On our way to and with the parents

Hello everybody :)
So this is what happened in Chile.
We drove down into Chile, or more specifically San Pedro de Atacama. Unfortunately the 'connections' of Quechua connections didn't reach all the way in to Chile, so we just had to queue up for our Chilenean entry stamp. Just as in New Zealand and Australia you are not allowed to bring in any fresh food or other products of plant or animal origin. To that end you have to fill in a form. We carried possibly bad material with us (milk powder, tea, orange peel, etc.) so that's what we filled out. Our bus driver collected all the papers though, pushed us in a line to have our luggage scanned and then hurried us back into the bus. A bit stunned we still carried all our 'dangerous goods' when we drove into the city...
In the city (a small one) we walked quite a bit to find accommodation although we are here in the middle of a desert and because of the descent a lot lower and hotter than Bolivia. Not because everything was fully booked (as people had led us to believe because of new years eve) on the contrary, whilst walking we got from several offers for a room by random people. In the end we found something to our liking and we installed ourselves. After that it was a hunt for Chilean money. It seemed to become a Copacabana-Bolivia case. We decided to dip the dusty dry round kind of cakes in a cup of tea for lunch. (Yes Lars, you haven't carried them just for nothing across the Salares) After getting up do early this morning, Bette decided to take a nap while Lars went on a money hunt again. Surprisingly enough, he succeeded. We were now the proud owners of 200.000 pesos. (Indeed, their money is worth nothing, but they certainly know how to aks for big sums)

The next day it was time to make you happy. We uploaded a whole bunch of new pictures on our Facebook, on which everybody so nicely responds. We even had the luck that the computer had an SD entry, so that we at least could transfer pictures to our usb. And no, the camera cable we lost in Sucré: they also don't have him here.

Because tonight is old years eve en we have arranged to meet up with several people, we went around the city if there would be something nice to do. After walking the main street up and down and asking around, we only found: 2 parties, around 10 restaurants that would be open, and one pub. (which, by the way, is the only place where they are allowed to serve alcohol without accompanying meal.)



It doesn't matter how well they meant with their new years dinners, but the fact remained that they were horribly expensive (35.000-60.000 pesos, 45-80€) and that was without the party afterwards... So we continued our search until we found a very tiny place that had main courses for only 10€. (just for comparison: the nights before we had a 3 course menu with a drink for 2 people for only 12€) Thus the plan was made to first eat in the tiny restaurant, go to the pub until the new year and after that to one of the party's when they finally start.
We arranged to meet at the central square at 7. The 2 Filipino's from the Salares tour had been sandboarding and were too tired to come, our 2 Lithuanian friends had just been on a bicycle for 60km and also too tired and dusty to come yet, and more stuff like that. So eventually we were at the square with our friend Daniela and she brought the English couple James and Sue whom she'd met on her Salares tour. First to the restaurant, then to the pub. So far so good. Until it was 9.30 and they announced to be closing at 10pm! That wasn't what we had agreed upon... By this time the English James and Sue were replaced by the Lithuanian Vitas and Igne and we decided to go to the main square with beer and chips. Apparently there were a lot more people with the same idea, and before we knew it was 2015. Unfortunately there weren't any fireworks except for a strange ritual which involved lighting man size puppets sitting on chairs and benches on fire. We decided to follow this trail of public fires and see what was happening in the rest of San Pedro. By now Igne and Vitas had said goodbeye as well, but there were plenty of other familiar faces to chat with. Some acquaintances went back as far as Nasca!

At the end of the main street Lars saw an open with dancing people inside. Well mannered as he is, he shouted some new years wishes to the people inside, after which they asked him in to shake hands and give him a glass of champagne. Oi, Lars thought, this is going to take longer than I expected so I'll go and get Bette and Daniela. Once we were inside we were also showered with hugs, kisses, best wishes and glasses filled with champagne. (or sparkling wine, but who cares?) It isn't considered polite to empty your glass in one gulp and run off again, so we ended up dancing with them for 2 hours. They even invited us for a barbeque lunch tomorrow, but we had to decline. Besides the fact that it can become a bit awkward at times when we don't speak Spanish and they don't speak English, tomorrow we also had a day planned together with Jon and Julie.

At 10.30 and after not much sleep we were sitting in the rental car of Jon and Julie (The Australian couple we'd met on our Salares tour.) The first stop (after some wrong turns and dead ends) was the beginning of 'the Devils Throat'. A clay and rock filled valley. Years and years of rain had eroded quite some of the sediments which made you walk through a weird shaped landscape, wondering if and when some heavy rock would drop on our head. The next stop was at a fortified Inca village which had quite suffered from the Spaniards. After lunch we went to look at petroglyphs that date as far back as the Incas and then to the 'rainbow valley'. It derives its name from all the different colours of sediment it is made up of. The most obvious are green, red and white, but it ranges to orange and grey-blue.

It didn't stop at one day though. The next day we stood already at 4am next to our bed (with definitely to few sleep
now) to go and see the geysers. Again before sunrise, because otherwise the sun will evaporate the most of the steam. It was a 2 hour drive and still different than the ones we saw in Bolivia. Here there wasn't any mud boiling, but fountains of water. Even though the steam and the water were very warm, we were here in a desert at 4300m above sea level and without the sun, so it was only -5 degrees. :s After having enjoyed all the beauty around here we drove back and decided to go to the hot springs. At arrival we found out that it would be €20 for probably just one hour in warm bathing water, and we decided it to bee too expensive. In stead, we just drove back to San Pedro. Besides wanting to go to the meteorite museum, there wasn't much on our to do list, so we took it easy the rest of the day. Before we would take a 24 hour busride to Valparaiso we dit visit this small museum, and it was worth it. For example: did you know that every day 6 meteorites fall down on earth? En that most of the dust in space is an organic material which is in our DNA as well? Very interesting we would say...
That 24 hour busride was a whole less interesting than the rest of course. Not unfomfortable, because the chairs are soft and they lean back pretty far, but it just takes long. Valparaiso was a lot bigger than we expected. Except walking around and visiting the former house of an aparently famous poet (which we didn't), there isn't much to de here.
The city is situated at the sea, so at first we were a bit afrais we might implode after such a while being on such a high altitude ;), but it is very hilly. To facilitate the lazy people there are tens of oldfashioned elevators which can transport you up the hill. As good tourists we tried one of those, to eventually not be able to enjoy the view because of all the fog. The Lonely Planet recommends to take one of those elevators, look around once you are above, come down, and repeat the whole procedure at a next elevator. Why you would have to go down and go up again if you can also walk from one place to the other, eluded us, so we stayed 'up there' and walk from nice spot to nice spot. Until we found out WHY it is best to go down again. Not because the space in between isn't interesting, but because you are very interesting for young guys that might follow you and very unpolitely rid you of your belongings. At least that was what a woman told us when we passed her by, before going into her house and probably locking everything double. Then of course we were a lot less relaxed... Still the city was very nice to have seen, and we still had a day left (probably a bit unnecessarily, except for buying birthday cards) before we would take a nother bus in the evening.
Our destination was a bit hastily chosen, because our main goal was to be on time in the south of Chile so that we could cross the border to Argentina and collect John and Judith from the airport :) Just to not be on a bus again for 24 hours we picked a destination only 11 hours away, which also sounded really appealing: the Villarrica national park with volcanoes. In the morning, even before the shops or tourist info opened, we arrived in Villarrica. It took us quite some draging around with our backpacks until we found a place to spend the nigt that 1. wasn't fully booked, 2. wasn't too expensive and 3. actually offered something for the money they asked.
After being settled it was lunctime and we only had a half day left to have a look around. Because Villarrica is nicely situated at a big lake and offers vieuws of snowy volcanoes on two sides, we decided to walk around in the surroundings for a bit. We randomly picked an interesting looking narrow path, that evenutally after lots of winding, stopped at a dead end...
The next day we got up late, and made Lars all the reservarions for the Torres del Paine hike with the parents. The we went to the buscompanies to get a busticket for tomorrow to Puerto Montt. Because of high season, they were all fully booked... :/ Not entirely sure about what to do then (take a bus to somewhere else, but where to? Or go and hitchhike?) we went to the tourist info to ask how we could get to the national park. Even though the national park is called Villarrica, and we are in the village with the same name, the park turns out the be situated next to Pucon, a village half an hour away by bus. And the of course a nother bus to the actual park. Because it was already 11 by now, we probably didn't have enough time, so we decided to get our swimming stuff and walk along the lake for a nice swimming spot.
In the meanwhile we were a bit concerned though, because we were still a fair end away from El Calafate, while it was only 5 days away until the 13th and collecting the parents from the airport, without a good plan of getting down there. :s That night Lars found something though. We would still have to go to Puerto Montt, but in stead of then taking a boat and an unknown number of busses, there was also a not too expensive flight from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas in the south of Chili. Everything settled you would say, except for the fact you can't use IDeal around here, but a creditcard. Still no problem, except that we had already reached our monthly limit and it would take at least 3 days until the money we could transfer to the creditcard would be present there... On top of that also the creditcard of John and Judith and Opa Postma had the same problem AND it was bedtime back home already... Except for one person. Bette's dad. He was still awake, had a creditcard, and let us use it :) (thanks dad!) Eventually everything worked out and we immediately went to the busstation to get bustickets to Puerto Montt for the day after tomorrow. Luckily that also all just went well :)
Because now we would stay an entire day longer, we decided to get up early, take the bus to Pucon and visit the national park. In Pucon it turned out that luck wasn't on our side. Even though de people from the tourist info here (in contrast to their Villarrica colleagues) DID speak English en there turned out te be even 2 national parks in the vicinity of Pucon, there is no bus that can bring you to the closest one. (An half an hour drive). *But you can book a tour or take a taxi :D!* To the one on 1 hour driving distance there is a bus, but we just missed it with a half an hour and the next one would only leave at 1 pm... A little bit discouraged we went to sit at the marina where we decided that if we were here anyway, we might as well make the best of it. Pucon was after all an adorable village and in all the forest between here and the national park you could walk for sure. We did indeed find a nice path, and just when we thought this one wouldn't come to a dead end, it did. We didn't let that discourage us and decided to look at all the funny shops in Pucon, after which we found a nicely shaded spot at the lake (which we had to share with some street dogs) and enjoy the view.
The next morning we took the bus to Puerto Montt, where we arrived around noon. We hadn't made a reservation for the night anywhere, so we went and asked at the information desk of the busstation which also claimed to be a tourist information. The woman didn't speak English, didn't have a city map and directed us for accommodation to a shabby corner of the busstation with a desk with pictures of 12 different hotels and only 2 people who would of course only recommend the hotel they were working for... We then decided to go to the inner city and find some independent advice. This more official looking tourist info did help us very well, after which we found a very nice spot within the hour. It was in a guesthouse (practicaly just a one-person bed, but in a very cute private room) of which the owners were Swiss-Chileno and we could speak German with. How lovely when you can understand someone :)
We both didn't feel like doing anything anymore, so when we arrived back at the tourist info the next morning to ask if there was anything interesting to do here in Puerto Montt, we reluctantly had to admit we hadn't seen anything yet. After that they sent us to an 'artisans' market. (a.k.a. shop after shop loaded with souvenirs). After we had seen that we took the boat of a very old man that brought us to the island just out of the city. Here we even walked around quietly and enjoyed the views.
That night we had the flight to Punta Arenas. Bette, as usual already nervouw for a flight, but with the trouble of flying to Lima still in her head, wasn't looking forward to this. Luckily it was a domestic flight, so that's better, but still we were pleasantly surprised. The lady behind the counter was vriendly, helpfull and spoke in English. We only needed to give our passports to get our ticket. Our bags were allowed to weigh 20kg and Lars' wasn't even 19 (Whereas according to the last weighing done by Spirit Airlines it was more than 23kg... and there you were only allowed to take 18 with you) There were no weird test we had to participate in when our handluggage and we were checked, and the boarding was also done really supple. Apparently this was a stopover for our plane, because it was already crowded when we entered and we even departed 10 minutes early! On top of that we even got something to eat and drink while we were in the air :) What a luxury and what a pleasant flight!
The landing was a bit thrilling because in this part of the world there is constantly so much wind that we were first firmly shaken and with rattling teeth before we were on the ground again. After that we were lucky to have found a Finnish couple that hapened to be going to the same hostel as we were, and we could share the taxi with them. Now we even spent less than waiting another hour and catching the bus, and now we got dropped off on the doorstep. Checking in turned out te be more difficult than excpected though. Because we made a reservation through hostels.com and most accomodation owners seem not to have heard of that website, this hostel owner didn't recognize the confirmation e-mail of the website, and wanted to charge us for the whole price, in stead of deducting the deposit we paid for making a reservation. We didn't agree with that, so then he wanted to see the bank statement with the money that had been deducted from our creditcard to make a reservation, but then we also had to pay another 19% because then we now had to pay him with the creditcard as well, so it was up to us. Since it was 1am and Lars was fed up with it he was prepared to pay the guy too much, whereas Bette wanted to have clear what was going wrong here. Eventually we were able to pay the correct amount, but only 'because the lady wants it'... Right...!
The next morning was a bit nerve breaking again. Eventhough we had tried, it seemed inpossible to buy bus tickets for busses in the south of Chile when you are just a bit more north than that. Just because of the simple reason that the bus companies that operate in the south, do not drive in the north, and therefor have no offices there where you can go to. Next to that you can't buy tickets online, AND they do not respond on emails you desperately send to them. (admitted, we did write them in English, but later on we found out they do not even respond to e-mails written in Spanish either) So we went to a ticket office to get tickets for today from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, and then tickets from Puerto Natales to el Calafate for tomorrow. The bus for today was probably not going to be a problem, with spread across the different bus operators about 15 different busses a day, but the last bit with only 2 busses a day was, being it high season and all. At the first office it seemed to be going prosperous, until it turned out that the bus to el Calafate was sold out! :s A bit nervous now we went to a different company. After some fiddling around on a computer by an young looking girl, it turned out they indeed still had 4 places left! So we even got to choose where to sit ;) For the today bus, they only had space left at 6 pm, so that ticket we bought somewhere else alltogheter. Eventually we would leave Punta Arenas at 14.30 so we still had some time left to be happy because we would arrive on time in el Calafate and we still hade some time to fly away with the squall around here.
The bus journey would take 3 hours, but because we were both dozing, we arrived in no time. When we saw an ugly accumulation of houses, we were pretty surprised that we had to get off there. Because we hadn't booked accommodation and everything seemed to be fully booked, we actually saw quite a bit of the village, and we have to say that the centre isn't as bad from up close. Eventually we ended up in a hostel which we otherwise would have walked past, but the inside was better than the outside seemed. Lets just say that it was interesting to cook on a wood fire stove that has been converted to a gas cooker and that the beds were clean.
The next day was the long expected 13th of January. We had a bus that took us over the border with Argentina and that would arrive in el Calafate at 3pm. At the border we somehow seemed to have lost a couple of people, it also just took very long and the first part of the road in Argentina was unpaved, which made us arrive in el Calafate no sooner than 5pm! There were still a few things that had to be arranged before we could collect Lars' parents at 6.50pm at the airport. First we wanted to have a busticket for John and Judith that would make sure they would be in time back from Chile in el Calafate for their onward flight after leaving us. Because the queues were very long, we decided that could wait and withdraw some Argentinan money first. We tried 3 different ATM's but they all asked more than a 5 euro ATM fee. When the 4th and last one in the village asked the same we decided to accept it, but then it turned out it didn't want to give money at all! After having tried 2 already tried ATM's and having run into other desperate tourists, it turned out there was no way to withdraw money in the whole of el Calafate. Pretty desperate, because transportation to the airport had to be paid as well, and it was 6pm by now, Bette asked a taxi driver if he accepten American dollars. Yes indeed he did! Because the taxis here weren't too big we decided to drop our bags at the hostel we reserved for the parents and hope we could put up our tent at their campsite, because we had not been able to book that as well. We walked in the direction of the hostel and made some more rounds in the vicinity because we couldn't find it. After asking the two scarse passers-by, we did find it, but not where the lady of the infodesk at de busstation had pointed out on our map... Pretty desperate, because it was 6.40 by now, they did indeed have a space for us at the campsite, could change some money and called a taxi to the airport for us! :) Lars quickly jumped into a clean shirt, because after 1,5 year not seeing eachother you have to make a good impression, and we got in the taxi. The driver was going nicely fast so we arrived at the airport at 7.05pm. We quickly ran into the hall, but there was nobody... Then it turned out that the plane from 6.50pm from Buenos Aires was delayed until 8pm. Wha, what a luck we had, still on time :) We decided to just hang around and wait until at 7.15 there were a bunch of people descending from the stairs, and among them were John and Judith! Apparently they had not been supposed to land at 6.50, but already at 6.30, and was this plane also delayed! We still had to wait a while until they could collect their bags before we could give eachother a hug finaly :)
We checked them in into the hostel, after which it was time to exchange some presents. After that there was still so much everyone had to tell eachother that it was already 10pm before we could convince ourselves to go out and find a restaurant to eat at.
The days after that we spend in the vicinity of el Calafate. We went to the adjacent lake where we had the luck to see group flamingos. At the other side of the village sat a canyon we checked out, and on 1 of the days we rented a car to drive to el Chalten. The landscape between those two places is pretty empty with barely any overgrowth, but the long drive was made up by the national park at el Chalten. So after the first 3 hours of driving, we had yet to walk another 3 hours, but there it lay: our first real glacier! Inclusive of a small lake in front where you could see ice floes floating, and if you were patient, even melt! Completely satisfied we made the journey in reversed order again back to el Calafate.


In the meanwhile John and Judith had to leave their hostel room because we had only booked it initially for 2 nights. Because of course the whole of el Calafate was booked out by now, there weren't many options left. Either move to a nother place, which prooved to be very very expensive, or go into town, rent a tent and sleeping bags. The last we did, and Lars and Bette got neighbours. :) And when you camp, you barbeque of course ;)
After el Calafate we went back to Puerto Natales. Again we had to cross the border and we now understand where Lars has got his absent-mindedness from, because John managed to loose his just filled out papers to cross the border within 5 minutes... ;)
This time people DID ask about our edible stuff, but after having just looked at it we could keep everything! (Luckiliy, because hagelslag and stroopwafels didn't fly over the whole world to be lost already!)
At Puerto Natales the reserved hostel appeared to be further away from the busstation than expected. On the other side of town to be precise... When we finally arrived there, the hostel appeared fully booked. No problem right? Except for the fact that our booking had not been received by them! Just imagine, you are there, with parents that travelled half the world to see you, because of high season you booked everything in advance for a change, and then you end up here in a fully booked hostel! Luckily the girl in charge was very helpfull en arranged another and more expensive hostel for us, of which she would refund the difference and brought us to by taxi. After having spend here one night, we stayed the other two days in the intended hostel.
Lars, as a good 'travel guide' had made plans for those two days already. Still we decided to make verything ready for the coming 8 day trek in the Torres del Paine national park. We even went to a informational meeting where we found out that hiking-sticks are pretty nescesarry, because of the squall around here that seems to be coming from every direction, and without it, you will probably topple over...
Probably because we were with 4 people now, and of course a set of parents you want to take good care of, it was good we had those 2 days to arrange everything. In the end everything was arranged better than we normally have ;)
The the day arrived on which we would start hiking. After having a breakfast at 6 am, we had to walk the whole way back to the busstation again to catck the bus from 7.30 to the national park. That was still quite a distance away, so we arrived no sooner thant 11. After the inevitable stop at the toilet, and watching the obligatory information movie about the prohibition of fire in the park, we went on our way. It was a very warm and sunny day, so we needed quite some sun cream. If that one madcap from 7 years ago just hadn't burned hist toiletpaper, we might have had some shadow along the way today, but now all that remained were just some stubs. The summer flowers were full in bloom however, so the view was splendid, and so was Bette's hayfever ;) Anyway, after not even a half day walk, we arrived at our first campsite. The tent we reserved for John and Judith was allready standing in pretty much the only shady spot under almost the only tree in the surroundings. Because all the ohter people also preferred shade, it was pretty crowded there, so we decided to join the fun and put our tent up next to theirs ;)
Because on internet it wasn't entirely certain if there was a restaurant facility here for the parents (and because it is just ridiculously expensive to have someone else cook your food) we cooked for them. At least we could say we probably ate the best from everybody on the campsite, because who on a trek will eat fresh broccoli, mashed potato and fresh fried meat? ;)
The next day we had a 6 hour hike scheduled. It was also the first day with a pretty steep part where the wind blew very firmly. The side we were coming from was the lee side, but the higher we got, the more wind. Even that bad that when we were on top, the wind was suffocating and both our tears, snot and saliva were just blown away. Of cours while walking on a path the size of an animal track. We were happy with our sticks! :)
Funny enough, this would be the strongest wind we would encounter on the whole walk. The day after was a short day, because day 4 would be very long. On day 4 we got up at 5 to climb over a pass of which the guy who gave the informational talk warned us that you'd think yopu'd die because of the wind and cold once you got up there. But on the other side it would become better quickly. Luckily it wasn't so bad at all. It rained a bit, but when we reached the pass it dryed up a bit to give us a majestic view over 'Glaciar Grey' and the snow capped mountains and the Patagonian icefield beyond. This view was worth the three hour climb. The wind wasn't calm ofcourse and soon it would begin to drizzle again, which made us terribly cold. We had not much choice than to walk on quickly. Again we were happy with our sticks, because the descend was pretty steep, so much even that Judith slipped a couple of times and ruined her brand new trousers... :(
6,5 hour after having left the campsite we arrived at a free campsite where we had lunch. Is we would have been just with the two of us, we probalby would have spent the night here, but free means there are no facilities, so we couldn't rent a tent and had to walk for another 5 hours to the next campsite. Those last 5 hours became a bit more. Our legs were sore from the descend, but just to add some extra fun there were two gorges we had to cross, without a bridge. It meant we had to go down by means of a wobbly ladder and a rope, than jump from stone to stone across a river and climb up on the other side. These were moments we wondered if we should continue or just go back? Eventually we all ended up safely on the other sides en you are super proud, but you do have the quivers in your arms and legs.
Eventually we arrived at the campsite 13,5 hours later than we left the one from this morning. If we thought the 'O' part of the track was busy, than where we were now, on the 'W' part, was even worse. Because we only arrived at 8pm en we were hungry, we would not be on time to use the showers, because they were only warm between 7 and 9pm. We decided to risk that tomorrow. And it WAS a case of daring, because cold water didn't mean just cold, but the melted water from the clacier! :s brrr. On this part of the 'W' we have walked or camped in even more big flocks of people. Although the glacier provided the best view on the track, we still really enjoyed all the other views along the way. Especially the lakes have wonderfull colours. From grey until mint green and and bright blue. The snow capped mountains in the distance helped ofcourse as wel ;) On day 6 we were really lucky: we saw a condor! And not just anywhere, but right above our heads! Our luck didn't end there because when he cirkled higher and higher he actually joined a whole group of condors, and we saw 10 of them! :D
That night the tent of John and Judith was waiting them for them again, but this time on a wooden platform because of the rocky and bumpy terrain. We got a nice platform next to them, but because we can't use tent pegs on wood, our tent took a reccord of 65 minuten to put up... It all didn't matter, because today we had a luxurious bath building with showers which were working 24 hours a day with warm water, with the only request to shower not longer than 3 minutes. Since Bette and Judith had been waiting to take a shower for 1,5 hour just the day before, this was much much better :)
The next, and penultimate day of our tramp, it would be a day with 17km's to go. The end was coming, we got wings, or the map and estimated distances weren't correct, but we arrived much earlier at the campsite than expected. Our reservation again seemed to be causing trouble. Still, it shouldn't be difficult: There are 4 people arriving, 2 of them have everything they need with them, the other 2 people would like to have a tent, sleeping bags and food. But no, there were two tents waiting for us, 4 sleeping bags and 2 matresses. Unfortunately there weren't meals for 4... ;) Because our own tent is bigger than the one they rent out, and not only fits us in but also our bags, we preferred to sleep in our own tent. This appeared to be very difficult, but eventually we got an empty platform and if we don't count the time it took to arrange this, our tent was ready within a half an hour :)
From this campsite it was a 1,5 up to 3 hour walk (depended on who you asked) to the iconic and name giving granite rocks 'Torres del Paine'. Traditionally you are supposed to get up really really early, to walk up the mountain before sunrise, to see the first orange sunlight be brightly reflected by the stone towers. Because that meant we had to get up very early, while we could already see some peaks from our campsite, we decided not to. John was curious if there would be a spot further along the way, not more than an hour walking form the campsite, where we would be able to see them even better. So John and us two walked further along the path, but couldn't find anything better. John went back to Judith and dinner, while we decided to walk on until the towers, since we were relatively close now anyway.

The higher we got, the more we had to clamber en the more windy it became and the colder we got. We were ofcourse only prepared for a summer walk in the valey, so when we were up there we were pretty cold. But it was worth the view! Just granite isn't necessarily worth the climb, but with eternal snow underneath the towers which changed in colour from white at the top to grey at the bottom, and small streams of ice water running down into a icy green lake was enchanting. We weren't enchanted enough to not feel the cold, so we practically ran down again, where we arrived at the campsite not more than 3,5 hours after we had left it.
The next morning Judith was out of bed early to go to the toilet, and she had the lcuk to be right in time for the orange lightshow on the mountains. By the time she woke us and we were out of our tent it was already decreasing, but still spectacular to see.
This last day was a case of walking back to the point where the bus had dropped us off the first day, but along the way we saw some lama-kind animals. Back in Puerto Natales we treated ourselves on a well earned and richly topped pizza. The next morning we unfortunately had to get up early to get the parents on the bus of 7 which would bring them back to el Calafate. It was a real pity that we had to say goodbye to them already, because we have really enjoyed our time together. They will fly from el Calafate to Santiago in Chile, move on to Valparaiso from where they will board their cruise ship which will bring them back to Buenos Aires. Along the way they will visit a lot of cities of course, among them Ushuaia, the most southern city on earth. Maybe we will even see them there for an afternoon, but you will read that in our next blog ;)