El Calafate & Torres del Paine

Wanted to go to El Chalten, which would make my trip from Puerto Madryn a total of 30 hours. When I arrived in a mid point, and asked for a bus ticket to El Chalten, the agent asked me if I'll go to Puerto Natales later on, I said yes, and he said that El Chalten is the same as Puerto Natales, but smaller, so there is no really a point of going there. I didn't argue to much about it, since I just saved 6 hours of bus rides :) instead I went to El Calafate which supposed to have the most amazing glacier ever. In El Calafate, most of the houses are made out of wood, and the hostel that I stayed in, was huge, and entirely made out of tree logs. The main street is filled with souvenir shops, and the chocolates that cost in Bariloche 100 pesos/kg, cost here 160!! I’ll let you guess if that stopped me from buying them :))
The cheapest "excursion" to the glacier cost 120 pesos, which just consists of a bus ride there that picks you up in the hostel. It went up to 150 pesos! At the end, what I do most of the time anyway, I went to the bus terminal and got a ticket on a regular public bus for 100.
The glacier - Perito Moreno, is one of the most beautiful natural things I've ever seen. It's so huge and blue and it glows !! It's 32 km long, 5 km wide, and 72 meters tall. I felt like I was watching some animal, you never know what it's going to do next, it's like it was alive. It advances about 2 meters a day, and because of it, it constantly breaks. The little chunks of ice make such an unbelievable sound, like a thunder. First it hits the water, and only afterwards you hear the splash, which doesn't sound like a splash at all. It was like a meditation watching it, I had no thoughts of the present, no feelings, no sense of time.
Every picture I've seen of it, was completely different, and unrecognizable, since it changes its shape almost daily.
Since it advances 2 meters a day, one part of it, hits the ground, and has nowhere to go, so the ice goes up and the water on both sides wants to flow and so the tunnel is produced. And about every 4-5 years, this tunnel collapses, which is supposed to be the most amazing thing ever. Well, I can imagine, if a little chunk produces so much noise, how much noise will that make!! There is a video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLazY-5zxFQ, too bad it's without a sound :(

Arrived in Chile in Puerto Natales in the afternoon. Puerto Natales is a gateway to the most important national park in South America "Torres del Paine". The next day I wanted to go to the park, but I met 2 nice people in the hostel, and they convinced me to stay in town for the Christmas eve. Ok, I stayed. The owner made a very nice dinner, and everybody else pitched in somehow. In the eve everybody went out, except me ... I went to sleep :) Got up for the breakfast, quickly run out of energy, wanted to lie down for a bit, but instead slept till 3pm, a total of 15 hours! All I've been doing this last time is sleep and eat, but apparently, I'm not the only one :)
Merry Christmas everybody !! :)) That day went with the girl to do a warm up hike to a nearby hill. After half an hour, we discovered that we went in the wrong direction, and that's after asking people if we're going in the right direction :S We were walking all the way back with our thumb up hoping to hitchhike, and about 20 cars later, somebody did stop :)) We said that we want to go to the hill "hill name", but instead he took us to the "hill name" town. We gave him a confused look saying we wanted to go to the hill, and not town. So he was very nice and drove us back, which was a 20 minute round trip. After huffing and puffing for an hour to the top, we almost got blown away, I haven't felt those kind of winds in my life. The view wasn't impressive, and at some time I couldn't breathe due to the wind speed, and we headed down right away. While there was no view, it was very nice to get out of the hostel and do some exercise.
The next day I headed to the national park. I only took with me 10 buns, salami, peanut butter, 4 bananas as my breakfast/lunch for 3 days. This was my first hike by myself, and it wasn't bad at all. I got to go with my speed, and actually didn't hate it that much this time. The views were nice, and there wasn't too much uphill. The weather predicted 40-60 km/hr winds, but only the first day it was very very windy, at times I had to sit down and hold on to a big rock. A part of the trail on the first day went by a lake, and the wind picked up some water and went like a sand storm towards me. The first time, I got pretty splashed, the second time I learned, and hid behind a tree. Good that the trail was on a flat ground because at times I would want to put my foot forward, and it ended up across the other foot on the other side :) Got to the refuge 6 hours later, had nice dinner, debated for a while if I want a $20 tent or a $40 bed, looked outside, and decided not to count my money :) Went to the bed, closed my eyes, and the next thing I've heard was an alarm clock. That was the first time in any hike that I've done when I slept for 12 hours :)) The next 2 days the weather was absolutely amazing, not a drop of rain, not wind to throw me off a cliff :) Arrived in the next refuge at 3pm, and met a very nice modern day Indian couple, who have a travel bug, and travel for 3 months each year :) They said it comes off their salary, but they don't care :) I asked if they had an arranged marriage, no they didn't. But they told me that about 50 years ago, there was only 1 person chosen for them, and they had to marry him/her. But now, there are about 5-6, you see each one of them for a few days, then decide, and then do regular dating for a few months before getting married. Which seems like a much better option. But they said that since divorce is still frowned upon in some villages, the couple actually makes a bigger effort to have the relationship work out.
2.5 hours from the refuge there was a lookout place with mountains which are supposed to glow red in the sunrise, so me and the couple got up at 3am to make it up to the top in time for the sunrise. Well, what do you know? A minute after we got out of the hostel, there was a river crossing, and I didn't see one rock very well, stepped on its side, twisted my ankle and fell into the river. All wet, dirty, and in pain :( A few minutes later, I checked if the foot moves, yes it did, so I gathered myself up, and continued limping till the top of the mountain. On the hardest part we split because the couple was walking slower, and I ran up to the top not to miss the sunrise. I've seen it somewhere 4/5 up, but that was a good place to see it from. It lasted less than 5 minutes, and then the colors turned regular. At the top, there were about 30 people, I stayed for 20 minutes, started to get cold, and headed back. 2.5 hours back to the refuge, and another 2 to the bus, I was finally there :) Back in town my foot hurt more and more, it was cracking as I was walking, and then it cracked again, and hurt less, I think it readjusted itself. I went to the hospital anyway. The doctor said that I stretched the "suhojilie" (sinew - if that's the word, I just translated it), prescribed me anti inflammatory pills and some sock which should make my foot move less.

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