Boaz Kantor

We left the calm and beautiful town of El Chalten up north, driving all night on the Ruta 40 and crossed the border to Chile, to start our Carretera Austral trip. "We" means 3 Israeli couples aged 30-40 and a lunatic Argentinian driver called Martin. The plan: 6 days on the Carretera.
The Carretera Austral was built by Chile's dictator Pinoche in 1976 to allow access to remote populated areas in Chile. But make no mistake. This 1,200 kilometers so called "highway" is a dirt track leading to barely populated areas. However, it's a road with beautiful views, which makes it a destination by itself for South American tourists and backpackers.
These are my highlights of the Carretera Austral:

1. Landscape: There's nothing I can say about the Carretera views that will be anything close to depict it. The huge Andes mountains thrown violently everywhere, with endless green and freezing-grey lakes and rivers filling the areas between the mountains, all shades of green on wild fields, beasts and wildlife everywhere, killer winds pale sunrises and pink sunsets. The Carretera has the most beautiful landscape in the world. It's Patagonia at its best.
2. Horseback riding: A real Gaucho riding his horse as one and two adorable dogs led our group through beautiful Patagonian paths and fields (see "Landscape" above).
3. An "enchanted forest": A secret and barely seen entrance on the side of the road leads to a thick and enchanted forest. It's like a fairy forest, so green and alive, full of all things to admire. We took pictures every 10 meters. Seriously.
4. Chaiten, the ghost town: Chaiten resides next to a volcano. In May 2008, after 9,000 years of silence, volcano Chaiten suddenly erupted. 4,000 people were evacuated swiftly, leaving everything behind, including food on the tables and shouting tv sets. Only 500 people returned to their homes, claiming that "Chaiten no morira" or "Chaiten shall not die", determined to revive the ghost town. We walked in deep volcanic ash which covers everything, crossed the flooded streets and the experience was strong and sad.
5. Hot springs: Sitting in a pool of steaming hot water. Cold drops of rain falling on my head. Thick forests on both sides of me. This is wildlife pampering.

We finished the Carretera Austral in an El Bolson restaurant, with great English service and awfully made beef steaks. We then departed from Martin in Bariloche, to start a new adventure in Argentine.


Goodbye Chile, you have been an unforgettable adventure.


Boaz.

We took a bus from Pureto Natales to El Calafate, a 5-6 hours ride north, including yet another border crossing (Chile to Argentine). We arrived at the beautiful town of El Calafate. As opposed to Puerto Natales, this is a lovely and lively town. It´s very touristic, so there are many shops here: good restaurants, trekking gear, supermarkets, etc. I would love to stay here longer, however the town is quite expensive and there are no real reasons to stay here, except for visiting the huge Perito Moreno glacier.
We took a bus to see the Perito Moreno. That ice block is huge! We watched it from distance, and every couple of minutes some small ice-crumbs fell off it to the sea. They looked quite small, but the sound the fall made proved otherwise: the ice chunks were as small as a man to as big as a house, making a booming sound when cracking, rolling on the glacier and hitting the water. The site was magnificent.
After that, we took a boat to a more quiet side of the glacier, put on some shoe-gear (crampons, or shoe-spikes), covered ourselves and our backpacks against the rain, and headed on to.. walking on the ice.
Walking the Perito Moreno was a very different and a really exciting experience. We saw small brooks streaming on the glacier floor, finding their ways to small cracks in the ice. Each such crack is either small, or as deep as reaching the bottom of the glacier and the sea level. That was an awesome experience.
We are now looking for different ways to ride through the Carretera Austral and head north to Bariloche.

Hey guys,

Where are we? What is Patagonia?
The Patagonian Andes is the south-eastern region of South America, spanned across Chile and Argentine. It´s a land of wild mountains, gushing rivers, thick forests and huge glaciers. People come to Patagonia to see nature at its best.
First stop: Barcelona
We first spent a day in Barcelona and had a speedy day of tourism around numerous sites there. We used the Metro to get to places, and walked quite a bit through the wide and crowded streets. The beauty of Barcelona to me lies within the huge modern roads with fashion corners, with hidden narrow alleys of gothic cathedrals, combined with out-of-place crazy artworks of Antony Gaudi.
South-most inhabitated place in the world: Ushuaia
There's no better place to begin our South America journey than the southernmost city in the world: Ushuaia. There's nothing much to do here. The city is a base of Antarctica excursion teams, so everything here is around that. We went to see some penguins, hiked among the lakes and forests of Tierra del Fuego and took an adventure in the woods and swamps to see the hidden Laguna Ezmeralda. Of course, the most significant advneture here was waiting for my backpack to arrive from Spain, after Iberia had decided to lose it, be rude to us, not return calls and of course, have me pay for a taxi to pick up my bag from the airport 4 days late. We then left Ushuaia a bit north (where else) to Puerto Natales, a backpackers town and a base for Patagonian trekkers.
Parque Nacional Torres del Paine
As we arrived at Puerto Natales, we quickly packed only the basic stuff needed for trekking (weighing about 20kg) and left to the park. There are 4 hotspots in this park: a grey glacier you can get very close to, a viewpoint in the middle of a mountain-circle (called the French Valley, or as I call it "trois valles"), 3 granite towers rising up to 2,000 meters and more, and a "pass", which is the highest point in the area, that as you pass it you see the entire park and the whole glacier at your feet.
We, as beginner-trekkers, decided to take it easy. We set up a tent at the bottom of the park, and in the next morning we took only necessities (about 7 kg) and hiked to see the glacier. We reached it after about 4.5 hours of a not-too-easy walk. I took another climb down a rock just to touch some huge floating ice coulders that disconnected from the main glacier. The glacier is really big, not really grey and the view was magnificent. We took some photos and headed back to our base camp.
Surrendering to the winds
The next day we packed or stuff and headed towards the next resort: the 3 towers (the Torresses). The plan was to climb from the base point to the next camp carrying all our gear, then waking up at night and climbing to the torresses with nohing but cameras and water. But God has his own tiny little plans for us.
We started climbing. It was hard. VERY hard. Heavy. My thighs were burning. As we got higher and higher, the winds became stronger. And stronger. And stronger. At some point, we actually had to lie down and hold on to tree roots in order to stay put. The wind got so strong at the top, we were afraid to be thrown off to the chasm below. Jenis fell and hurt her knee. I got boulders stuck in my eyes. It was too much. Too dangerous. After 2.5 kilometers, we headed back down. The descending was even harder than the climbing, even with the wind in our backs. Thank God we arrived safely down. For my birthday, Jenis took us to a luxurious hotel (that's stuck here for some reason), and so we had one of the best showers and beds in history of mankind.
The plans
We now plan to get back to town and head straight north to see the glacier Perito Moreno, and maybe climb it and do some "ice hiking". If time allows, we may be touring the Fitz Roy mountain and drive the Carratera Austral.

Kisses to all, pictures soon,
Boaz.