopping often for photos of the view and any wildlife we spotted along the way. On the day of our drive, the whole animal kingdom seemed to be active – we spotted Rheas, Guanacos, Condors, and even a South American Gray Fox! Imagine this: an endless road, flanked by grazing guanacos, that spouts massive peaks on the horizon – it looked like a movie backdrop! Arriving at the small town of El Chaltén, with Fitz Roy still piercing the skyline above us, it was clear to see that the town is growing. It seemed like there were half-finished projects on most street corners, with hostels and short-term rentals under construction or being expanded along the main street. The town is filled with coffee shops, panaderias, taverns, and all manner of restaurants catered to the booming tourist numbers. Even though the land of the town is small, sandwiched inside the Rio de las Vueltas valley, growing tourist numbers will surely accelerate its growth, so drop by while it feels like a village! After dropping our bags at our hostel, we kept driving past the end of town, to the parking lot for the Chorrillo del Salto trail. While the trail was free to visit up until last year, the parks service recently introduced a CLP45,000 fee per head if you enter on foot from town – an insane amount for any day-hiker! Top tip: If you have a rental car or feel comfortable hitch hiking, drive to the parking lot at the trailhead. Starting from here, for some stupid reason, means the hike is free. What an effective system! The trail to the waterfall itself is only a flat half a kilometer track, but there is a secret second trailhead starting just behind the bathrooms that takes adventurous hikers two up kilometers to a terrific viewpoint of Fitz Roy. With our legs feeling mostly recovered from our eight day O-Trek adventure, we clambered over rocks and trees, up along the Rio De la Cascada canyon edge, until the trail suddenly disappeared into the bushes. We stood at this sudden deadend, the drop to our right unnervingly steep, and tried to comprehend what it felt like to be standing inside the Patagonia logo. After nearly losing (another) hat, a jacket, and our small daypack, we decided it was time to head back to town. We ventured into the center of town only for a (very tasty) burger at La Zorra, then tucked in for the night.

We really did try our best to get some shut-eye, but somehow our brains are most active when they know they have to get to sleep. And so, as per usual, we powered through the night and awoke to our alarm at 2am with a mere few hours of rest. With moans and groans, we heaved ourselves up for another sunrise hike, this time heading for the famous Laguna De Los Tres. The name ‘Los Tres’ refers to the three jagged peaks that loom over the Laguna’s shore: Fitz Roy, Poincenot, and Saint-Exupéry. These towering rocks are able to perform the same magic trick that Las Torres does at sunrise, where they change in color with the rising sun. We dragged our groggy bodies out of the hostel doors and towards the trailhead surrounded by total darkness, with only one headlamp and the soft glow of the moon to guide us. The trail starts right on the edge of town and climbs steadily up for about three kilometers, before completely leveling out what seemed like a marsh in the darkness. With a full moon above us and less than two hours until the sun would break the horizon, we began our final ascent: 450 meters up in just over a kilometer and a half – a brutal way to end this early-morning endeavor. It was a tough climb over rocks and on a trail that seemed near vertical, awakening the aches and pains from the O-Trek. Even though this trail tested us, we crested the ridge over the famous laguna with half an hour to spare, and two hours under the estimated completion time. We found a quiet place on the ridge, sheltered from the wind and away from the other early-risers, to watch the colors change. With dulce de leche filled pound cake in hand, we watched in awe as the sun’s early light exploded on these magnificent pillars, changing them from ecru, to coral, then to saffron, and finally to a cool stone. We stayed quite a while, unable to pull ourselves from this magnificent sight we may never see again, but finally accepted we would have to begin the arduous slog to town. Realizing how difficult it would be on our tired knees, we took it slowly, stopping often for snacks and rest, soaking up the view during each break. Our hearts ached for the hikers who came past us on their way up, just missing the sunrise show. Their disappointed faces were a good reminder to understand your abilities, and give yourself the right amount of time to complete a trail if you’re on a deadline. After four hours, and many, many breaks, we returned to town, crawled back into bed, and took a much-needed nap.

We could have slept for ages, but we decided to wake ourselves up once more on this weird day for a well-earned pizza reward. El Chaltén is home to Laborum, a pizzeria some fellow travel bloggers rated as the best pizza they’d ever had. Now, social media influencers tend to be pretty good at promoting a product, so we were suspicious at first, but soon learned they weren’t kidding! This was indeed, some of the best pizza we’ve ever had, and lemme tell you, that’s a lotta ‘za! Think of all the greatest pies and combine their best traits: thin, juicy inner crust paired with a fluffy, yet crispy outer crust that’s lightly topped with parmesan. And the toppings? Fresh spinach, homemade caramelized onions, artisanal pepperoni, sun dried tomatoes, and perfectly roasted peppers. A dream! Top tip: only order one pizza and halve the toppings – they’re pretty big! We only had a handful of nights in town, but we opted to go to Laborum both times because it left such an impression! On our final night in town we decided to finish things off with their homemade chocolate mousse, topped with candied almonds and fresh berries. We’ll be dreaming about that meal for a very, very long time!

On our final morning, Jackson was feeling adventurous and decided to tackle one more 20-kilometer trail before we left town. We had heard from some fellow O-Trekkers that the Loma del Pliegue Tumbado trail was their favorite hike in the whole area, with great views over the backside of Fitz Roy and the surrounding mountains. Seems like the perfect choice, right? Sarah’s knees decided to give up on her, and since the trail is essentially a continuous 1,100 meter ascent and subsequent descent, she was going to sit this one out. Leaving her behind to cross some to-do items off her list in a nice, warm coffee shop in town, Jackson drove to the outskirts of El Chaltén and started up the trail with some ominous clouds overhead. Once past the unattended ranger booth (free hike, woo!), the trail immediately starts steeply up. It winds through forests and fields, across a few small streams, until the trees abruptly end and hikers are spit out onto endless fields of barren shale. From here, the trail gets steeper once again and is marked only with dusty footprints and frequent orange posts. As Jackson climbed up to the first viewpoint, he was devastated to see where Fitz Roy was meant to be was only a mess of clouds. Feeling hopeful that a new angle might provide a better chance to see the famous peaks, he climbed up the incredibly steep and slippery final stretch of trail to the summit. However, the view from here was even worse and was compounded by incredibly strong, frigid wind. Crouching behind a short wind shelter, he ate snacks and hoped the view would improve if patience ruled the day. Yet after a very cold half an hour, he threw in the towel and started back down towards El Chaltén. Thankfully though, the hiking gods weren’t totally cruel. Halfway down the mountain, the clouds finally lifted for five minutes, with terrific views of the long-awaited peaks. It wasn’t the view he had come to see, but it was still pretty magnificent. That’s the thing with hiking, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but even when you lose, small moments like this one can make it feel like a good day.

El Calafate

Leaving El Chaltén, our car was propelled forward on the road along Lago Viedma by such strong winds that our fuel economy tripled from what it had been on the way in. Driving this direction is decidedly less incredible, but any turns in the road still give drivers and passengers fleeting opportunities to spot these great formations. Arriving in El Calafate, we settled into our Airbnb as the sunset cast a vibrant kaleidoscope around us. The glacial-fed Lago Argentina took on a deep, rich blue as the mountains behind ignited in opulent purples. We stopped unpacking our car just to take it all in, unable to draw ourselves inside despite the persistently strong, cold evening wind. In the glow of the sunset, two dogs appeared from the home next door – one a stumpy mut with a sweet grin, the other a pony-sized Newfoundlander. The small pupper jumped up frequently and was insistent on belly rubs. His giant counterpart was rather aloof, unless you gave him a cuddle, where he then showed his excitement through powerful headbutts to the hip. At the end of mother nature’s show and some needed dog cuddles, we finally made our way into the nicely heated cabin, filled up on welcome cookies and hot tea that had been left for us, then made our way to bed.

The next day, we limited ourselves to exploring El Calafate and some of the immediately surrounding attractions, as we each had ‘real-world’ tasks we needed to take care of at the cabin. El Calafate as a town isn’t as quaint or attractive as El Chaltén, but still boasts a number of terrific coffee shops and patisseries. Which, if you’re a long time reader of this blog, you’ll know we love! We spent our morning wandering from cafe to cafe, stopping to pop into small boutiques and outdoor shops as we went. Similar to most other touristy Patagonian towns, you can find pretty much everything you need for trekking, biking, or water sports in these shops. In the afternoon, we decided to check out the Laguna Nimez Reserva, which some people had called out as a highlight of their time in El Calafate, particularly because of their resident flamboyance of flamingos. Despite the day’s strong wind, yes it seems to happen everyday here, we were assured the birds would still be active and easy to spot. So, we paid the $11 entry and started the three kilometer loop trail, making our way through marshes along the poorly maintained path. About one kilometer in, we realized we hadn’t seen a single interesting bird, only some common meadowlarks. Starting to feel like this place might have been a scam, we madly scanned the horizon, looking for any pink aviation experts in the shallow waters. Flamingos are, we must remember, famously easy to spot. Despite our persistent searching, we didn’t see a single bird matching their description, although we did scope a pair of geese. We continued around the circuit, not sure what to make of the whole place, until suddenly it was over: we were back at the beginning, no flamingos, no big predatory birds, nothing except some geese and meadowlarks. Feeling a bit ripped off, Jackson valiantly fought to get our money back, and when he did, we went across the street to La Cantina Piadineria and promptly spent it on a couple of drinks. A much better use of trip funds if you ask me.

On our final full day in Argentinian Patagonia, we visited what most people come to see in El Calafate: El Perito Moreno. While not technically “in town”, the glacier is a short 75 kilometer drive away, down some pretty terrific roads. We tried to get an early start to beat the crowds, but fate seemed to have a different plan for us, so one slowly made to-go order and one coffee spill later we found ourselves driving between mini buses and coaches on the way out to the national park. We reached the park gates at the same time as hoards of Russian and German tourists, causing it to take a moment until we picked up our tickets, but eventually we took off on the final 30 kilometer stretch of gently curving lakeside road. Our first glimpse of the glacier came as we rounded one of the many bends – it rose among the base of the mountains above it, thick like a healthy helping of icing. From the visitor’s center, we hopped on a shuttle, and took in our first clear view of the massive expanse of ice in front of us. The Perito Moreno glacier was fairly unique as unlike most of our planet’s glaciers, it hadn’t been receding over the past few centuries, generally staying where it was when Chilean explorers rediscovered it in 1879. However, since 2020, it has unfortunately begun to recede on its northern face, losing contact with the rocks where the visitor paths were built. Somewhat uniquely, the glacier’s outlet means that although it only feeds Lago Argentino, the water on the southern side of the lake can rise up to 30 meters above the northern side when the glacier reaches the rocks and creates an ice dam. Its single glacial tip is one of 48 fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, including the Grey Glacier we had seen in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, and the Glacier Viedma near El Chaltén. To make the glacier accessible, the park has built a series of walkways which allow visitors to view the sheet of ice from many different vantage points ahead of it, and along both sides. After reading a review of the place, we learned that even the red path marked “Difficult” is in-fact quite easy, but the signs do a good job of scaring off the crowds. Following the red markers we found a quiet part of the walkway and stationed ourselves on the railing, eyes scanning the ice for any signs of cracks or falling pieces. When studying a glacier, it’s amazing how loud a small piece can sound when it hits the water and how late it reaches your ears! When bits aren’t falling off, creaking and cracking noises rise into the air, creating a strange hum, as if it were alive.

Everyone was on edge, waiting for yet another crackle to become an iceberg. After being patiently still for nearly an hour, we were finally rewarded when a large sheet cascaded off the southern face. It broke apart as it fell into the icy water below, dotting the dark gray lake with dozens of fresh, small icebergs. We didn’t have to wait long to see another big calving event either! Within a few minutes, one of the central towers, at the very tip of the glacier just a few dozen meters ahead of us, suddenly disconnected. The crown of the tower appeared to fall in slow motion as the ice supporting it crumbled below, creating a huge splash as it hit the water in one magnificent piece. Feeling wildly successful after seeing these two terrific events in such quick succession, we continued our walk along the park’s various paths, taking in great views and watching the birds hop along the fire trees. Almost near the end of the walkway, just as we were making our way back to our car, we witnessed one of the glacier’s largest calving events of the year. On the far side of Lago Argentino, we spotted what at first appeared to be a similar event. However, instead of stopping, the ice seemed to just continue to fall, and suddenly a huge pillar of deep blue, polished ice rose up in the water, towering over the glacier’s wall. A new iceberg, as tall as a building, gently bobbed in the water. Its impact sent a ripple of waves across the lake, slowly expanding until it reached where we were standing. We felt as if we’d witnessed something powerful, like we’d truly understood the force of nature!