The End of Patagonia, final part

This time I am going you to surprise with mountains, glaciers, lakes and also pictures of a boattrip we did here in Patagonia. I think it is going to be quite boring, therefore at the end of this story a little surprise to prevent you from falling asleep.

I left you in Futalafeu Chili, from where we took a hitch hike to Esquel (Arg). We were lucky this time because unlike in Villa St Lucia, we didn´t have to wait two days (but only two hours), before someone had the courage to give us a hitch hike. First we got a hike to the Chilian border, and after letting us through, we met a chilian guy who was going to Esquel, and he was giving us a hike again.

So we arrived in Esquel, a town of around 80000 people, which gave us the impression we were back into civilization. We arrived in Esquel just a few days for Santa Semana (the week around Eastern), and we soon learned that during Eastern most Hotels and Hosteria´s would be full, and that we not would be able to find accomodation around that period. So like Jozef and Maria we should look out for a stable, or something else.


La trochita

First however I wanted to do something absolutely touristic- the train from Esquel to El Maiten-, also described in the book of Paul Theroux, the Old Patagonia Express. It is called La trochita. La trochita is a very small steam train (the distance between the weels is only 73 cm wide), with wooden cottages. Unfortunately this trip can only be made once a year in februari and is 420 km long. We were there in march, so........


Landscape around Esquel

The exiting alternative is a 20 km stretch to a little pueblito through desert PATAGONIAN landscape, and this village with only 10 houses is presumably especially made to receive tourists (there main target are families with little children). In this sparkling town they can make a picture of you together with a sheep for only 1.5 pesos, but there is even more! If you want on a picture with a living FOX it will cost you 2 pesos. Yes the rules of market economy function well here -foxes are more scarce than sheep- so a higher price is justified. You even can do cabalgatas (horse riding). Next time I come I hope I can do paragliding, maby they even have a pool, and hopefully Internet! On the other side, if you see the smile of a 2 year old little girl sitting in front of her father on the horse, that's also something that can make your day!



Alerces tree

To escape Eastern we went to the Parque National Los Alerces, the main attraction in the parque are Alerces trees, these trees can reach respectable ages, and the one we visited (he sends you his regards by the way) had the age of 2600 years. The tree is belonging to the family of larches and its official latin name is Fitzroya cupressoides. They can reach heights of 50 meter.

To come there, we first walked along a beautifull greenblue stream (the rio arrayanes), where people were fishing for trout, and we had to make a boattrip across the lago menendez.


Parque National Los Alerces


Glacier at Lago Menendez

And guess what happened??????????? We saw a glacier! Incredible but true, a real glacier. I can't remember ever to see such a glacier, but it was there silently lying on its back in the sun, doing dripperdeedrop, but this time no cocktails or pina colada(!? yes folks i am becoming mind distorted here). After this beautifull spot, we walked together with 40 other tourists (hand in hand) on a cleaned path (just like in Holland), for about two hours, until we reached good old alerces. She looked quite well for her age, I hope I look like her when I'm that old (but not exactly). That night I tried to be a boy scout by making a fire because the temperatures are dropping at night now rather quickly, but after 30 minutes 'klungelen', i gave up. I should have done like Thesy (she went to the 'kabouters', when se was young)! Fortunately, not all guys are that clumsy, so we met two Argentians from Puerto Madryn, that were willing to share their fire with us to rewarm our frozen extremities.


View on Lago Menendez

Last day in the park we climbed to Lago Escondida (which means hidden lake, and there are many lakes of that name in Patagonia, like rio verde, lago verde, lago azul etc etc). The view over Lago Menendez and Lago Cisne (and the glacier!) made the trip worthwile. I wouldn't have mind however if Lago Escondida had remained hidden.

El Bolson was the next stop of our journey. Years ago el Bolson was the beating heart of a blowing hippie community. It is situated between low hills in small valley. We stay in Chacra el Cielo run by Nano and Rosa. It is a little farm with some small animalls which is situated in the mountains overlooking el Bolson. As a real city boy I never heard the sound of pigs, when they are about to be fed. Well that´s an experience. 6 big pigs and 18 little produce more sound than 10 fighter planes at take-off. Furthermore you stumble over many little puppies and little kittens, 5 or 6 dogs, sheep, goats, chicken, goose and about 50 ducks. Quite cosy, it is. During the night we did something which I almost forgot it exists, we watched a movie on television (Analyse this, a comedy about a maffia guy going to the shrink, leading roles Billy Cristal and Robert de Niro).


View on El Bolson from Chacra El Cielo

In El Bolson we visit a market (which was advertised as a real hippie thing, but we failed to see the difference between this market and every other market selling junk and artesanias) and we made a walk to two waterfalls (one of them is an Escondida by the way). They are not very spectacular, although we saw the footprint of a puma around some garbage cans. Furthermore you can see that Autumn is coming, the poplar is becoming yellow as one of the first trees. Maby it is because these trees are so big, and that their roots aren't able to suck up enough water to supplement the tree. This could be the signal for them to start colouring.



Catarata Escondida

Bariloche is our last stop in Patagonia. It is situated in the lake district, a large area in Chili and Argentina, and although the city i somewhat touristic, the environment is extremely scenic. We make two tours with Overland-Patagonia, mainly because their chauffeur Roberto is very friendly and helpfull, and always willing to stop to let us make pictures.


lago Mascardi

The second trip brings us lago Mascardi, that has the most beautifull green-turquoise color I saw in Patagonia. Around the lake are swarms of humming birds (not sure if they are the same as kolibries), certainly a different species than which we saw in parque Quelat. We drive further into the direction of the Tronador, the biggest mountain in this area (around 3500 meter), and it posseses a huge massive.


Tronador

Here lies the BLACK GLACIER (sorry people but we have a maniacal need to see glaciers). The glacier indeed is black, probably because there is a lot of black dust that has somethings to do with vulcanos and ash. You notice here too glaciers are rapidly declining. I can't imagine that this glacier will be still there in 20 years from now, so if you want to see this black jewel hurry! If you look back into the valley you can see that a very long time ago this glacier was immense. In the valley until a height of about 200 meter you can see the track of the old glacier, because the (flat) rocks are smoothed by the force of passing ice. The glaciers ends into a small lagune. That is not new, but the creme colour of the water, combined with black and white icecubes, gives the impression that we are looking at a mine.


The Black Glacier

The first trip is one of the highlights of my journey so far. We do the seven lakes trip that crosses three national parques (PN Arrayanes, P Nacional and PN Lanin). We also go to Villa la Angostura, which is an area for rich people since Diego Armando Maradona bought some land there, and San Martin de Los Andes, a pittoresk village in a little bay.


The Seven Lakes Tour

Most is beautifull, the lakes are splendid, but just on the moment you start to think you know Patagonia, and nothing new will come any more, we drive to Cordoba pass and see some of the Valle Encantada.


Valle Encantada

We see a little canyon and lots of eroded sand stone formations, that make me think back of the big parks in Amerika (Zion and Bryce f.i.). Our guide Roberto told us that rainfall in this part is only about 300 mm. 60 Kilometer to the west is the annual rainfall 3000 mm.


Sand stone formations


Little canyon in Valle Encontada

In the end the most beautifull sunset I ever saw, completes this breathtaking journey.


Sunset

After two months Patagonia it's time to go further north. Patagonia has been great, I never expected it to be like this. Two months is never enough to see all the beauty that´s here, but autumn is coming fast now. After two colds with a lot of coughing, I want to have a little bit more heat, and what´s MORE IMPORTANT, Mendoza is the heart of the wine country, and there are wineries where you can taste a lot of wine!!!!


Start of Autumn, time to go north

So lets go to mendoza, hop on the bus!


Los Endos