Heavy wind, rain, snow and beautiful mountain views

Somebody might have read the short message I've posted in between, about a week ago (see http://jeroenoorschot.blogspot.com/2006/03/bosques-petrificados.html or scroll below).
This activity started with visiting the Perito Moreno glacier near El Calafate. The pictures tell it: this unbelievably huge piece of natural power was very impressive. It`s about 50m high and 14km long! If you (and the 200 other visitors) were silent, you could hear the ice working. It sounded like an exploding mine or sometimes like a shotgun (I know these violent comparisons don´t really fit to this wonderful peaceful natural thing, but I don´t know any other sound to compare...).
(The glacier Perito Moreno: At the third picture, you`ll see a white point on the water, in the middle, in front of the forest: it`s a quite big tourist cruise boat with two floors, just to imagine the size of the glacier!)

(The Gol VW 1.6 was very new and not really 4x4 or all terrain adapted...)

Then, the same day I drove to the Bosques Petrificados. On the map, you can see that El Calafate is at the western border of Argentina and these petrified forests are at the eastern coast, very far away... But a very interesting ride through the most lonesome place I`ve ever seen! Imagine there`s really nothing for about 200km! Once I picked up a Canadian hitchhiker, he was only 19 years old and on his way on his own. He was waiting for three hours in the desert, so he was very glad to get this ride. Before dawn, I couldn`t find the right track and stood alone, but fortunately, there came a trucker who sent me the right way. At 1am I finally arrived at a car parking quite near the Bosques and I slept in the car. So the next morning, ater a very tiring car tour through the desert, I visited petrified tree trunks of about 70 million years old, some of them with a diameter of 1,5m! And you could see all the wood structure very well. This was a great experience, and really worth the 1500km (of which about 750km on unpaved roads...; I just don´t know what the hiring company found about it...). Between the trip, I slept in the car, so when I came back in El Calafate, I was completely exhausted, but very satisfied. Still, not many people know about this site and there are no guided tours or public transport going, so I tell everybody about it, it`s really worth visiting.
(In the desert, these guanaco`s were the only company) (The stone trunks!)

After resting a bit (I even bought a book about the history of Patagonia, which makes travelling around even more interesting!), I organised my next trip. Because El Calafate is next to the Andes, it was worth going to one of the most famous Andean hiking regions, near El Chalten. In this backpackers and mountaineers paradise, everything was twice as expensive (but great artesanal beer), there`s no ATM, there are just mountains... and very strong wind, rain, even snow. But when they sometimes fail, you have such great views on snowcapped mountains, glaciers, lakes etc. and only at an elevation of about 1500-2000m. The two famous peaks Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre (both over 3000m) where hidden in clouds all the time. I hiked for two days in rain and wind, discovered that my tent really is unsuitable for this weathertype and actually, my new jacket as well (which was a disappointment) and then I took a small bus, some 40km north.
(There I am in the rain and wind of El Chalten...)
There, on a campingsite, I would meet Alejandro, who would come there to do research. And indeed, after hiking around a bit and hiding in my sleeping bag the rest of the day because it was really cold (and my tent doesn`t isolate at al...), in the evening, there was the jeep of their research team coming! We had a great evening together with a camp fire and some nice food (and Bols oude graanjenever, which is made in Argentina!). In the morning, we hiked up to a glacier to prepare Ale`s research and... there we saw Mount Fitz Roy, without any cloud. It was like a medieval castle or church on a mountain, very spectacular.
(Ale and I with the Fitz Roy mountain at the background; the research team of CRICYT Mendoza at the camping site of Lago del Desierto)
After that, it was time to head back for El Calafate and to say goodbye, but very nice to having met again! It was good to leave El Chalten though, because it had been a very hard camping and hiking experience while being underequiped.

And now I've got a wash, relax, internet and travel preparation day out here. Here we`ve got sun, good wind to dry everything, a beautiful lake and some nice Argentineans from Buenos Aires with whom I had a mate the other night. For going on the internet, the noon is a great time, because all other shops apart from internet cafes have siesta, so you can`t do anything anyway!
The funny thing about El Calafate is, that everybody goes there. Until now, I´ve met 8 people who I`ve met before on my trip in this small town. So tonight we`ll have a beer together!

I`ve changed my plans a bit now. Actually I wanted to go to another, world famous mountain area and climbers paradise Torres del Paine (just over the border in Chile), but because my tent and jacket are not so good, my leg has had plenty of backpacking excersice and because autumn really has started in the mountains (it freezes at night, rains and winds a lot so you don`t have much chance to see the gorgeous mountain peaks, like in El Chalten, because of the low clouds), it might be better for me to visit other areas. Of whom there are plenty: I will head for Punta Arenas (so I will enter Chile), visit the Magellan island and after that, I will fly to Puerto Montt and visit the Chilean Lake District, the Chiloe Island and the land around the Carretera Austral (which is the only main road through Chile, south of Puerto Montt). I`m even really interested in hiring a motorbike for that - depending on the prices, clothing, weather etc.

Let`s see what happens, first I have to organise my trip into Chile!

It`s great to hear what happens in the Netherlands (and Germany, Indonesia etc.): people bought a house, found a job, are doing well with their studies, are getting married. I really like to hear this news, so keep on mailing!

Hey could anyone tell me if Maxima and Beatrix are in Argentina now? They weren`t in El Chalten on every case...

Jeroen

(Just some pics from Tierra del Fuego: a village with wooden and iron plate houses (like Skandinavia?); the north east is much flatter than around Ushuaia, but very nice and impressive as well; Crossing the Strait of Magellan by boat (heavy waves, salty water on the camera...))