Our short encounter with ARGENTINA- El Calafate and El Chalten

The crossing into Argentina was fairly smooth, and after 7 hours we arrived in the town of el calafate. The accommodation prices meant that we had to suck it up and go for dorm rooms in a hostel- something we had managed to avoid so far. It wasnt the worst place by far but we were not used to being woken up by people entering and leaving the room late at night or early in the morning.

The tourists that visit Patagonia seem to be mainly either hardcore hikers with their tents and powdered mashed potato, or older people, most likely retired and able to spend money on nice hotels, tours and being fully kitted out with the best hiking attire, including hiking poles which are not actually needed for the short hikes their tours take them on. All the shops and restaurants were similar to UK prices if not higher, which meant we mainly resorted to cooking pasta with slight variations of vegetables at the hostel, which got boring fairly quickly. On the plus side, the wine was still extremely cheap- £1.50 a bottle. Shaaame.

Crazy birds doing crazy neck stretches 

Walking by the lake in El Calafate

Very Important Pup

The main place to visit in el calafate is the perrito morener glacier- about an hours drive from the town. We had seen glaciers before in New Zealand and glimpsed one in Chile, and from what we had seen they were just a big block of grey ice in the distance, so our expectations were not high. 

This glacier was definitely not the same. If you want your mind blown by a massive icy beast this is definitely the place to come. 

They said there would be ice, we paid to see ice....where is it?

Ah that might be it

The glacier and Jonno's hair, both competing for the title of Most Jagged and Unruly

Even the clouds are showing off

Metal walkways let you walk around the glacier, which is actually growing in size compared to all the others we have seen that are shrinking. It is 5km wide, and 74 metres tall. And as you watch it, you can hear the ice groaning and cracking, even seeing parts of it crumble and crash into the water. Seriously nature, you have done well here. We were also entertained by some of the other tourists and their attempts to get the perfect shot or video- one older lady wouldn't let her husband get a cereal bar out of her bag as she was so fixated on getting a video of the glacier breaking. We saw the same couple a few more times over the next few days, and were concerned that he was wasting away after the abuse we witnessed.

Ice ice baby

Videos of the ice breaking- we were not the only ones who were impressed! We hope Jerry got it too!

We also visited a museum of the history of Patagonia, starting from the dinosaurs who lived in the area including the Mylodon and Giganotosaurus, to the first civilisations and how they survived in the harsh and bleak area. At the beginning we were basically given a photocopied textbook of all the information, then had to sit and study it in front of a replica dinosaur.

Wouldn't trust this with a china tea set

We knew from our research that Argentina wasn't going to be a cheap place, but it was only when we had a free afternoon and sat down to plan out route that we realised that our original plan might drain our bank accounts more than we hoped. In the last few years, the economy has been very unstable and the prices of things have been massively inflated. We had wanted to travel back up the continent on the Argentina side, and visiting San Carlos De bariloche, Mendoza, Puerto madryn and Buenos Aires. However, after looking at the bus options, we discovered that each bus journey was going to be around £100 each (totaling around £1,000 for us both for the whole country), for what are apparently awful buses and would involve multiple journeys of 24 hours or more. We also checked flights, but the government puts a tourist tax on these and were also expensive. We spoke to people who had hitchhiked through the country, but we didn't feel this was something we wanted to do. After a frustrating few hours of trying to work a way around it, we came to the reluctant decision that maybe it was better for us to miss out the majority of Argentina for this trip, and to come back when either the exchange rate is more in our favour or when we can do it as a nice holiday rather than trying to work it on a backpacker budget. 

We checked flights and it was far cheaper for us to backtrack to Chile and then take a flight back up to Bolivia, so this is what we decided on. Before then, we could get the bus a little further to El Chalten and spend a few days here, making the most of our short time in Argentina.

Overlooking El Chalten

El Chalten was a 3 hour bus ride away, and is in a national park, which meant that the main activity was hiking.  Amazingly, they didn't charge an entry fee to the area, and also the hikes all started from the town, meaning we didn't have to stick to bus timetables to decide when we started our hikes. Again, we stayed in a dorm room in a hostel, which was overrun by earwig looking bugs, Jonno found one in his coffee and I found one in my bra as I was about to put it on. 

Seeing as we arrived at 11am, we decided to try 2 of the short easy hikes that day- one to a waterfall and the other to some viewpoints with some great views. As we had finished the second hike, I turned the corner and saw people taking pictures of something. Before I knew it an armadillo was heading straight for me- it bumped into my foot, hesitated apologetically for a second and then waddled away before I had a chance to introduce myself.

AHMAGAWD

Please stay and chat!

We had 2 days left and 2 hikes we wanted to do- an 18km 6 hour one to Laguna des Torres and a 20km 8 hour one to Laguna de Los Tres. We decided to start with the shorter one, and even though it was forecast for rain in the middle of the day, there was no clouds in the sky when we started, just a strong wind. After about 5km, we started feeling a few drops of rain but still there were hardly any clouds. By the time we had reached the Lagoon, the weather was do horrific we were struggling to stand upright and had to hide behind a rock with a guy who had been waiting an hour for the weather to improve. The clouds were so thick we couldn't really see the lagoon much. Defeated, we started heading back towards the town, and the further away from the lagoon we got the better the weather, and it was perfect sunshine for the last few kilometres. 

Looks allright..

...Okay maybe a little grey...

#Nofilter, a sight worth a 9km hike

The next day we decided to tackle the long hike. The first 9km were not so bad, until the last kilometre to get to the viewpoint of the Laguna de Los tres, which was a steep scramble up rocks but the views were pretty rewarding at the top.

Hello lagoon

To get back to Punto arenas for our flight to Bolivia, we had to go back the same route, bear hunt style. El chalten to el calafate, same hostel in el calafate, then back to Puerto Natales then back to Punto arenas. We stayed at the same lovely Airbnb for the 24 hours we had in Punto arenas, where the son of the family offered to take us and their other guest on a tour of the city.

Even though we only spent 9 days in Argentina, it seemed like a country worth exploring and we will definitely be planning a return trip to see more in the future! 

Cuenca and Loja

We arrived in Cuenca in the pouring rain and checked into our hostel. After a bad nights sleep due to the bright Christmas lights outside our window, making it basically daylight, and the noisy traffic on the road, we decided to spend some of the next day seeing the city and then get a 4pm bus to our next place, Loja. Apparently Cuenca is a very popular place for expats, and although it was fairly nice to walk around the streets, there wasn't too much in the town to keep us occupied and we ended up chilling in a park for a while before picking up our bags and heading for the bus terminal. 

Pup in pyjamas in a coffin shop

Ask for a coffee with milk, get hot milk and a jar of instant coffee

We had originally planned to get through these cities quickly in order to make it to the coast of Peru for new years eve, and had planned only 1 day in Loja, enough time to see the city and a free walking tour. There was also a viewpoint on top of a tower of the city gate which we walked to, and botanical gardens which we took a public bus to, only to find out when we arrived that it was closed between Christmas and New year. 

The city gate

Castle-y

View of Loja from the top

We got to the meeting point for the free walking tour, at the tourist information centre, with no sign of anyone else waiting or a guide. We asked at the information desk and were assured that it was happening, and sure enough about 15 minutes later a guide appeared. Looks like we were the only ones on the walking tour then. Can't really give an anonymous tip with that ratio.

Some kind of tree jumper

The guide took us around the streets and the plazas, showing us the place where cloister nuns still live- once they enter they can't leave the building, pretty much completely separated from the outside world except for a hatch where people can come to get traditional medicines that the nuns grow in their garden. There was also a music school which was originally the first high school in Loja, with a statue of the man who founded the school in the middle. Except that when the statue was being made it was mixed up with another statue of a guy from Chile and sent to the wrong place, the one that stands there is a random guy from Chile, nobody knows what the actual guy looks like. He also took us into one of the churches which had the biggest nativity scene in Ecuador and definitely put any other ones we had ever seen to shame- it was effectively a nativity village, complete with animal sound effects, moving figurines and even running water and lighting changing from night to day.

Loja is known for its music, and our guide informed us that even the bin lorry is musical and that the tune is a recording of the mayor whistling. 

A fair amount of time spent making this nativity

Night time in Bethlehem!

The guide also explained that every Thursday in the main plaza there is a free display from local musicians and dancers for anyone to attend, which luckily was that evening. Also it was a shame we were not staying for new years, people burn dummies with masks of famous people or characters to represent burning the past and making way for a new year and men dress in drag on the streets and ask people for beer money. 

Tiny musicians in oversized ponchos

We thought about it, it did sound interesting and we were both exhausted from almost 2 months on the road and jonno recovering from a stomach bug. Maybe we should stop for a few days, see the new years celebrations in Ecuador and then move on to Peru. 

If we were staying a few days we wanted somewhere that we could actually rest, and we managed to find an apartment in Loja for about $35 a night. It was about 2km from the hotel we were staying in, so we checked out and decided it was walkable. We knew it was going to be up a bit of a hill but didn't realise until we started that it was about 200 steps up which was pretty tiring with all our bags. When we arrived at the apartment, sweaty and sore, we were pleasantly surprised. A modern apartment with great views of the city, with a full kitchen and sofas and even an office corner with a computer. The perfect place to recouperate. And this is exactly what we did- apart from a couple of trips into town for food shopping, we spent a few days just enjoying not having to do much (apart from a lot of blogging to catch up on!) 

Blog headquarters

On new year's eve, we decided that we would head into town at about 9pm to see what was going on. We expected things to be happening around the main plaza if anywhere. As we walked though the streets, we saw a lot of dummies lined up and some taped to the front of cars. There was also bit queues of traffic building up on the streets, as the roads were being blocked off by men in wigs and minidresses, who were stopping every car and humping them, sometimes even climbing on the bonnet on all fours, until they were handed some money and then they let the car pass. Weirdly enough this hadn't put people off driving through the streets, and if anything there were more cars, almost as if people wanted to have their vehicle violated, even bringing their small children along for the ride. 

Selling the masks for the dummies in the marketplace

Bundled into the back of vans

And taped to the front of cars

Men in wigs and dresses accosting cars

Apart from these strange displays, nothing else was open and the main plaza was pretty much deserted. Maybe this is all there was. After walking around for about an hour and not finding much else except for a caterpillar train driving around erratically and a small fairground set up with stalls selling more dummies and masks, we were about to give up and wander back to the apartment. Just in case we were missing anything obvious, Jonno decided to ask a passer by if there was a party happening anywhere, to which the guy pointed towards an area a kilometre away at the city gate. We walked there and found there was a concert going on, so we decided to watch the concert with some kind of latino boy band playing, by this point there was only an hour until midnight. As we were flagging and it was waaay past my bedtime, we sat against one of the walls of the city gate to watch the concert and other people dancing, and a couple of minutes before midnight thought we should probably stand up and join in with the crowd. It was lucky that we did, as at midnight the tower above us exploded with fireworks, and a shower of sparks came down the walls, landing where we had just been sitting. We took a few steps further back, slightly concerned we were still far too close to the fireworks, ducking behind a stage to avoid the debris falling from the sky. After the fireworks had finished, we walked back through the streets towards the apartment, although now we had to dodge fireworks being set off in the street and fires in the middle of the road where the dummies had been set alight. Before midnight the streets had been filled with music and people, and on the walk back the music had stopped and streets were either deserted or had people somberly watching the fires or clearing up piles of ash from the streets- it felt like some kind of apocalyptic warzone. There were also children leaping over the flames, definitely no health and safety here! 

The moment the clock rolls over to midnight and the crazy fireworks ensuing!

Burning dummies

One more day to chill in our lovely apartment and then it was time to leave, even though we could have happily stayed there for another week. 

View of Loja from the apartment

A very early start to get to the bus terminal, and Jonno still being half asleep found a coffee vendor and got a very sweet black coffee to try and maintain consciousness. He had gotten halfway through it when we were approached by a grubby old man who smelt very strongly of alcohol, asking for money. When we said no, the man instead took the coffee from Jonno's hands and walked off with it, laughing with glee. Seriously, the crime in south America....

Poor dog just missed the bus..