Christmas and New Years 2016 in Patagonia
Brian and I spent the holidays in Patagonia, the Southern most tip of the world! We are ending our 1 year living abroad and traveling the world with a bang.
We are doing a 9-day tour of 3 Patagonian cities in Argentina and Chile:
El Calafate (ARG)
El Chalten (ARG)
Puerto Natales (CHL)
It's been an adventure filled 9 days of hiking and sailing glacier waters, climbing and trekking some of the tallest mountains in the world, and sight seeing.
The Patagonia tour so far has been an experience of a lifetime. I am in awe of the beauty and nature of vast open lands that surround this extremely remote corner of the Southern(most) hemisphere.
In El Calafate, Brian and I did an ATV tour of the Upsala Glacier and sailed the glacial waters of Lago Argentina.
Brian and I also did the BIG ICE TREK, a challenging trek across the world famous Perito Moreno Glacier.
It was windy, cold, and very challenging. My legs gave out like jello and I had a hard time seeing and walking. But when I got to see the hues of blue cavasses, deep holes, and lakes inside the glaciers it made the big ice trek totally worth it.
I am so glad Brian and I did this one in a lifetime glacier trekking because I am not sure when we will have a chance to do something like this again. (Well, maybe in New Zealand someday.)
See Brian's upcoming blog post about our big ice hike! He insisted on writing about this in detail.
Onwards from El Calafate, we took a 3 hour bus ride to El Chalten, Argentina's trekking capital where the world famous Mt. Fitz Roy is.
Brian and I did an "8 hour hike" in El Chalten.
I put quotes around the "8 hour" part because it was much more than 8 hours due to knee problems that hit me midway through the hike which was excruciating for both Brian and me.
We made it to the 9th kilometer out of 10 kilometers of the hike (each way.) Sadly, I had to opt out of doing the final stretch due to severe high winds at the top and my excruciating knee pain.
I am so bummed I wasn't able to make it to the top where there's a glacial lake.
But I'm thankful we still got to see so many beautiful views of Mt. Fitz Roy and the El Chalten mountain range on this 18 km hike.
The peaks, valleys, rivers, and glaciers. All stunning views I was captured on my camera. But keep in mind these photos don't do any justice of how beautiful it was!
On our final day in El Chalten, Brian and I did a relaxing 6 km hike to see waterfalls. We saw wild horses, and eagle looking hawks soaring high up in the sky.
Onwards to Puerto Natales on the Chilean Patagonia side.
After an 8 hour journey from El Calafate to Puerto Natales, Brian and I walked around the small Chilean Patagonia town.
They had a town square which is very common in South America due to its European influence.
They also had a busy supermarket, and a pretty harbor where we watched the boats sail by and sunset.
On New Year's Eve, Brian and I did a full day tour of Torres del Paine National Park.
We saw caves, lakes, waterfalls, rivers, glaciers, and the majestic Torres del Paine mountain range of Chile.
The water hues were aqua blue, almost turquoise from the glaciers melting.
We also saw many animals including rheas (ostrich looking birds,) an adorable armadillo who kept trying to steal tourists food, and my favorite: guanaco (llamas) which are possibly the cutest animals ever!
For New Year's Eve, Brian and I walked all over Puerto Natales devastated to see that all of the restaurants were booked for New Year's Eve.
Then we found Don George's Parrilla, a loud, friendly parilla taking in tourists and locals who didn't have any reservations.
The funniest part was that the owner of the restaurant (Don George?) was this jolly man who went around greeting all of the patrons in between serving the food. He would chop pieces of cooked lamb with his large butcher knife, put the butcher knife down, then shake hands and greet his patrons. I don't know how sanitary this restaurant was looking back, but you couldn't help but feel energized by owner's love that he had for his restaurants and patrons!
Brian and I ordered a set New Year's menu of king crab salad, zucchini quinoa, lamb and fish, and dessert paired with wine and champagne.
The highlight of New Year's in Patagonia was ringing in 2017 with the local Chileans and tourists counting down in Spanish!
"Diez, Nueve, Ocho, Siete, Seis, Cinco, Cuatro, Tres, Dos, Uno... Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!!"
Then the owner of the restaurant ran around the restaurant hugging and high five-ing all of the patrons.
"Feliz Ano Nuevo Senor! Feliz Ano Noevo Senorita!"
It was such a perfect and memorable way to ring in 2017 and bid 2016 adieu.
