Tom's Adventures in South-America: Patagonian dreams

Calma. Respirar profundo. Viajar. Conocer. Aprender.

Caminar sin tiempo. Mirar mirando. Sentir el viento, abrir los ojos.

Cantar una cancion bien fuerte, gritando si es necesario.

Hablar con todos y con nadie, hacer silencio y escuchar...

Patagonia

My Patagonian adventure starts in Ushuaia, often called 'el fin del mundo' because the most southern city on the South-American continent and the last stop before Antarctica (not for me, but for many rich retired people)! To reach this place I had to cross the Strait of Magellan and drive for hours and hours through the deserted landscapes of Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia is very touristy, but its spectacular location -squeezed between the last mountains from the Andes range and the Beage Channel- makes up for it. On a Catamaran on the Beagle Channel I experience for the first time the famous Patagonian weather: sunny in the morning with a lot of wind, rain and snow in the afternoon and even more wind... all 4 seasons in one day! A perfect day to visit some penguins on a far away island :-)

After crossing the Strait of Magellan again I head to the Torres del Paine national park in Chile. I pack my backpack with my tent, sleeping bag, cooker, clothes for all types of weather, food for 8-9 days and start what will turn out to be the most beautiful multi-day hike I have ever done! 8 days of incredible nature, quietness, big glaciers, blue lakes, mostly sunny days, condors circling around the granite peaks, new friendships with fellow hikers and a perfect sunrise on 'las Torres' as icing on the cake!

In Torres del Paine I have formed a great hiking team with Camilo (Chile), Anders (Denmark) and Kim & Katie (USA), and we decide to move on together to the Argentinean side of Patagonia. We make a brief stop in El Calafate to visit the Perito Moreno glacier, one of the few glaciers in the world which is still growing. The glacier is advancing in Lago Argentina with an average speed of 2 meters per day, which makes for a nice spectacle of big ice chunks calving off and splashing into the lake.

One of the most stunning places still had to come, though. El Chalten -the hiking and climbing capital of Argentinean Patagonia- stole my heart from the moment I arrived... the Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy mountain ranges were blinking in the sun... climbing history has been written here and even today these mountains are an extreme challenge for many alpinists from all over the world (mainly because of the great technical difficulty in combination with the quickly changing Patagonian weather). For me it is time to hike, camp, gaze at the amazing scenery and make plans to come back one day to do more hiking and some climbing!