Eva on the Via Francigena (and beyond)

Song of the Day: When You Awake — The Band

“Use your days and save your nights, be careful where you step and watch what you eat, sleep with the light on and you got it beat” first introduced to me by my father when I was walking the VF, I’ve fallen back in love with this song and it’s advice

I was jolted from sleep by what sounded, in my dazed state, like gunfire. As my brain caught up, I realized what I was hearing was my tent flapping loudly and rapidly in the bursts of wind. I opened my eyes to assess further — or at least, I thought I did, but I could register no difference at all between my eyes being open and closed, it was that dark. Once I found my headlamp and turned it on I confirmed my initial suspicion, as the tent platform rocked back and forth with huge gusts. The weather had only forecasted gusts up to 24 km/hr, but as I saw yesterday the weather here is very changeable. I struggled to fall back asleep with both the sound — I can not emphasize enough how loud it was — and the movement of the tent, and didn’t bother to check the time. With that little light it had to be 2 or 3am, probably, and with my alarm set for 6 It didn’t matter much. I managed to drift off eventually into intermittent sleep, and snoozed my alarm till 6:30.

At 6:30 it was light out already and I lay in my cozy sleeping bag, listening to the howling wind outside and trying to convince myself to get up and start my day. Another gust shook the tent. Ah, shit, I thought, today is going to suck. But I knew that there was a risk of the weather worsening, so I pulled myself together and began to pack up.

As it turned out, my initial assessment was dead wrong. I trudged sleepily over to the main Refugio building for hot water to make my oatmeal, which I ate outside with a view of the mountains (though my eyes were still half-closed from sleep). As I meandered back to the campgrounds, I gasped: on one of the foothills above camp, a herd of horses cantered across a clearing, spotlit in the sun below the tops for the Torres. After a brief photo session (of course), I made it back to my tent to slowly pack up, and as I did my final preparations I looked up to see a rainbow hanging over the campground in front of the mountains. A good omen to start what would end up being a fantastic day.

I set off around 7:45, so the sun was well up already but most campers, it seemed, were still having breakfast. Even better for me, as I retraced yesterdays steps past the hotel and over the bridge, before forking left (avoiding a steep uphill, thankfully, since I taped my knees today but they still were achey). The sun peeked out through the clouds as I made my way over low hills covered in what looked like puff-balls of low shrub. I admired the mountain that framed my view for much of the morning — Monte Almirante Nieto, according to my map. The scenery was beautiful and it did not take long until there were truly no signs of human life beyond the occasional trail marker. I was beginning to understand the comments I had seen talking about trekking in the park and really feeling like you are far away from everything — a huge (and welcome) change from yesterday. I thought about a trek my friend Tom did deep in the backcountry of the Scottish Highlands, where he had to periodically bushwhack, was navigating primarily with a compass, and was attacked by insects so frequently he had to wear a head net. On second thought, maybe I didn’t mind being close to civilization.

After fording a small stream I sat on its bank for a quick snack break. Far in the distance I could just barely make out the small shapes of hikers headed in my direction, the first people I had seen since leaving the campsite. After breaking into my dried mango supply — a bag I had been carrying with me since I left The US, and at this point was dying to get rid of the extra weight — I had a last few sips of water and continued on. I headed up a gentle uphill path, past a waterfall romantically named the “Traveller’s Cascade”, and then crested a hill on a wide, flat rock to a view of two shimmering lakes. Ahead of me the dark Laguna Inge, just a tiny dot on the map, and beyond it my first glimpse of the icy-blue Lake Nordenskjold. As you’ll soon see, much of this park has non-Spanish names, presumably honoring various foreign explorers of Patagonia, however I still found it funny to be stumbling over the name “Nordenskjold” in the middle of Chile.

The path was generally well-marked, except for when it wasn’t, and a few times as I traced along a hill overlooking the lake I struggled to pick out which of the many winding paths was correct. But that was fine, and I ambled along before stopping briefly for water at a lookout, admiring the shocking blue of the lake in front of me and the sunny mountain behind. From here, the path crossed another few streams, which I forded carefully to avoid slipping on the wet rocks, and then dove into the trees. Sometimes it narrowed so much I could hear the branches scraping along the sleeping mat strapped to the side of my pack — ouch, sorry. I forded another stream only to discover that the path actually was the stream now, and so followed the shallow water as it rushed downhill. Eventually I saw a few hikers — some probably O-trekkers (baed on their large packs and general aura of exhaustion) coming the other way, and a few fast hikers passed me from behind. The clouds had disappeared and the sun was strong, and seeing I was coming up on a river crossing I told myself I’d take the next scenic spot as an opportunity to reapply sunscreen, otherwise I’d stop at the river. Eventually the trail came to a clearing with another view of the lake, and I spotted a large reddish rock just uphill off the trail — perfect. I clambered over, dropped my pack, and sat down to peacefully enjoy the scenery. A bird flew down and sat behind me, unconcerned. It looked like a predator of some sort but I wasn’t sure which. I snapped a photo so I could ask Lukas to identify it for me later.

I soon arrived at the river, crossing over a low suspension bridge and uphill along a rocky path. Another mirador was coming up, so as pushed onward as the wind began to pick up. I arrived to whipping winds, but stopped anyway for a blister check and a quick snap. An Australian father of four insisted on taking a photo of me with the view (“something to send to your family!”) so I obliged as he snapped away. The morning’s mountain was now solidly behind me, and I had two exciting new companions: Los Cuernos, a two-toned, massive, jagged mountain jutting into the sky, and the majestic snow-dusted French glacier further along in the distance. As I continued along the path, I was passed by an American group (ugh, of course) blasting music from a staticky Bluetooth speaker. I wanted to call them out on it — not only is it not allowed in the park, it’s generally considered rude in the US as well, just use headphones — but thought better of it and waited for the crackling sounds of Paul Simon to eventually trail off.

I stopped at another viewpoint, this one with somehow an even better view of the Cuernos and Glacier. I stayed here for a long time chatting with people who passed — an Argentinian guy whose friends had ditched him and plowed on ahead, a French man who used to live in Singapore and was speedrunning the path it seemed, an American couple who had a friend who just started business school. I enjoyed the chance to chat and meet more people as, so far, the W had felt less social than expected. Central was so large, and the route had so many people going in both directions, that it was hard to figure out who was taking the same route as you that you would run into again.

I continued tracing along the edge of the lake, stopping periodically to admire the views of Los Cuernos and the glacier as they got closer. The path was covered in large, loose, rocks that required full attention. Keep my balance as I marched along also did a real number on my knees, which were beginning to ache again. Soon, though, I was just outside of Cuernos, descending a steep hill that required gripping a rope to prevent falling, crossing a bridge over a rushing waterfall, and then plopping down on the Refugio’s sunny porch. Happy to have my pack off, I changed into camp shoes and headed into the bar to charge my phone and have a quesadilla. As I headed back outside to check in, I watched three condors float far overhead, riding air currents in tight spirals around the peaks of Los Cuernos.

It was a short walk today and I had arrived early, so I enjoyed the extra time in my tent, reading and taking a nap as the weather outside worsened and rain blew in from the French valley. In the early evening I headed back to the bar where I chatted for awhile with Kaj, a Dutch O-trekker almost done with the trail — he told me about his plans for the Huemel Circuit in El Chalten, a multi-day hike I wanted to do but was intimidated by (you have to prove you have a harness to pull yourself across a river by rope, and a map since the way is not well-posted, which I thought was a lot for me to do solo). We agreed to keep in touch and maybe do some camping or trekking together when we crossed paths again in El Chalten. I made my dinner for the night — a cup-soup of bone broth (20g of protein!) brought from the US, with cous cous added to give it more volume. I’d tried this soup before in the US and couldn’t even finish half of it, it was so rich. Hungrier than expected, per usually, I polished off the whole things quickly and dug into one of my chocolate bars for dessert. While eating I chatted with the Italian couple next to me, Marina and Liam, about their time living in Amsterdam and my time living in Italy. We exchanged details and promised to keep in touch.

I sat for a bit longer with Kaj and the of the other campers chatting about the rest of our Patagonia plans, then headed off to bed for an early night, excited for an early start tomorrow.

Distance walked: 9.3mi / 15km

Elevation gained: 1017ft / 310m