Eva on the Via Francigena (and beyond)

Song of the day(s): Babylon – David Gray

“Let go of your heard, let go of your head, feel it now”

I’m so horrifically far behind on these updates, this already feels like a lifetime ago. Now that I’m not going day by day anymore, I’m hoping to catch up a bit quicker…as they say in Argentina, however, vamos viendo…

After 5 days of early wakeups and long walks, I was happy to get a proper nights sleep with four walls, a proper bed, and a room to myself. What luxury! But, I only had one day in Puerto Natales and I had some errands to run — and I had no food except for my emergency peanuts, so it was almost time to venture out in search of breakfast. After quickly preparing my laundry to drop at Puerto Natales’s one and only wash-and-fold (this was relatively easy: just dumping everything from my backpack into a bag), I headed into town and stationed myself at a cute cafe to eat and write.

After an hour or so and a slice of some lemon cake thing, I dropped my laundry off and went on a wander around the town, scoping out places for the celebratory meal I had promised myself. As I had assured my Navimag friends, I wanted to try the king crab that is common in the cold southern Patagonia waters. In the end I settled on Sentolla, an upscale seafood place in a repurposed shipping container (it sounds like it shouldn’t make sense, yes….but it works), where I had kind crab legs with clarified butter and an herb sauce, and a glass of Patagonian Pinot Noir. Everything was delicious, and as I headed out the door I waved to a Brazilian couple I recognized from the last few nights of the W trek, who were just settling into their meal.

Exhaustion hit after lunch, so I retreated to the Airbnb for a nap before picking up my clothes (running into Peter and Rosie at the laundromat and saying our final farewells), and then headed to a barbecue restaurant for dinner to try another local speciality. This time it was lamb — grilled over a hot fire on a type of asado that makes it look like the lamb has been crucified. It cooks slowly (they had just put it on the fire at 1pm when I had walked by) and sells fast — I was advised to come eat before 7. So, I enjoyed a massive portion of lamb that was extremely tasty, chatting with the table next to me — four American Mormons, two on mission in Puerto Montt and two visiting. They shared stories of their experiences traveling in the U.S., South America, and Europe.

After dinner I re-packed my bag and headed to bed, as the next morning was an early wake up. At 5:30 I stumbled downstairs, fixed a quick breakfast, and headed out to catch my bus to Argentina. Thankfully, the departure point for this bus had been moved – rather than having to walk the 30 minutes back to the terminal, I could catch it from a station just 10 minutes from the Airbnb. After some delays and confusion, I managed to snag a row to myself, and we cruised out of Puerto Natales in the early morning light, passing the now-familiar landscape between the town and Torres del Paine. Eventually we turned off the paved highway and scraped our way along the gravel road to the border, where we disembarked in a light rain, had our passports inspected by Chilean immigration, and then reboarded the bus. We trundled along for a few minutes before getting to Argentinian immigration — here another bus had already unloaded, so I dozed off for the 45 minute wait for our turn. Eventually we once again got off the bus, get our passports stamped, and lo and behold — I was in Argentina! A new country for me.

We finally departed the bumpy gravel road and were back on the highway, now cruising along Argentina’s famous Ruta 40 that crosses the length of the country. Outside we passed vast nothingness: scrubby bushes, the occasional rhea, and lunar landscapes of large rocks and rolling hills. The size, and emptiness, was impressive. The bus stopped briefly at a hotel — the only sign of civilization except for the road for hours. I gladly purchased a choripan from a man standing outside, grilling up sausages on the cylindrical grills common in this part of the world. I ran into Luigi, my Italian buddy from the W trek, who had apparently been on the other bus we saw at customs — we said a quick hello before my bus headed back out.

In total, it was 5 hours on the bus, and I got a good nap in. Arriving in El Calafate to more wind, and surprisingly warmer weather, than Puerto Natales, I rearranged my layers and walked the twenty minutes to the hostel where I set about booking tickets to visit Perito Moreno glacier the following day. Afterwards I headed into town in search of a new hat to replace my lost beanie. I was surprised by the town of El Calafate, and not positively. It was bigger than Puerto Natales but primarily centered around one main strip full of tacky souvenir shops and massive steakhouses. The few outdoor shops were selling insanely overpriced goods — asking $30 for shitty acrylic hats!! If this was less expensive than El Chalten, as I’d heard, I was in for a real shock. Finally, in a small shop selling knitted items I saw they had an “oops” bin full of items with problems, going for 5,000 pesos (about $5) each. Far beyond caring about my appearance, I grabbed a black beanie that seemed in decent shape — just a bit misshapen — and headed back to the hostel. There, I ordered the asado (barbecue) for dinner and was shocked when a near-endless supply of meat was brought out, covering the entire table. I finished what I could and planned to wrap up the rest for lunch the next day at the glacier. After all, tomorrow would be an expensive day — the bus each way was about $50, plus the $45 park entrance fee, plus a boat trip that I had been talked into by the guy at the front desk at the hostel….

So, the next morning I raided the hostel breakfast and prepared myself a snack bag of a steak sandwich, an apple, and an alfajore, a traditional Argentinian cookie made from dulce de leche. A group of us waited for the bus to pick us up from our hostel (this was somewhat confusing, as a variety of buses would pull up, shout a few names, and then tear away). I chatted with an English couple in their 50s who were criss-crossing their way across South America. Finally, the bus arrived and I did my best to take a nap while the on-board guide rambled about Calafate flowers.

We stopped by the roadside to take photos of Lago Argentino, the biggest lake in the country. Route 40 stretched out aimlessly in either direction, with only the occasional erstwhile pickup truck speeding by. I wandered by two British guys whose relationship to each other I could not figure out — one was young, with close cropped hair, baggy sweatpants, and sneakers. The other seemed to be about my age, dressed in the classical finance bro uniform of a quarter zip and loafers. I’d never seen two people less prepared to go to a glacier, and two people less likely to be traveling together. Even after getting their names (the young one, Joshi; the older one, Tarquin, which he made sure to also pronounce with a hard-r American accent in case I hadn’t caught it) I still couldn’t figure them out.

We returned to the bus, spent another hour or so entering the park, dealing with entrance fees, etc. and then the English couple from before and I headed off to our boat. We spent about an hour on the boat, sailing close to the glacier. I found a quiet spot on deck to eat my steak sandwich and watch the view go past. Honestly, I regretted booking the boat — while I generally love a good boat trip, this was expensive on top of an already outrageously expensive entry / bus fee, and really it didn’t feel like it offered the best views of the glacier. I kicked myself for letting myself be upsold in my exhaustion but, so it goes.

Finally, the bus dropped us off at the boardwalks lining the hillside across from the glacier — the highlight of the experience. I wandered for an hour or two along the walkways, climbing up and down, and doing my best to avoid the crowds. At the main viewpoints the park had set up professional photographers, with lights and everything. They directed and snapped away at improperly dressed tourists in flashy clothes, posing as if for a magazine. I found the whole thing sort of grotesque and tried my best to avoid it, though I found myself watching in horror whenever I came across it. This setup, plus the boat situation, plus how much everything seemed to cost here, had put me in a bit of a bad mood. Was this how the rest of Argentina was going to be? Overpriced and overcrowded? A far cry from the serenity of Chilean Patagonia (even if I had run into crowds there, too)?

With these thoughts swirling, I tried to focus on the reason I was here: the Perito Moreno glacier. Compared to Grey, it’s massive, rising over 70 meters above the deep blue lake in some parts. For a long time, it was one of the few glaciers in in the Southern Patagonia ice field that was not in retreat — and I’d been looking forward to a glacier visit less likely to inspire existential angst. However, the signs around the park noted that this, too, had begun to retreat in 2020. Damn it.

The glacier itself is impressive, and I enjoyed just staring at its face, admiring the craggy face and the glimpses of deep blue that you could see in the crevasses. It rumbled as unseen icebergs calved off the face, dropping into the water below. I watched a few small pieces drop near me, and saw one of the existing floating icebergs flip over as it melted. It was strangely mesmerizing — a bit hypnotic, even — and I sat at one viewpoint for a long time, engrossed.

On my way back to the bus I passed a familiar backpack, and heard a voice in Italian describe an American girl walking in Canterbury. “Ciao, Luigi,” I greeted him with a smile. “Here she is!” He responded in Italian, and explained he had just been telling two French women from his hostel about me. I greeted them both and wished Luigi well — we might cross paths again in El Chalten, where I was headed to this evening and he tomorrow. He was concerned about the weather and the chances of actually seeing Fitz Roy, but again — so it goes.

Finally, it was time to go. I ran into the British boys again on the bus, and this time got to meet Tom, Joshi’s uncle and the third of their trio. Tom and I got along well — he’s had a very interesting life I was keen to hear about, and he told me about his experience working in the textile manufacturing industry and living in Shanghai, India, Egypt, and Turkey in his twenties while building the business. I shared a bit about my travels in the last few years and my plans for my next move. We exchanged numbers and planned to meet up again in El Chalten in the next few days.

Back in Calafate now, I had a somewhat tight connection to make my bus to Chalten. The bus driver from the glacier kindly agreed to wait “cinco minutos, por favor” while I grabbed my luggage from the hostel, and saved me a 20 minute walk to the bus terminal. There I bought an empanada and secured a window seat headed into Chalten, settling in for a three-hour ride into more empty countryside. Onwards and upwards, right? Literally, as I headed I to the mountains — body still aching but ready to get back on the trail.