“Luck helps the prepared ones”- this is the intend to translate a saying i only know in german and dont really know if there is a equivalent for it in english. It is a saying i heard when i was finishing high school. It took me a while to really get behind its meaning. Now i think ifound a new interpretation to it. I will getbackto that at the endof this blog.
Here is what happened since we last “met”: after an easy ferry crossing from Puerto Montt to Pto. Chacabuco i found miself in the cold. And some parts of my luggage i had cursed many times on this trip for their weight and “uselessness” became so handy.
I was forced to spent thenight in the shitty harbour town as we arrived late. The very next morning i got an early start and finally moved as i always wished to do: hitchhiking.
It worked out all right at first. I reckon it is becuase of the remoteness of patagonia and due to the mentality of these people. Later on i went for the bus as a transport medium.i didnt like the doggies straining around looking weird at me.
Coyhaique is the name of the city i went to. From here i wanted to heat straight further south but then there was this little voice inside me trying to convince me to stay for the night –though it was early in the day still. The argument was stimple but convincing: “Why hurry?”. So i went into the tourist office to get a brieving of this town and its surroundings. As the girl said that you can walk the national reserve in a day, i was convinced and checked only minutes later in a homestay sort of thing. An elder couple that rent out a room or two.
I straight left again and went up to the reserve. It was really impressing. I have never seen or even thought that Bamboo grows next to Pine trees. Green lagoons and a vegetation that changed on the whole circuit walk 4 times completely. You could tell that this en dof the world was moved and shoken a lot. Cliffs and fallen apart hills formed a ragged but regular landscape.
The next day, reforced by the latest scenic impressions, i wanted to make a good leap towards the south.
In every travel guide i read lately they adviced that you should make a conservative timetable due to inconsitent (or inexistend) transport connecctions.
A small ferry was ment to leave at 11 am that day. Thebusdriver told me it wouldnt leave until 4 pm. It was only 9 am and around about 2hours later i was told that there was no ferry at all that day and that the next one would leavethe following day at 6pm. Even better: the price i had been told was 2800 pesos only for residents. For me it would have been 4000. i had only 3000 left and there was no bank in this little town called Puerto Ingeniero Ibañez. Last not least: i should have got the ticket at Coyhaique – they woudnt sell them down here. Perfect!
I was still thinking of the last question with my thoughts stuck like a car in the mud, when a argentine couple walked into the tourist information point. They asked for the street to Argentina. Only at that point i realized that there was a street around the lake and into argentina. The couple was about to leave the office so i asked a bit shy if they coulndt give me a lift to Argentina.no problem he said. But i would have to cross the border myself. He didnt want me on the car then. I found that understandable. Next inconvenience: i had to jump on the back of the truck as the backseats were completely full of bags and shit. “No problem for me!”i said and hopped on. Theday was splendous. Bright sunshine, clear blue sky and a scenery you haveto shop around for quite a while. A greenish blue lake surrounded by reddish-brown hills. I enjoyed the scenery from the back of the Toyota hilux. I felt so happy travelling like that, that neither the dust nor the fact that we were sent back by the argentinian costumes (we had passed the chilean control just of the tourist office without notice and so hadnt been stamped out) could bring me down.
Adrian, my flying angel, had changed his opinion in the meantime. I could continue the ride with them two until wherever we gt that day. That meant more scenery, more sun, more wind and more dust. We stopped to fill up after
The next morning i was about tojump on my privileged bed when Adrian told me he had packed differently and he had a backseat cleared. I take it!
So the crazy ride continued in the brand new car that on this trip as far as i can tell really got baptized. Calafate was defenetely not my call as a low budget backpacker. Icould tell straight away when the car passed the kempinski hotel sitting up on a hill overlooking the town. Anyway there is campgrounds and i was happy to have got my 15 US$ tent in sales back in Santiago.
The main attraction of thistown is the
I had to share the glacier with more and more people butthere was still enough ice for everybody. There was even a show going on: cracking and breaking ice. Sound like thunder, wow!!
I hitched back to calafate. But i was later than i thought to be. Though darkness is not the problem (it stays light till Midnight – due to a change of clock for energy saving rasons) i felt i was too late for hitching that day.
Even so i stood on a street leading out of town. And there it was again: the little voice. The arguments where more or less the same as the last time and it pushed me back to the bus terminal. My doubts were whether to go to Torres del Paine NP (Chile) or to Chalten (ARG) or non of these places. I would have loved to do some hiking but forecast was bad, so my tent was and it was cold....i was on my way back from the bus terminal to the capmsite in order to sleep another night over my decisions when i crossed ways with the two brasilian guys that had been my neighbours on the camping. Actually we where crossing ways the whole day already: at the glacier, at the camping..Alexandre and Sanjay where on there way to the nightbus to Chalten for some hiking...it was so obvious- that was my call. So i went there too!
We arrived at 1 am. It was cold but a starcovered sky was the reward. The night was insane. It was so cold i thought i would freeze to theground. I tried to materialize my down sleeping bag but wasnt successful. In my desesperation i remembered the survival blanket in my first aid kid. You know the silver and gold blanket looking like giant aluminium wrap. Well it saves lives – that night probaly mine.
Brasil was frozen to the ground too. A tough start for a hiking tour. But the clear blue sky, the sunshine and a breakfast brought us back to live. The weather was so nice! We were so lucky. Later on we were told that climbers wait a whole month at the foot of Fitz Roy or Torre for a daylike that (!). lucky bastards, we are! What followed was 3 days of picture postcard landscape, capmgrounds and glacier lagoons with drinking water. The icing on the cake was the shower when we got back to el Chalten though. Tonight (18.1.) the three of us heat for Ushuaia. After the chronological turningpoint some weeks ago, Ushuaia is the geographical turningpoint of the trip.
At the end back to the beginning: Luck is in this case the inner voice (the intuition) that tells you what to do. If you are ready and willing for listening to the voice then, i am sure, a lucky moment is not far.
Good luck and till soon.
Yours MIKE
