Waiting for the bus looking towards our destination!
Woke at 6.15 and set off into a dark and threatening sky. It was 150km to our drop off point at Laguna Amarga, just south of the Torres, so we spent a few hours cleaning a face sized hole in steamed windows as the rain descended. At 9.45 we arrived at the Guarderia Office where we experienced a contrasting welcome to one we received in Fitz Roy ( El Chalten). Instead of an educational and interesting 20 minute talk about the environment, what we might see and look out for and what we should avoid' they took $15,000 each from us (£20.00) and silently handed us a leaflet! The ethos here seemed to be in stark contrast with Fitz Roy (just 200km to the north) where everything was free and you were encouraged to respect, protect and enjoy the environment. Exploitation of visitors appeared to be the priority here with very little environmental interpretation apart from a collection of pinned insects. Or first impressions were not good. We set off into the rain along a hilly track being overtaken at speed and splashed by buses carrying clients to their exclusive hotels. Just before we reached the campsite we stopped to chat to 3 cyclists who had cycled from Alaska and only had a week or two left of their epic 19 month journey. They warned us that the campsite was noisy (our hearts sank) and the showers were either cold or luke warm. With these jolly thoughts we bumped and splashed our way into the site and selected a spot as far away from the toilet block as possible, surrounded by rock strewn ground. We even had a small tree to shelter behind! As the rain was now heavy we tried the fly sheet first erection technique which involved a lot of worming around under the pinned fly getting hot and unwittingly becoming host to a collection of barbed seeds (looked like an evil virus under an electron microscope) on various parts or our anatomy. Just as we huffed and puffed our way to a fully upright tent the rain stopped and the sun came out! We fell into the tent and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours!! Decided we needed a coffee revival and called at the Refugio next door where they were waiting for hot water and we would have to wait for ½ an hour? We used this time to explore the area and called into the Las Torres Hotel where we had a look around an exhibition which was very interesting. We spotted a coffee area in the large airy atrium and sank into some deep sofas and enjoyed a view up into the dark and brooding mountains. We got a shock when we came to pay and they charged $6,000 each (over £8.00 for 2 coffees!) they certainly know how to exploit a captured audience! Back at camp we savoured a mountain of mash, tinned meat and a delicious tomato sauce for dinner. The pan could barely cope with the volume but amazingly our stomaches did and we retired to our dried out tent for a mammoth session of crib whilst fires were started and the hunt for wood began ( fires are not allowed in Fitz Roy which is another plus). Got up at 4.00 in the night and passed our nearest neighbours who were still up chatting and keeping their smokey fire going. When to the locals sleep?
This car took 10 mins to squeeze across.
Cyclists from Alaska
The Torres are straight ahead somewhere!
All quiet so far
Expensive cofee
