Sunshine, Second Chances & the Road to Fitz Roy.
Day 57 – Gauchos, Glaciers, and Getting Stuck.
We woke up to something we hadn’t seen in days: sun. Actual, honest-to-goodness sunshine. If that wasn’t the Universe whispering, “Don’t give up on that glacier boat, darling,” I don’t know what was.
Last night we tried to book alternative boat tours online, but the options were either:
- Sell a kidney, or
- Go crawling back to the company that cancelled on us.
Both felt… suboptimal.
So we came up with a genius plan over breakfast: show up in person. There was another company with boats to the glacier, but online it screamed: “FULLY BOOKED.”
We figured if we arrived around 9:00 and asked nicely, maybe two people had cancelled, or decided to sleep in, or had been blown to Uruguay by the Patagonian wind.
By 9:15 we were knocking on their door. The lovely woman at the desk said the earliest availability was at 13:00… useless for our schedule. But when we explained our
tour had been cancelled (we didn’t specify which company… details, details), she paused, made one phone call, and suddenly we had tickets for the 10:00 boat.
The Universe definitely winked at us: “See? Yesterday was a rehearsal. Today is the real show.”
And what a show it was. Blue skies, sunshine, not a breath of wind – basically the trifecta of Patagonia miracles. The glacier from the water? Even more spectacular than from land. If yesterday was a meet-and-greet, today was a full-on VIP backstage pass. I was completely mesmerised, and the hour evaporated in seconds.
After the boat, we drove to the quieter side of the park… the land of estancias, gauchos, and sweeping Patagonian steppe. Think Yellowstone, but swap the cowboys for gauchos and the cattle for sheep (though we saw plenty of cattle too). The road quickly turned into gravel, mud, and the ghost of Monday’s storm. Huge puddles everywhere, the kind you either navigate carefully… or end up starring in your own Patagonian rescue video.
Yoni, of Mongol Rally fame (2019), handled it like a pro… until he didn’t. One heroic puddle later, we were stuck. Properly stuck. But thanks to said rally experience,
a few rocks, some strategic pushing, and several dramatic back-and-forth attempts, we wriggled free. Our car, once red-ish, was now proudly coated in the
“Patagonia Mud Red” colour palette.
We found a glorious viewpoint for lunch, where we finally spotted the elusive Patagonian ostrich (which I had honestly begun to suspect was a tourist myth).
Naturally, a guanaco popped up too because they seem to be everywhere, Argentina’s version of pigeons, just fluffier and cuter.
The drive back was blessedly uneventful. We felt we had fulfilled our daily adventure quota and retreated to our peaceful garden to recover.
Tomorrow is our last day in El Calafate. Who knows what’s next? Stick around… Patagonia clearly isn’t done with us yet.
Days 58-59 – Goodbye Calafate, Hello Fitz Roy.
Time flies when you’re having fun, and apparently even faster when you’re having empanadas in Patagonia. With only 10 days left in Argentina & Chile, we’re squeezing every drop of magic out of each day.
Our last day in El Calafate was delightfully slow. We returned our beloved mud-painted rental car to the airport by 10:00 and decided to stroll along what Google confidently labelled “the shore” of Lago Argentino. Spoiler: it wasn’t a shore. It was a massive wetland, and the actual lake was somewhere on the horizon, possibly in another time zone.
But the walk turned joyful thanks to a dog who’d clearly appointed himself Chief Entertainment Officer, chasing birds who seemed more amused than threatened. Their playfulness was contagious, so naturally I broke into my signature silly dancing routine, because why let wildlife have all the fun?
Speaking of dogs… El Calafate has approximately three dogs per person, and all of them roam the streets like furry little kings with zero traffic awareness.
Watching them challenge speeding cars to duels is a daily cardio workout for the nerves.
After our 6 km “shore-but-not-actually-a-shore” promenade, we rewarded ourselves at a wonderful local bakery. Yoni returned to our place for some downtime,
while I went hunting for gifts, because nothing says “I love you” like souvenirs bought under mild hiking-related exhaustion.
The next morning, we boarded the bus to the legendary frontier town of El Chaltén, Argentina’s hiking capital, proudly guarded by the majestic Fitz Roy.
We arrived at 11:00, far too early to check in, but perfect for staking out a cosy corner in a tiny café while our luggage stayed with the grown-ups.
After an hour of sitting still, my explorer brain rebelled… so off I went to discover El Chaltén. Ten thousand steps later, I discovered something else:
the entire town can be seen in under an hour.
The good news? I got great photos of its statues honouring hikers, who are basically the patron saints of this place. And in the most unexpected place,
a tiny Patagonian hiking town, I found a statue of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. I began this trip with them in Buenos Aires, and now I’m ending with them here.
Life has a funny way of stitching its own metaphors.
Tomorrow, the real adventure begins as we dive into the trails of this magical region. Stay with us!
