Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 11 - El Chalten, El Calafate, Punta Arenas, Ushuaia (Argentina, Chile)

For our second day in El Chalten we had booked a trip out to Glacier Viedma. After a short bus trip with stunning views of the Fitz Roy mountain range we boarded a boat to take us to the glacier. An hour of weaving through icebergs and plenty of photo opportunities later we docked at the foot of the glacier (20 years ago the rocks we landed on had been covered by ice but the only reminders now are the incredible scuff marks, like if I dragged a fork across a freshly iced cake, and the bright colours from the minerals in the ice).

Compared to Perito Moreno there was hardly anyone there as only one bus load had left El Chalten that morning and only 5 of us were signed up for ice climbing. We tied on our crampons, tightened our harnesses and put on our helmets and headed out onto the glacier to the first crevice our instructors thought reasonable for beginners to climb. The instructors drilled holes in the ice to hold the ropes and we rappelled into the crevice – the only way to get out was to master the ice picks and climb. Turns out ice climbing requires a certain amount of upper body strength especially on the compressed blue ice, something I am severely lacking - although I managed to complete 2 of the 3 climbs, Rhys was a star and shot up all 3. It was so serene on the ice, listening to the glacier cracking and the run of the melting ice while condors swooped overhead.

After a short trek, a stop on the ice for lunch and a 4th climb for those hardcore among us (neither of us even attempted it as if you couldn’t do it you’d just be stuck 20 metres down), the trip ended with the guides taking us to a spot at the side of the glacier where you could walk underneath the ice in a cave glowing blue and handed us a Bailey’s served over freshly chipped glacier ice, unbeatable.

That night we treated ourselves to a meal out and headed to a BBQ restaurant where we had a ridiculous amount of meat and a wine penguin (turns out penguin isn’t a brand but a litre carafe in penguin form of unidentified wine).

Waiting for our bus back to El Calafate the following day, we braved the wind to hike to the Condor Pass for views over the town but no actual condors then warmed up over apple pie and brownie at a bakery in town.

From El Calafate we caught a bus to Punta Natales then after a run around the town to find a bus company with spare seats to get out that evening, a bottle of wine and a game of ‘how many US states can you name’, we completed the trip to Punta Arenas. As we’d already seen a million penguins the previous week and there’s not much else to do in town we spent the time recouping at a hippy hostel, browsing the stores at the duty free zone, eating rhubarb jam and drinking with a British couple and an American couple in town.

We managed to get a bus out on Monday (buses get really booked up here) and headed down to Ushuaia where we are now – the fin del mundo/end of the world. The trip south was long, a 12 hour journey that you can only do in day light hours because the ferries don’t run at night. The ferry across the Magellan Strait was brilliant, dolphins in the strait were playing in the wake of the boat and followed us half way across but apart from that 45 mins of excitement the journey was uneventful. We’re so used to Chile/Argentina border crossings now that we had the apples and garlic out ready to hand to the guy at customs and can fill out the forms with our eyes closed, urgh.