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First Hike into the Wild

We woke up early after a wonderful, restful sleep tucked away in our rustic Patagonian “cabin”.  It was eerily quiet and still.  The morning sun was barely coming through the seams of the heavy woolen curtains.  I peered outside the small window.  It was gray and looked cold; a dramatic change from sunshine and t-shirts just a day before in Buenos Aires.  Yet I did not hear that unforgettable, forceful wind that I remembered only too well from my last trip to Patagonia.  Fortunately for us, the vicious wind was nothing to worry about here.  It was nothing like the incredibly strong gusts of wind that nearly knocks you over backwards in Punta Arenas, Chile.  There, they actually have chains along the sidewalk for those brave souls to grab on to in the event of severe, forty to fifty mile per hour wind.  So I was relieved to know that El Chalten appeared to be better protected from those glacial winds. 

We ate a quick breakfast of delicious homemade breads, fresh strawberry jam, and fruit.  I secretly wondered where the food came from and how often it arrived in town.  We had not seen a single truck on Ruta 40, the only way in to El Chalten from El Calefate.  Yet the food was surprisingly good and amazingly fresh.  How on earth it got there was a mystery to me.

Our guide, Fabricio, from Cascada Expedicionnes was meeting us at eight o’clock sharp to begin our day.  It would be a short hike, only 5-6 hours, with not too many ups and downs.  A good “get in shape” hike to test out the waters and explore the park before hitting the bigger, more difficult ones.

Fabricio arrived exactly on time and off we went.  We wore several layers of clothing since it was fairly cold and dreary out that morning.  I had learned from my last two trips to Patagonia that when it comes to the weather, anything is possible.  You can literally have four seasons in a day going from short sleeve shirts and sweltering hot to maddening, wild wind, sheets of rain coming horizontally, sleet and even a full out blizzard.  This experience of the “four seasons in one day” happened to my husband and I when we were trekking the infamous “W” trek in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, where we got snowed in to a remote, mountain refugio. Thus, the bottom line is to be prepared and have multiple layers of waterproof and warm clothing packed in your day pack.  Otherwise you will be awfully wet, cold and miserable. 

It is also a must to have an excellent, broken in pair of hiking boots as well as sturdy set of hiking poles or “sticks” (with the Spanish accent it was always “steeks”).  The sticks are what save you when you have to pass through slick, slippery mud or snow-covered steep paths.  You not only need the poles for balance, but safety so you don’t kill yourself or your knees.

We set off with Fabricio and a husband and wife team from England, and were on our merry way.  Like my father, the English couple was in their sixties and in excellent shape.  They had traveled the world together, seeing much of it via foot.  I instantly gravitated towards them and we talked the entire time about their life together and of course their biggest adventures.  Unbeknownst to me, I learned about my next future trip from them, the incredible Annapurna Circuit Trek in Nepal.  They marveled about their experience and said it was a trip of a lifetime that I had to do.  Little did I know, that set the wheels in motion for what was indeed a trip of a lifetime and was recently completed in November of 2010.

The best thing about El Chalten is that it is so small that the trails leading to the mountains and incredible views are not a far walk from town.  Within ten to fifteen minutes, you are able to reach all the trailheads and suddenly all symbols of mankind are erased from your mind, except the infrequent hiker passing you by on the trail.    It is truly incredible.  There are no huge, annoying parking lots loaded with overflowing tourist buses.  No McDonalds.  There really isn’t much of anything except a couple hundred unpresumptuous buildings, one main road and the wild.   A perfect place, in my opinion, to get away from it all and escape.

Here are some photos along the way:

Day 1 of our first trek.  We left at 8 am directly from our hotel, walking right down the main steet in Chalten.  Chalten was formed in 1985.  It now has 2-3000 inhabitants but before then, there was nothing.  It felt like middle of nowhere probably because it was.  There was nothing there except a handful of houses, buildings and the great outdoors.

View of the town with Mt. Fitroy in back:

At the trailhead (1st hike):

Our destination, above:

Hiking instructions:

View of the town below (tiny tiny):

Despite the snow and cool air, Spring is in the air.  Blossoming shrubs dotted the snow packed trails giving one a splendid contrast of color:

Far away shot El Chalten…you can see how remote the town is.  Beyond the town, there is nothing for hours until you reach El Calafate three and a half hours later on Ruta 40:

Getting colder.  Snowed night before so all the mountains are covered:

My favorite pic…My dad and our guide—picture shows mysticism of place:

And this is Spring in Patagonia: Fresh snow on the mountains!

At the top, a cold lunch picnic (picture of my father and I):

Coming down…rugged, jagged Patagonia in all its glory:

Heading back to town (village in background):

PINCH ME….AM I REALLY HERE?

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The Tiny Outpost in the Middle of Nowhere

El Chalten is a different kind of place, an outpost in Patagonia, in the middle of nowhere.  It was established in 1985 as a trekking base for mountaineers who wished to summit the nearby, towering and difficult Cerro Torro and Mount Fitzroy.  It began slowly with only tents and today, twenty-five years later has a handful of small restaurants, hotels and shops.  The local population is about 2,000-3,000 residents depending upon the time of year.  Some people stay only during the main tourist season from October to late April, when the mountains and trails are accessible and tourists flock in.  Others remain for the whole year, living through the intense Patagonian winter and are nearly cut off from the rest of civilization until the Spring arrives in October.  It is a wild place, like no place on earth, and is a fitting location to explore the spectacular, divine Los Glaciares National park.

Here are some photos of El Chalten to stir up your imagination:

The town of El Chalten:

Our little humble hotel in Chalten.  El Puma.  It was actually quite lovely with a wood burning fireplace in the reception area and nice rooms:

The llama outside the hotel…watch out!  They spit!

Entrance to the town:

El Chalten from the mountains, in the valley below:

The one and only main drag in town:

The only grocery store:

The lone convenience store:

The road leading up to our hotel.  I couldn’t get enough of this old, crazy car:

For such a small town, I found lots of interesting photo opps:

Symbol of living in a small, remote town:  A classic!  My impatient Dad, waiting at the ONLY Atm in town, with the bank car there, yet you couldn’t get any money.  The wire connection was down.  No cash for the entire town until tomorrow.

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El Chalten: The End of the World

The flight down to El Calafate takes about five hours non-stop from Buenos Aires.  It is hard to believe that Argentina and Chile stretch for so many miles from north to south (Chile is an extremely long country covering 2,653 miles from north to south while Argentina is slightly shorter at 2,268 miles from north to south).  During the flight south you can really capture the amazing distance between the two ends of the country as the landscape and geography dramatically change from lush, green farmland and pastures to barren, wind-blown, flat pampas and jagged, snow-capped mountains and glaciers.  It is like going from one extreme to the other and the change is quite startling.

We left for Calafate early in the morning.  It was almost 30 degrees Celsius in Buenos Aires that morning and we were sweltering hot in t-shirts and pants.  As we descended into El Calafate, the landscape had dramatically changed from vibrant greens to dusty browns and the wind was so incredibly fierce that the plane bounced around like a flying rollercoaster.  Having traveled to southern Patagonia before, I was prepared this time for the hair-rising landing into windy, turbulent Patagonia.  My stomach still dropped and my palms still sweat, but I knew that this was to be expected because Patagonia is by far one of the windiest places on earth. 

The airport was located in a flat, open plain with little vegetation and little to see.  El Calafate, which is named after the calafate berry which is prominent in this part of the world, is a small, tourist-based town that does not have much to offer besides a strip of overpriced restaurants, shops and hotels.  Most tourists use it as a launching off point to visit the world-famous Perito Moreno Glacier or some of the remote, yet priceless National Parks that surround the glaciers and craggy mountains in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia.  There has been much debate over which Patagonia is better and as someone who has been to both sides, I find them both equally magnificent.  Realizing how important the spectacular landscape of Patagonia could be for the invaluable, lucrative tourism industry, both Chile and Argentina have fought for control over the land resulting in a funny, dotted and somewhat jagged line on the map splitting up Patagonia into a horizontal jigsaw puzzle from north to south.  Yet somehow it manages to work.  I learned quickly that you should never discuss this with the natives, however, as it is still a sensitive, thorny subject.

Once in the town of Calafate, we had time for a short lunch where we met a representative from our tour operator, Cascada Expedicionnes (the company I used several years before during our trek in Torres del Paine) and then headed off to the small, rundown bus station at the end of town where we would enter into the next leg of our long journey, a three and a half hour bus ride through the vast pampas and nothingness, until reaching the tiny outpost of a town, El Chalten:  One of the last frontiers before heading off into Los Glaciares National Park. 

There was only one bus a day to El Chalten, which left at 6:30 pm and arrived by 10 o’clock.  As expected, the bus station was jam packed with Gortex and backpack clad trekkers all heading to the same tiny village at the foot of the stunning, massive Mounts Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre and Puntiagudo.    

The bus was remarkably silent for being so full.  Perhaps the others were just as tired as us.  There was nothing to really see and nothing to really say so we just sat back and tried to enjoy the long, bumpy ride.  We stopped about half way along the way at the tiny one-building/hotel town of La Leona, which is the infamous hideout of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  There was absolutely nothing there except a hotel, a ranch and the tourist propaganda.   (This picture below represents THE town.  Sign indicated directions to all countries from that point). 

We boarded the bus after a fifteen minutes break and were on our way.  The sun began to set across the vast, flat pampas and the bus was completely silent for the remainder of the ride.

We arrived in El Chalen at night in the dark.  It first appeared as a glimpse from the distance.  It was black all around.  Total darkness except for the soft light coming from the bus headlights, bouncing off the barren landscape and empty pavement.  No street lights.  No cars.  Nothing.  Just darkness. 

Then there it was.  First a twinkling of light.  Then as we approached, more.  Several old fashioned lampposts lined the streets of the small mountain town, an outpost, at the end of the world.  It reminded me of some kind of Hollywood movie set for an old western film that used to run on TV in the middle of the night.  It was like no place I’d ever been; it didn’t feel real.

The bus drove down the one and only street, slowly passing rustic shops, restaurants and small, dated hotels until in no time it reached the makeshift bus station, a small, basic backpackers’ hostel.  We got off the bus, with knees aching and fatigue setting in, to find our host, Diego, smiling and welcoming us to the car.  We drove the short distance to our small, basic hotel, El Puma, and settled into our room.  But our night could not end without a much necessary bottle of deep, ruby red Malbec and a conversation with Diego about the hikes planned for the next few days.  I was looking forward to exploring this mysterious, remote land.  When I reached the room, I had no problem drifting suddenly and soundly asleep into a blissful, restful sleep.

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Leaving Nepal

We spent our last night in Nepal attending another Culture night (music, dance and food representing a variety of diverse Nepali Cultures) with Rajan, the President of Earthbound Expeditions.  Another couple from Spain joined us for the last hurrah in Nepal.  The couple was recently married and spent the last two weeks on their honeymoon in Nepal touring the remote Mustang region, a newly opened trekking area which has very limited facilities (basically camping the entire time) yet is supposedly Tunbelievable. 

We had a wonderful time sharing stories of our treks and praising Rajan for his remarkable service and commitment to ensuring every need was met on our trek.  Another friendship was made with the “social ambassador” himself (see post dated 2/28/11).  Rajan depends a lot on word of mouth for his business so we promised him that we would complete a review of Earthbound and our trek on tripadvisor, which I gladly did immediately upon my return to the states.  Earthbound has over 126 reviews on tripadvisor to date and all are 5 stars.  To read the reviews, go to: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293890-d1148178-Reviews-Earthbound_Day_Expeditions-Kathmandu.html)

Since this was my last night in Nepal, I had time to discuss with Rajan and also reflect on what the “third eye” had discovered and learned in Nepal.  Hari, our cultural, nonstop smiling and laughing guide really taught us a tremendous amount and our experience in Nepal would not have been the same without him.  We learned about the importance of religion in Nepal and how Buddhism and Hinduism coexist somehow without problems.  We also learned about how the culture is struggling to move ahead into the future.  There needs to be some give and take between abandoning some of the old traditions and customs (such as the caste system which is still very prevalent in Nepal) and modernizing to newer, more western traditions.  For instance, living together as an unmarried couple is pretty much unheard of in Nepal and is unacceptable.  Marriages are not always “arranged” per se, however, the entire courtship process in Nepal is much different than it is in the States.  Prospective brides are usually picked out from the village or a neighboring village and are of the same caste.  The prospective groom meets with the young woman and talks to see if there is any interest in a union.  Love marriages happen but are not that common.  Dating before marriage is still something that isn’t really done. 

As for the male and female’s role in Nepal, women do not have anywhere near as many freedoms and rights as women do in other countries.  Women are expected to work very hard, raising the children, keeping the house, cooking the meals, and working in the fields.  It is the male that holds the most esteem, respect and responsibility in the family structure.  The oldest son is responsible for caring for his parents as they grow old and often returns to the village to help out with the harvesting, and is involved in important religious ceremonies and holidays.  Due to lack of opportunities and poverty, many women end up in prostitution, either by choice or not.  It is a sad reality that needs to be addressed. 

Hari, as a twentysomething, modern young Nepali man with a bright future, hopes that Nepal can move ahead economically and socially soon.  However, change is slow and the government is very corrupt.  There is a lot of opportunity in Nepal yet no real infrastructure or jobs.  Hari hopes someday Nepal can follow the path of other neighboring stars such as India and South Korea while retaining their rich cultural heritage and importance of family.  It is a mixed bag that is for sure.  For one thing, the people in Nepal are lovely people and their culture is absolutely amazing.   Yet they are much too poor overall and lack education and opportunities (ranked 142 out of 177 countries on the UN Human Development Index; 82% Nepalis live on less than $2 a day; Literacy rate of 48.6%—-facts from Lonely Planet Nepal 8th edition).  It is a tragedy however hopefully bright stars like Hari and Rajan, through their work, will help move Nepal slowly forward, one step at a time. 

We left Nepal early the next morning, headed for our final leg of the trip, a few days in India.  It was a bittersweet feeling boarding the plane.  As we lifted off, we passed above the vibrant green rice terraces, stacked up towards the sky and over and beyond the magnificent snow-capped mighty Himalayas.  I felt that I had experienced a lifetime in only two weeks.  It was a peculiar feeling.  I was very sad to be leaving but I knew deep down in my heart, that I would be back.

Our final night out during the continuation of The Festival of Lights, in Kathmandu Nepal:

 

 

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Blessed by a 95-year-old Monk

We left Pisang early in the morning after a breakfast of hot oatmeal and mint tea, and headed to Manang.  There are two routes to Manang:  The short (4 hours tops) and the long (7-8 hours).  We chose the long one (after much pressure on my dad who would rather have done the easy one) which took us up above the valleys climbing into the clouds.  It was our first and only “bad” weather day and to our chagrin, it snowed.  Being from Minnesota, I of course am accustomed to snow and cold weather, however, we were mainly disappointed about the lack of view.  The gorgeous mountain views were blocked behind the snow clouds and occasionally we would see the white tip of the mountain poking out of the clouds.  It was a disappointment since the main reason we took the extended hike was for the marvelous views but we felt blessed to have had so many amazingly, spectacular days. 

Our hike was remote and lonely stopping briefly in a small village where we had hot apple pie and mint tea.  We finished our long day in Manang, a special place that is one of the largest, most wealthy villages in rural Nepal and is known for the bakeries.  Although we were eight days walking from the end of the road, we still at last were able to feel somewhat connected to civilization by the appearance of internet cafes.  The service was spotty, but still! 

Probably one of the coolest cultural experiences of the entire trip was our visit to the Manang monastery.  Due to Manang’s high altitude (11,483 feet), most trekking groups stop there for a day or two of acclimatization.  An excellent acclimatization hike is to the famous Manang monastery, about another hour and a half straight up the mountain above Manang.  There, lives the magical, 95-year-old Monk and his daughter (who is 65) in a cave monastery.  The highlight of the chest-pounding, barely-able-to-breathe hike up is to be blessed by the monk.  Upon entering the cave, you wait in line and when it is your turn, you receive a personal blessing from the Monk.  He places a string necklace around your neck (or else for $7 you can upgrade to a beaded necklace), says some Buddhist prayers and well wishes (which of course you don’t understand) and then you leave to see the most magnificent, spiritual view of the entire trek to date:  The incredible, mighty Himalayas in all their glory. 

It is truly an amazing experience and I did not take those beads off until I landed safely at home in the States a week or so later.

Being Blessed by a 95-year-old Monk:

 

 

View of Manang cave monastery:

The splendid views of Manang and the Himalayas:

 

 

 

View the previous day, on approaching Manang (the only cloudy day we had the entire trip!).  Check out the village, hanging on the side of the cliff:

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What you get for $2/night: Lodging in a Third-World Country

The first major dose of severe culture shock hit me when we arrived, after nine long hours of miserable travel, at our destination, Bhulbule.  It was already getting dark so our guide Hari had to find the first teahouse available.  Teahouses are pretty much the only accommodations available in most of the remote villages throughout Nepal.  They are extremely basic, usually having a traditional kitchen on the first floor (where the family lives) that has a wood-burning stove, and very basic, small rooms one or two stories above the common area.  Each room typically has a wooden bed with a thin mat and no blankets (hence need to pack your own sleeping bag).  If you are lucky you will have a small table or an extra chair to put your belongings on, and sometimes electricity but it is sparse.  The communal bathroom was the biggest shock of all.  I knew they would be bad but was not prepared or expecting to discover how bad the bathroom situation really was.  At the teahouse all toilets were located down the hall, in a dark, smelly room with two foot pads and a hole.  A bucket of water and a trash can were located adjacent to the toilet.  After such a long, terrible day, my first sight of the toilet made me gasp in horror.  I’d been to places in Europe with the squat toilets but it wasn’t that frequent.  I began to worry how on earth I would survive twelve long days trekking and staying in the teahouses without my beloved, clean western toilet.  To make matters worse, there was no running water to wash your hands, no toilet paper, and the communal shower was ice cold and just as basic as the toilet.   Ironically enough, our teahouse was called “The Heaven Guest House” but there definitely wasn’t anything the least bit heavenly about it.  I found the name to be so ironic that it made me laugh despite myself.  As I would later discover, almost all the teahouses along the trek had such hilariously, similar names such as The Paradise Inn, Hotel Dreamhouse, and The Shangri-La. 

The owners of the guesthouse were nice and friendly and the food was edible but the culture shock that first night was unbearable.  Of course I’ve experienced it many times before.  Usually the first day or two in a new country, culture shock is a common, normal experience.  It takes a few days to get used to the new culture and either accept it or reject it.  But this time, the culture shock was severe and it was a terrible feeling.  I wanted desperately to go home but was ashamed to admit it, especially to my dad.  I wondered why on earth I’d ever decided to go to Nepal and wish I could click my magic shoes together and instantly arrive at home, just like Dorothy.  As I climbed into my hot, sticky sleeping bag that night, I closed my eyes and prayed tomorrow would be a better day. 

Our first teahouse (view from the outdoor “dining room”):

 

 

We didn’t stay here but I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it! 

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