Patagonia

I've been avoiding this post for waaay too long now, because I'm not quite sure how to describe the best trip of my life. I guess I've gotta start somewhere.

Sunday: So, I got to El Calafate in Patagonia AOK, and had an afternoon to kill by myself while everyone else was at the glacier. I walked around the town for a while, which reminded me a lot of downtown Bethel actually, just livelier. There are a ton of shops to a.) rent/buy hiking equipment, b.) get chocolate (I swear, I've had some of the best chocolate here in my entire life. They really know what they're doing.) and c.) buy lots of eclectic knick knacks. It was nice to wander around for a bit, and after I got bored and walked over to Laguna Nimez and enjoyed the view for a few hours. There were flamingos! It was really funny seeing their butts bobbing in and out of the water in the background of touristy pictures. After taking a nap lakeside, I met up with the others at an AWESOME hostel downtown, Che Legarto, and then Becca and I went to our couch surfer's house! It was two men, Christian and Pablo, who were 30 years old and best friends. While they hosted us, they also had 4 girls from Europe- needless to say the guys were very excited to have us all. Becca and I got some dinner and when we came back with the hopes of sleeping, we were faced with a gaggle of tipsy and giggling visitors. It was fine though, especially because Becca and I got our own beds!

Monday: Becca and I take the 8am bus to El Chalten, which is where the main attraction is.... FITZ ROOOYYYYY! The thing about Chalten is that it's a TINY tiny tiny town because it's located right in the middle of the national park, which is extremely rare. It's really in a perfect location because it's within a really reasonable hiking distance from all of the major mountains and epic treks, and it's got all of your traveling needs there. Becca and I walked around a bit, dropped our stuff at the hostel and then took a hike up a nearby mountain for a few hours which provided us with our first 360 degree view of the area, which absolutely took our breath away. On one side of the overlook there was Laguna Viedma, surrounded by vast chocolate and caramel marble-colored mountains. As the scenery changed to the other side, however, mountains were coated in forestation and snow, and became more rugged- especially catching view of Fitz Roy. We hiked back down after doing some yoga, and met up with Elisa and Kelly who were also staying at our hostel. We met some great people at the hostel that night that we ended up running into for the majority of the next week, which was a lot of fun! This list included some ridiculously goodlooking Swedish men... hubba hubba ;) Haha, lucky us.

Tuesday: Woke up early for our first day hike with the girls- we hiked out to Laguna Torro & Mt. Torre. The hike there was pretty hard in the beginning because it was alllll uphill, but it was really good foreshadowing for what was to come in the coming days. We made really good time- we cut the estimated time of the hike down a full hour! Weaving through the mountains took us to an incredible view of a rainbow over a waterfall... couldn't have been more perfect. We walked through fields, forests of dead birch trees (There must have been a small fire or something in the past years, although it did make the trees look strangely beautiful), and alongside the riverbed on our way to the grand finale.... Glacier Grande, sitting in front of Laguna Torro, resting in front of Mt. Torre! Glacier water is similar to that of the Caribbean- a seafoam, creamy turquoise color, but the shade differs from lake to lake- this one was a greyish green with big chunks of the glacier floating in it. It was hilarious actually, as we were summiting the trail to reach the lake, the wind was so strong that it was pushing us backwards and when we leaned forwards with all of our strength it still kept us standing up straight! We ate some lunch behind a wall of rocks, did some yoga, and after more admiration of our surroundings we made the trek back to El Chalten. It was a great day with the girls! After showering and getting some errands done for the big trek to start the next day, we met up with the full group that night at the local Cervezaria and got some of their freshly brewed beers. Albert surprised me with a birthday brownie and everyone serenaded me- just the first sign of the sincere thoughtfulness of the group.

Wednesday: Becca and I did some last minute renting (a legit backpacking pack, a tent, sleeping bags and mats) and headed up the Fitz Roy trail around 10:30am. Hiking with her is absolutely hilarious. We communicated mostly through song, movie quotes and other random manifestations. Within 45 minutes of the hike we stripped down to just sports bras and our leggings-- we were waaay too prepared for cold weather, and it was almost 60 degrees! There were some oldies on the trail who definitely thought we were out of our minds... and they were right. After only 2 hours we made it to the campsite Poincenot,where we set up our tent and had lunch by the Fitz river. It was funny actually, after hanging out for about 20 minutes, everyone we knew came out of the woods within minutes of eachother (including the strapping Swedish men) and we had a hilarious reunion. After some jokes by the campsite we went for another hike- out to Lago Sucia! This trek was much more complicated, as we were scaling boulders and things, but it was so much fun! In about an hour we made it to the lake, and it was amaaaazing. I can't remember the glacier that was above it, but regardless it was breathtaking. The lake itself was like a little peninsula, because on all sides it was surrounded by mountains and boulders. Then, somebody genius came up with the idea to skinny dip.... so skinny dip we did. I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling of my heart stopping the instant my body hit the water, but I don't regret the decision for a second. Who else do I know has gone skinny dipping in glacier water anyways?! After watching the sun set behind the mountains we climbed back to camp, ate some dinner, did some yoga and looked at the moon--- the moon was AMAZING that night because there was a rainbow around it! Believe me or not, it was there, and I'm taking it as a great omen for my birthday the next morning.

Thursday: Woke up at 5:15 am, ate some suuper quick breakfast, and the group of us hiked an hour up the nearest mountain to watch the sun rise. I especially loved this hike because a.) it got our blood pumping considering the entire thing was switchbacks and completely uphill, and b.) I got to wear my new head lamp and look allll sorts of legit. We made it to the top with some time to spare before the sun peaked, and as it did, I couldn't believe it. To my left was the orange sun beaming just above the horizon of mountains in the distance, which in turn dipped the top of Fitz Roy an incredible color pink. It was amazing watching Fitz turn a light pink, to a deep pink, to an orange and yellow.. god, even typing this gives me the chills! It was a morning I'll never forget. We laid around enjoying the view and each other for a few hours, and then continued the afternoon by climbing up Cerro Madson. It's to the side a little bit of Fitz Roy but at the same time perpendicular? If that makes sense? Anyways, we made it about 3/4 of the way  up because we were literally scaling boulders, climbing vertically pretty intensely, which is something I've never done before. I loved doing it with the group of 7 other people I was with, especially the guys because they've had experience and were taking the dangers of the climb seriously. Anyways, we ate lunch up there (also met some Belgiums while they were climbing that we hung out with a lot during the rest of the trip), hung out, and made it back to camp late again that night only to enjoy another EPIC moon! That's something that I'll forever cherish- the weather we had this week. We were literally hiking in sports bras and looking at crystal clear skies for days and days, which is extremely rare in Patagonia in general! There are a lot of travelers that go to Fitz Roy and NEVER see the peak... and I saw it for days on end!!

Friday: It was nice to sleep in this day, I think we got up around 8;30 to make some breakfast and get ready for the day. Becca, Anna and I ended up taking a girls day- we hiked for about an hour to another nearby glacier- Glacier Blanco. IT WAS SO FUN on this trail- we were jumping over huuuge rocks and boulders, on all fours, just running as fast as we could to get to the lake! The trail opened up like a mouth to the glacier's lake right underneath it- this glacier was sortof draped across the back of Cerro Madson. Around the lake were more rocks, and at the same time the three of us looked at each other and internally made the decision to get as close to the glacier as we could. And that we did- we made our way around the edge of the lake, making our own trail, and LICKED the glacier! We felt so accomplished having done that, considering the guys had been there a few days before and they said they couldn't figure out how to get close enough. Booyah. After dipping our heads in the glacier water we hiked back to the site and met up with some of the girls, packed up our camping gear and started hiking again (it's around 6pm)... only to realize that we had a 3 hour hike in front of us to get to the next campsite where the rest of our gang was waiting for us! We walked by Lago Madre and Hija, and explored some incredible terrain that ranged from what I'd imagine to be a combination of Kenya and Madagascar. I know, that makes absolutely no sense, but you'll just have to trust me. Regardless we made it to the site around 9pm and everyone was excited to see we weren't dead! We shoveled down our last camping meal (which ended up being something along the lines of lasagna, it was incredible), and walked 15 minutes to our last stop- Laguna Torro again! Becca and I had already been there during the week but we were thrilled to be there again to camp. 8 of us just sat there, under the full moon and stars, enjoying the surroundings and complete silence for at least 10 minutes. It felt incredible to be surrounded by a combination of some of the best people you've ever met, and the best scenery you've ever laid eyes on. After some more admiration we went back to camp, squeezed 5 people into the 2-person tent for an extreme snuggle session, only woke up early the next morning to watch the sun rise again.

Saturday: The sunrise, once again, was one for the books. Not a cloud in the sky. The shade of pink this time dipped Mt. Torre and his surrounding mountain friends in light pink and orange. While the sun rose, we climbed to a taller overlook and admired the Glacier Grande that's spread across the face of Torre. Twas another incredible morning filled with sun, a waterfall on the way back to camp, and trail mix. Ah, so much trail mix. We headed back to El Chalten with one thing and one thing only on our minds... WAFFLES AND BEER. There's a waffleria in Chalten that's EPIC, and we were alllll simultaneously craving a nice pint with some waffles drenched in ice cream and everything bad for you. So, we returned to Chalten, got exactly that, and then took the bus back to El Calafate and stayed at a hostel with a ton of other students.We called it a night really early... exhaustion and sore muscles had finally hit us hard.

Sunday: Woke up at a decent time, and walked around town in hopes of deciding what to do with our day. It turned out that the group of 6 of us who had been together since the beginning (Me, Becca, Bryan, Miguel, Albert and Adam) just got some liters, played pool in the hostel, napped, and enjoyed a day of rest and relaxation. We deserved it, no less! A bunch of other students came and met up with us, and we went out for a great dinner, leaving us absolutely stuffed. That didn't stop a bunch of college kids from getting nice and giggly drunk later on in the night- quite the 21st birthday celebration If I do say so!

Monday: While a lot of the group left to return to Buenos Aires, I stayed behind with some other girls and we decided to spend the day going to Perito Moreno. We caught the 1:00 bus and were at the park by mid afternoon, and we got to spend 5 whole hours staring at the glacier. It's freaking CRAZY! The thing about Moreno is that it's breaking a lot in the front that's visible to the public, but in the back it's actually growing at around 2 meters a day. It's GROWING AND BREAKING AT THE SAME TIME! It was wild to see enormous chunks break off and hit the water, not only because of how big they were but also because of the sound it made. The whole time we could hear the glacier creaking and moaning, but when there were chunks that broke, it really shocked us how loud it was.. it was pretty deceiving actually. Regardless we hung out for a few hours (with a carton of red wine no less) and made it back to the hostel for a delicious dinner made by my chef of a roommate, Julia. She is absolutely incredible in the kitchen, I tell ya. She's currently making us homemade hummus for God's sakes! Anyways, we turned in early that night and headed to the airport on Tuesday morning.

If you're still reading, I commend you. I would have stopped ages ago. I'm so glad this post is overwith, wholey smokes!