Torres del Paine

Hola Everybody.... we just got back from a trek at the "Torres del Paine" reservation.
It is called that way because of it´s famous 3 tower like cliffs. Like a gun presented at the first act of a play, if there are cliffs or mountains, in some point somebody will have to climb them.
unfortunately that someone was us...
The reservation is really amazing - there are rocky cliffs, snowy mountains, green forests, glaciers, waterfalls, rivers, lakes, lagoons & even desert areas, and the view changes very fast.
REALLY REALLY BEAUTIFUL TREK!!!
We´ve done a 5 days trek called here the "W" route.


DAY ONE
We started our first day climbing to the "Torres". It took us longer than we anticipated so we stopped to camp at "Chileno" camping and paid to use their baths. We could also choose to sleep at shelters instead of a camping, but it was very expensive(about 150 shekels per person for a bunk bed in a room of eight people). This time we rented a good tent and the only problem was that the place was full of bugs (very cheeky ones that fly directly to your eye or mouth).

DAY TWO
At our second day we actually got to the base of the "Torres". It reminds a lot of mount Fitz Roy but somehow it was very different to be there... can´t explain. It was a very difficult climb but it was totally worth it!!!

We spent the night at another camping. A very lovely spot with grass where we had a view of the "Torres". We decide to wake up early to see the famous red "Torres" sunrise. It didn´t quite work out as we planned because the alarm clock "froze" in the cold. Luckily Alon woke up, ran out of the tent in his "gutkes" barefoot on the freezing grass took a picture and jumped back into the sleeping bag screaming something about his balls.... i was still sleeping.... but the picture turned out beautiful...


DAY THREE
The third day was "The lagoons day". It also was the most difficult day for me...
The problem with the route, is that instead of finding a normal way to go, it takes you up & down like a "yoyo"... you climb up(about 200m each time) only to go down over and over again... so by the fourth steep climb you are starting to get pretty tiered & aggravated... or have a nervous breakdown, sit on the ground and scream " I am not getting down until they built a bridge here!!! I have my sleeping bag and I am camping here...You can go to your stupid camping alone and tell the idiot that designed this route to come and get me down on his shoulders..." that´s what I did. didn´t help.... so as you can see there are very pretty pictures of happy Loni here... I was busy gasping for air and moaning....


DAY FOUR
At the fourth day we woke up inside a cloud near a beautiful lagoon. It was raining all night and our tent was disgusting.

We climbed to an amazing view point of rocks and glaciers. All the way we could hear and see glaciers collapsing and waterfalls created and disappearing... incredible...
At the end my dear husband decided that a huge rock with the words "MIRADOR"(view point in Spanish) couldn´t possibly be the view point and therefore we had to keep climbing on another forsaken mountain. After we climbed another 350m(by that point I was hyperventilating and talking to God) he decided that maybe it was time to reflect upon his genius decision and got to the conclusion that maybe he miscalculated... he survived only because I was to tired to move and just dragged myself of the mountain...


DAY FIVE
I never thought that I would be so happy to go back to a lousy hostel... We walked three hours to the boat that will take us to civilization... Actually it took us to a bus and only after a 2.5 hours ride we got back to "Puerto Natales".

After being in the middle of nowhere this place feels like a metropolis!!! We have a very friendly & nice hostel owner(he is even shorter than me, has long hair a huge moustache a hunchback and wears cowboy boots) and he makes us a tasty breakfast each morning.
Tomorrow we are taking the bus to "Ushuaia". It´s a 12 hours ride, but we´ve been threw worse...

miss you all
Dina & Loni

El Chalten and the Fitz Roy

We took a bus to El chalten- a very very small village with no banks or cash machines. It is located at the entrance of a national park of the glaciers.

The main street in El Chalten

There we went to our first long trek. with a tent and everything(the tent turned out to be very "chikmuck").

We went hiking to mount Fitz Roy- a very famous mountain known for its pointy edge. Very popular among the climbers.

We climbed until the lake underneath it(the highest place you can get to without climbing equipment and license). It was extremely difficult and I thought Dina was about to cry a couple of times, but when we got there it was worth it!! (after walking for 4 hours and climbing up for 2)

We spent the night camping...even managed to cook some pasta in the freezing cold... was fun!!

The next day we went to see another glacier in the park, but as usual took the wrong path and ended up on the path for climbers. It was very difficult because we had to climb huge boulders all the way and Dina looked very funny and small... at the end it was worth it because we came to the glacier itself instead of the view point.... it was very beautiful...

then the weather shifted and became very cold and windy and our tent turned into an air balloon and almost flew away... we decided to call it a day as everybody else and headed back to the village... almost being knocked over by the wind the hole way...

Now we are back at Chile(Puerto Natales). They have this thing about not bringing fruit or vegetables to the country so they gave us a frisk like we were spies....

anyhow...we miss you all and update you more later...
hope you had a happy hanuka, we missed it here....

loni & dina

El Calafate

El Calafate is a small and expensive town which is located near a huge glacier called Perito Moreno. it´s economy relies mainly on tourism and you see more tourist then locals while
walking down the street. It is very cold there because of the strong winds (about 100 km/h). Sometimes the wind is so strong you see birds flying backwards and rain falling in a 90 degree angle- pretty surreal! We met some nice Israelis there and hang out for a while.

We than took a bus to the glacier Perito Moreno. It is a huge glacier (55 m high and 14 km long) which is among a few ones left in the world that are still moving(growing and breaking all the time). We took a boat and sailed next to it and then looked at it from a high view point. We have never in our lives seen something so AMAZING!!!

El Bolson, Esquel & Rio Gallegos

Hello at last.... finally we have found a place with Internet... hello civilization!!!!!
A lot has happened since our last post...
El Bolson was a very colourful and happy place. It was founded in the seventies by hippies who wanted to create an ecological community. Today they make mostly jams and artifacts. We did a couple of hikes in the forest surrounding it and I bought some jewelry at the artists market... in general it was a very nice place to visit, we had a lot of fun.



We then decided to travel south to a town called Esquel. We thought it will be easier to rent an SUV there to drive to the ¨Carretera Austral"- the main and only dirt road (850 km long) that passes threw the reservations of south Chile. The place itself is a total hole with nothing to do.

We spent a couple of days trying to find a car but with no luck... and were pretty bummed.
Finally we decided to go directly to El Calafate (south Argentina) and skip the Carretera. (the other option was to do it by hitch hiking and i wasn´t too eager to do that) . Before leaving we decided to take an organized tour to the national park nearby. It turned out to be just us and an old Spanish driver in a beat up Reno... it was pretty embarrassing.... but the park was very pretty....


We took a bus to El Calafate with a stop in a city called Rio Gallegos. With our luck they were moving some boat the same night so there was a lot of confusion and we waited at the bus station for ages. In the middle of all the mess a man came up to Alon and asked Loni to kiss him.
When he didn´t oblige the man showed him his Id and said ¨that's OK I am inspector...kiss me¨... the confused Alon who by then looked like a deer caught in front of a car looked around in panic but the man kept on insisting... finally we noticed he was pointing at our tickets...he wanted to tell us to what platform to go and apparently confused ¨give me¨with kiss me¨...shows how well they know English here... anyhow the ride took 22 hours and was horrible... the bus kept stopping because of some mechanical problem and drove 20 km/h half of the time. When we arrived to Rio Gallegos all the hotels were full (surprising because there is nothing to do there). We walked for 2 hours with the mochilas trying to find a place to sleep and for the first time I really missed Israel.
The good thing is we got to see a full (dubonei ehpat li) rainbow like in cartoons....