Verdeta Journey

After breakfast, we went to the beach together with Chiara and Jochen and got there on time at 7:50am. No one was around the stall we bought the trip yesterday (20000 pesos per person, English guide, 3 hours long, caves at puerto Sanchez as well as marble cathedral, paid by MasterCard debit card).   Just before 8am, Annie came and send the retired couple from the USA. The guides cane to pick us up and we went to a boat parking place at the beach, put the floating vests on and sat in the boat. It is a small motor boat for about 15 people, it is 7 passengers and 3 guides including the driver. Once we left the coast, we could feel the strong wind and waves were building up. I’m sitting on the left side of the boat and one of the guides gave me a rain cover because the waves are a bit stronger. We see speeding up to the other side of the lake, cold water is splashing on me and soon we reach a small bay with an old shipwreck. We take few photos there and then we continue to the caves

My alarm went off and I can see it’s nearly 7am. I feel a bit cold, Denisa is still sleeping in the other bed and Annie is already awaken in the opposite corner of the room. We have to get up and get ready for the minibus to Puerto Río Tranquilo. Simple breakfast and just before 8am we are awaiting Daniel to pick us up.   Daniel is arriving ten minutes after eight and I can see that his minibus is already nearly full. We loaded back seats with our backpacks and all 5 of us took the last remaining seats.  Same as in other border crossing, we first got off the bus at he Argentinian border and got the exit stamp. Then we drove 16km to the Chilean border. This time we had to unload our bags and provide completed customs form. We got Chile entry stamp and then put our rucksacks onto X-ray. Me and my wife were without any issues. On my customs form, I had checked that I have some animal/herb products (just in case - we had some sandwiches, and biscuits). We were done around 9:10am

...around 7:40am we stopped at a bus terminal in Perito Moreno. We though by this time we should be in Los Antiguos already. But we reached the bus terminal in Los Antiguos around 8:40am. The last part was on normal paved road.   I could see that the Chaitén travel bus is already in Los Antiguos. And another bus just reached after us.  The Los Antiguos bus terminal is similar size to that one in El Chalten. Has toilets inside and few travel offices. It is Tuesday, but most of the offices are closed. Since about 3 full buses just arrived here, it’s is quite busy, on the floor with people sitting and in the toilets too. We are waiting to get it more quiet here and asking about how to get to Chile Chico.  We were told that there no service to go to Chile Chico anymore. The travel office is closed. And the only way is to walk or to hitchhike. It is nearly 20km from here to Chile Chico center and of it 16km between the border controls. As we are standing here, a Scottish woma

I feel awful after the heavy drinking. And we have to pack and last till the evening to get a bus to Los Antiguos.   I stayed in the hostal lobby pretty much the whole day. We spoke with another Czech couple traveling the world and Denisa went for a hike to Mirador del Torre.  Around 18:00 we left the hostal and stopped in a small coffee place. The bus Cal-Tur is scheduled for 7:30pm, we got to the bus terminal at 7 and the bus left at 7:50pm. There were another 2 buses (Marga Taqsa, Chaitén travel) leaving around the same time. We had no seats numbers and the bus was full. Around 15 loud girls from probably Israel held many places to their group, so we could not sit together with my wife. It is a normal bus and there is a small toilet with a big sticker saying “the toilet is for liquids only”. And a big sticker at front, saying “please don’t take your shoes off”.  At 21:20 we stopped in a village called Tres Lagos and people could go to buy some drink or food to a supe

After the long hike yesterday, we wanted to have quiet day. So didn’t do much, only the small viewpoints at the ranger station - Mirador de los cóndores and Mirador de las aguilas. Started at 2pm. Because we bought some bread and cheese yesterday, we didn’t have to spend any money for lunch today and ate in our room.   The two short hikes to the viewpoints take about 30 minutes each. From Mirador de los cóndores is nice view of the Fitz Roy mountain and view of the village. On the way to Mirador de las aguilas, we met few cows with kettles and an angry bull walking towards us and making very loud noise. We got scared and went off the path far from that noisy animal.  The second viewpoint was not so interesting, so we went back to the hostal, where I could see a message from Rainer already drinking at B&B burger place. So we joined them, had burgers (135 pesos each) and fries (55 pesos) and 4 beers (total 240 pesos in happy hour). And then we continued to another place (

It’s 9pm and I’m ready to fall asleep. My phone says I walked 30km today and did 40000 steps. Obviously it’s not true, it usually over-counts by something like 2 kms... We got up at 7:30 in the morning, had our breakfast and headed to the trailhead for the Fitz Roy Lago de los tres. The mount Fitz Roy is 3359 m height (or 3405 m) and it is visible from pretty much all El Chalten. The trail is supposed to be 10 km long. But our hostal is about 1.5 km from the trailhead and I forgot my jumper in the room, so had to go all the way back to take it with me.  So I think we started hiking at 9:30am at the end. The trail is quite busy, we met people coming back and also quite a few people were faster than us. The day was sunny and mostly not windy. Only some parts were windy. First 3 km going up the hill, then mostly stable, and the last 1 km was really steep. There is many places where we could take water from the river or streams and drink it, and many spots from where we could ta

Early wake up, 6am, packing last bits we left out from the evening and we are ready at 6:45. Going to get our food from the fridge and the door to the kitchen are locked. They are supposed to be open from 7am. What a pity! No breakfast, no lunch. Okay. Maybe the pickup will be late, so we can still get it. And yes! Pickup is not coming. 7:10am and I’m nervous. Did they forgot about us? So I dialled the bus company office and asked if they are coming. Yes, they are, I was told. 7:20, bus arrived, but the kitchen is still locked! With our food in the fridge. In a meantime another two people tried to get into the kitchen.  The bus tickets we bought: Marga Taqsa, 480 pesos each, pickup at our hostel. The bus left the terminal nearly at 8am. It’s really cold on the bus, air con blowing freezing cold by the window seat. Views from the bus are nice and we reached El Chalten at 10:10 - first stop in a national park centre, got information about trails and the weather and then the bus con