Day: 7
Trajectory: El Chalten – El Calafate (via Viedma Glaciar)

Distance covered:   214 km

General view of El Chalten

We woke up refreshed, and for once with nothing car related to prioritise. El Chalten is one of the world’s great trekking towns, full of backpackers and hostels. The day was unfortunately rather overcast, and we were unable to get clear views of Cerros Torre and Fitzroy, but this is what they would have looked like:

This is what we would have seen if the skies had been clear (photo from Internet)

After our long walk a couple of days earlier neither of us was really into much walking so for our morning activity we drove a little way out of town to visit an attractive waterfall. The road there was through woodland with great views of the river winding its way through the valley. One waterfall looks much like another when you have a 400mm lens on your camera so instead I’ll post a picture of a diucon finch that sat in our path playing with his midday meal.

Diucon Finch. far too busy with his lunch to pay us much attention

We couldn’t get any money in Chalten. There is no bank and the only cash machine was out of service. To make things worse most places won’t take plastic, so this, plus the weather, decided us to make that night for El Calafate. But first some lunch – a guy with a jeep like ours whom we met in the bus station steered us to a place that did take cards and we filled our stomachs there.

Lunch, in a plastic-friendly bar

Before leaving El Chalten we decided to visit the Viedma Glaciar as the weather over the lake in that direction looked a little more encouraging, so we made our way out of town to the port where we could take the catamaran up to the Glaciar. This would be a first for me, and I was quite excited; the sign awaiting us when we arrived summed up nicely how I was feeling – this was indeed another part of our Patagonian Adventure.

The sign at the port summed up nicely what we were feeling about our journey

We got there in good time, fingers crossed that the wind would  not change direction as that would cancel the trip. We were lucky and were soon boarding the catamaran.

The catamaran that took us to Viedma Glaciar

It was a pleasant sail, although it became colder and colder as we approached the glacier.

Sailing glaciarwards as the wind got colder …

Finally we arrived within some 800 metres of the face of the glacier. The view was splendid, but it was tough staying on deck to take pictures. We persisted, and here is a view from fairly close.

Some 800 metres from the face of the glacier, shot with a wide-angle lens

In fact, for those of us who could brave the elements, it was a wonderful fusion of rock, ice, water, cloud and sky, …

All the elements (except fire) in fusion

… with the more intrepid on deck snapping away … for once hatless, because of the wind.

Your photographer braving the cold

All good things come to an end, and we got back to the jetty and set off for the shortish drive to El Calafate. It was a straightforward drive, but we did stop off at the famous La Leona Hotel; famous because Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid holed up there for a month after robbing a bank in Río Gallegos. Maybe. These stories grow in the telling, and they may just have spent a night there, and it really doesn’t matter …

La Leona Hotel, another putative Butch Cassidy connection

We also noticed as we drove through wide glacial valleys that there were quite a few boulders deposited by the glaciers and now sitting rather incongruously in the middle of nowhere. I remember learning about this at school in geography lessons, and it was nice to see them in the flesh, so to speak.

Glacial erratic – a reminder of when much of Patagonia was covered in glaciers

We arrived in El Calafate in good time and after first taking the wrong road and finding ourselves in a very unprepossessing area we eventually got into the town centre and found a great hostel almost immediately.

Hostal and restaurant in El Calafate

Calafate is another trekking town, although much bigger than Chalten and is a thriving town in its own right. We had a good meal, and off to bed, planning to visit Chile’s Paine Park the next day.