Patagonia, that’s a wrap

Hola amigos!

Fletch and I closed the books on part one of our trip. We started our journey in Punta Arenas, Chile with the penguins and then moved north to Puerto Natales to do the O trek in Torres del Paine National Park.

After the O trek we went to El Calafete, Argentina. At this point Fletch and I were both quite ill from being outside in the cold, snow, wind, and rain for a week that we ended up not seeing much in El Calafete and staying in bed. The main draw in town is visiting a glacier. You can take a boat and cruise near the glacier or walk on the glacier. We didn’t do that since we were feeling so lousy.

We did, however, wait in line for two hours to get Argentine pesos we wired to ourselves. If you haven’t heard about the blue rate in Argentina let me attempt to explain it to you.

Argentina has two exchange rates. One is the official rate. The other is the blue rate.

When you google $1 USD to Argentine pesos, you’ll likely get a number around $1 USD = 350 pesos. The second rate, or blue rate as it is sometimes called, is around $1 USD = 850 pesos. That is a MASSIVE difference. The way to get the blue rate is to either bring large bills (specifically crisp $100 USD bills with the blue strip, hence the term blue rate) or wire yourself money using the bank Western Union.

When you get Argentine pesos either through exchanging USD or using the bank Western Union it will be the blue rate. If you went to a regular ATM to withdraw money, I’m not sure if you would get the blue rate. We didn’t try. Credit cards are a toss-up. Toward the end of our time in Argentina we were low on pesos and only had $20 bills which don’t get you a very good rate, so we rolled the dice and used our visa. To our surprise we often got the blue rate. It varied a lot – one time it was 700 and another time close to 900. I have no idea how accountants do their job in Argentina. Hotels don’t even know how much they’re charging for rooms. For example, we had to make a last-minute booking because of our food poisoning and extend our stay. Online it was going to be $220 USD. We get to the hotel, and she only charges us $116 USD. The concierge basically calculated the amount she needed in pesos and converted between the rates to give us the blue rate. We think visa made some deal to use the blue rate since we’ve gotten it every time we use the card. However, it varies sometimes it can be quite low around 650.

If you’re planning to visit Argentina, bring crisp $100 USD bills to cover the entire cost of your trip.

Changing money is much easier than wiring yourself money and waiting in line for hours and hoping they’ll have cash available to give you. At the El Calafate location for the bank Western Union, they set a max of 180,000 pesos per person per day which is about $210 USD. We tried going in the afternoon one day and they were out of cash. Fletcher and I each wired ourselves $200 USD and it worked! However, they gave us MANY one hundred notes which is the equivalent of 11 cents in USD. When I picked up my $200 USD, I was given 320 five hundred notes and 96 one hundred notes for grand total of 416 notes!!! It was the weirdest thing walking out of the bank with literally hundreds of bills. I felt like a criminal, and/or I should have gotten a money belt!

The other odd experience in Argentina is exchanging the cash you bring.

Depending what town you’re in, it could look like going into a clothing store and exchanging with the cashier. She’s counting your money while people are shopping and trying on clothes. Or it could look like someone yelling “cambio” on the street which means change and you say yes. They take you into the back room of their jam and jellies store to a money counter machine and give you the money. Argentina’s newly elected president wants to remove their currency and switch to the US dollar. We shall see if that happens. Ecuador uses the US dollar and I’m excited to experience that.

Once Fletch and I got our money in El Calafete we rested up and took the bus to El Chaltén.

El Chaltén is a small town considered the trekking capital of Argentina. It’s also a climbing mecca and is home to the famed Fitz Roy Mountain. Fletch could not be more excited to visit since he’s read about it in climbing books over the years. We arrived still feeling a bit under the weather, so we rested for a few days and then did two big treks. The first hike, Laguna Torre, we did with a friend we met on the O trek. It was a relatively flat hike which was a really nice change compared to the constant up and down of nearly all other hikes we had done.

The second hike was the more famous one called Laguna de los Tres where you hike up to the Fitz Roy Mountains.

The views at the top were breathtaking. I could not believe the beauty of the jagged mountains contrasted with the heavy snow and the bright blue water below. It is probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Fletch and I talked a lot about Yosemite and how it compares to Fitz Roy. We agreed its of equal beauty in a completely different way than Yosemite because of the intensely pointed and jagged peaks.

The next day we did a short hike to some waterfalls.

After a month into the trip, we tired of big treks. Warm weather and sitting in a beach chair sounded very appealing.

That evening, we had dinner with another friend we made on the O trek. It was Thanksgiving and we shared a nice meal until an hour later our stomachs started to churn and the food wouldn’t stay down. Our first and likely not only food poisoning of the trip. We discerned it was from a prosciutto sandwich. We were supposed to take a 24-hour bus ride the next day to northern Patagonia. That was not going to happen since we couldn’t be more than 10 feet away from a toilet. Our hotel was sold out, so we scrambled and luckily found a room at another hotel. The next day we were feeling a little better and good enough to take the bus.

The bus ride was okay. The seats were comfortable enough and we had no major issues which was a success! A few hours into the drive we turned onto a dirt road. We stayed on that dirt road for THREE HOURS. I assumed the road was going to be paved. I was wrong. The famed routa 40 is slow, very slow. So slow that we drove 40 – 50 mph most of the trip. No wonder the bus ride is 24 hours. While on the bus, Fletch and I were trying to figure out the distance since we had a lot of time to kill. We were thinking it had to be the equivalent of driving across the US or something similar. I looked it up after and the distance was 800 miles. That’s the equivalent of driving from San Francisco to Seattle, which should only take about 12 hours. Argentine roads have much to be desired.

We arrived in El Bolsón around 2pm after the driver stopped in the middle of the road and yelled “passajeros por El Bolsón” and we swiftly disembarked. There was no bus station. I guess the driver decided that spot felt like a good time. We walked to our accommodations which was a lovely apartment with a couch and TV with Netflix! The luxury! We had two great days of weather in El Bolsón where we wore shorts. We did a short hike, and, in the evenings, we very much enjoyed the couch and Netflix. Our time in El Bolsón was cut short because we arrived a day later than planned.

After two nights we took a bus to Bariloche. The weather turned cold and windy again. The town is situated on a lake. Every single day the lake had white caps like the ocean. We stayed in a unique hostel that was on the top floor of a 10-story building. We had awesome lake views. Fletch and I were trekked out. The thought of doing an 8+ hour hike did not sound appealing, and the weather was rainy and cloudy. We leaned into café life and even did a spa day with massages and jacuzzies.

The highlight of our time had to be biking the Circuito chico.

It’s a 16-mile loop through the Llao Llao National Park with minimal car traffic. It was stunning and we made many stops along the way including the Patagonia Cerveceria and the Llao Llao Hotel. It was such a treat to be on a bike after only trekking for the last month. On our last day on the way to the chocolate museum we stumbled into the Cerro Viejo chairlift which was a toboggan. It was awesome. Fletcher beat me down.

If I were to do Patagonia again, I would slightly change our itinerary. Unless you’re very excited about the penguins, I would skip Punta Arenas and fly directly into Puerto Natales. Spend no more than two nights before going to Torres del Paine. I would skip El Calafete unless you strongly desire to walk on a glacier. It was overly touristy in the town. I would spend more time in El Chaltén such as a week to enjoy the hiking and taking breaks between. The 24-hour bus ride was fine and the easiest way to get to northern Patagonia. I would spend at least four nights in El Bolsón, and five nights felt appropriate in Bariloche. From Bariloche you can fly to larger airports.

We’re currently in Peru and we’ll be here for the next two weeks visiting Lima and Cusco. After that we’ll spend most of December and January in Ecuador.

Salud!

Dana