december 6 - december 13

at december 6th we were heading to national park "los glaciares" in argentina and had a second overnightstay in el calafate. a super touristic place, which eva hated. but i had a calafate (a berry or kind of grape) in my icecream at our first stay, and an old indiolegend says, that you will come back to the place, after eating it. not the ice-cream, the berry! so we did, unfortunately in a bad hostel, but it was just a bed for one night.

next day we arrived at el chalten, starting point to mount fitzroy, were we did three more days of hiking. campsites were georgious and for free. eva and i climbed up to laguna de los tres, what was absolutely fantastic. the sky around the mountains cleared up, so we had a good view on top of the hill. next destination was camp angostino with more beautiful landscape.

we left the place towards el chalten with the first real hot sunny day in southern patagonia and evas food was hurting again. for supper, we had "bife de chorizo", what else. it was the very last evening of our common travel with andrea, who started next day at 6:30 a.m.. i missed the good-bye, snoring in deep sleep. we spent the next day in el chalten in a bad mood, cos eva was unable to move a lot. and we were expecting three-day-busride back to esquel, unfortunately with a 4 hours stop in our favorite town el calafate again.

at december 13th we arrived with "don ottos semi cama" in esquel, back from our hiking-experience and rented a cabana for three nights, cos we lost a piece of our heart at this place.

november 26 - december 4

torres del paine national park is the no.1 attraction in chilean patagonia and we were afraid, that it could be too touristy there. but for me, it was an absolute must to see the park.

the bus took us and our brimful new backpacks directly to the main entrance of the park on november 28th. we got a nice, colorful map for 10000 pesos each, including park entrance fee and taxes.the weather was not too bad, just a little chilly and stormy (remember: patagonia!) and the cloudy sky was promising some showers. but we were warm and dry in our four-layer-all-purpose-outdoor-clothing and did our first flimsy steps with about 15 kilograms on our back. we were heading to the "serron-campground" and arrived, after barefood rivercrossings, 6 hours later. we had an expensive beer and i needed a powernap. the girls got free postres from a nice cook, and after supper we felt asleep in our sleepingbacks. the night was freezing cold!!!

next day we hiked to refugio dickson, with more barefootin through swampland. the refugio was run by real pampas-cowboys, called gouchos. these wild men were a little bit tame nowadays and one of them had a crush on andrea. we put our tent on in mosquitoarea, and cos it was chilly again, we spent our time in the refugio, playing cards. the landscape was breathtaking and we saw our first glaciar. the next day was an up and down hiking through tropical woods, passing glaciar "los perros". at camp los perros, we met daniel and urs from switzerland, too nice climbers. we expected snow for the night, but it was kind of warm and dry.

next day was mountaineering over paso john gardner, first a 1200 meter swampcrossing, than a steep ascend over rocks and snowfields. heavy windgusts threw us left and right, but we did the pass and had the first glimpse of the amazing glaciar grey.the descend was pretty steep as well, and it was more like sliding than walking. at camp los guardes, after crossing two landslides, we met daniel and urs again and had a nice campfire.


next morning wakeup was horrible, cos our legs were hurting like hell and the mood for more hiking was low. a couple from wales had a little emergancy, a fox had stolen one of the womans boots. no searching helped, but i found a lost sandal that fits, so she could walk back to the last campground.now the path was a little bit more frequented, cos most of the tourists started their hike here, not like us, doing the whole circuit. kind of limb we reached camp paine grande, were we had a rest day on december 3rd, because eva could not walk anymore. we decided to break up the hiking and took the catamaran ferry over lago pehoe next morning, catched the bus and arrived late at puerto natales, were we had a real meal after one week of pasta, polenta and muesli.

november 21 - november 26

with no money in our pockets and rain creeping over the mountains, we headed of direction trevellin quite early. cycling through nationbal park "los alceres" was really beautiful, but hard to drive. the wet gravel roads had only one advantage, no dust if a car is passing, but the backwheels were sinking in, like driving with flats.
after a couple of hard kilometers, eva decided to stop a pickup for a ride to the next atm, cos our map shows more hills on bad roads. we got a nice ride to esquel, with a very nice argentinean guy.

next day eva had a cunning idea: why not take the bus to puerto natales in chile, to go to the famous torres del paine from here right now. we bought the tickets, long thermo-underwear and some stuff for the trip down south. in esquel-centre we met two guys from germany and had a nice supper together, with of course steak and too much of the excellent argentinean red wine.

the 30 hours- busride with "don otto semi cama" started on 23rd of november at 9:00 p.m.. the bustrip was very long and there was no way to escape from painful loud music or d-movies from dvd (funky monkey and herbie, what a junk!).

finally we arrived at puerto natales in chile and we were lucky, that we decided to avoid a biketrip down here. between nothing and the pampa, i would chose the nothing, cos its almost the same, except the pampa has lots of wind. if you see a tree, you are not wondering, why its growing from south to north, and not upright from the soil.



anyways, we ended up in a backpacker-hostel called "erratic rock", which was recommended in a backpackers magazine. the place was run by two crazy americans, bill and rustyn, who offered a friendly atmosphere, a real breakfast and two very bad bathrooms for about 25 guests. that meant, do your things in time!
one bathroom was always flooded, so you could only enter the tub by stepping through a mess of soggy towels, lying on the ground. the other shower had only boiling hot water for two minutes or icecold water for the rest of the hour.
totally exhausted from the busride, i unfortunately took the hot two minutes and got a bad shot on my private parts. that woke me up and after a pot of real coffee, no nes, we went downtown puerto natales.

we were looking for trekking-backpacks, cos renting them was not as cheap as considered. so eva got a nice "mammut" and i bought an "outdoor doite".

andrea from switzerland arrived at the same day and we were happy to be reunited, nevertheless without our bikes.

november 15 - november 20

we left villa angostura very late after finishing a miguel-served breakfast at akerman cabanas with warm rolls and excellent coffee. filled up with enough energy, we were heading to san carlos de bariloche, or just bariloche, 90 kilometers to go. the road was paved and we had good backwind, so we did a bit of distance between our rests. weather was chilly, especially when not cycling, so it was a lot of dressing and undressing. we came closer to bariloche and the wind became stronger, pushing us up the mountains. after reaching the top of a long ramp, the landscape suddently changed completely. no more trees, only pampa was stretching in front of us. we did a fullspeed downhill, hard to concentrate on the road, cos the landscape was amazing. we entered the outskirts of bariloche and had to struggle 10 kilometers against the wind. not only wind, remember, we are in patagonia now! a policecar stopped us and the officer wanted us to drive the unpaved shoulders. we obeyed a bit and finally reached bariloche. we went to a restaurant and had a really good steak again...but evas was better.
next day, we canceled our plan to do the los lagos-boat trip back to chile, instead we decided to stay longer in argentina, going south via futaleufu. we had a restday from biking, what means a stressday for shopping. we went in every outdoor shop, searching for new gloves and a hat for eva, cos patagonia has no tropical weather conditions in summer. the average temperature in november is about 7 degrees celsius, brrrrrrr!
bariloche is an absolute chocolate paradise. one shop after the other and the chocolate is fantastic and cheap, so we bought a lot. the icecream-pro eva said, that this icecream is the best she ever had, even better than "death by chocolate". and that was good, yummy!

leaving bariloche meant pushing our bikes out of town. we had a bad hill for breakfast and it was cool again. we rode our bikes through an unbelievable landscape and didn´t care about ups and downs. patagonian backwind helped a bit. an amazing 10 kilometer downhill ended up at a checkpoint of the argentinean national police. heavy rain started and we had a shelter in a small bus station. the rain didn´t suppose to stop and the 10 kilometers down meant, unfortunately, 10 kilometers up, cos the whatever for policestation was exactly in a valley, between about 600m high mountains. the next dry accomodation is 20 kilometers away, up, said the policeman, grinning. we were not to proud to ask for a hitchhike in a pickup truck, so we had a nice ride on the back of a 40 years old toyota to el bolson.
andrea got problems with her back and the next day we just did a 40 kilometer-ride to epuyen, cos she could not cycle anymore. we rented a cabana in time before a heavy rain started again. we made a fire in the fireplace to cure andreas back, but it did not worked. she decided to take the bus back to bariloche on sunday. we had a last day with swiss company, staying in our little house and had a nice walk to lago epuyen. andrea cooked a polenta-pizza and i was writing this page. tomorrow we will go further on our own. another day to say good-bye.

and it was a bad day. we had our last breakfast together and another breakfast-hill to the busstation. we were waiting for the "don otto" semicama-coach, which arrived at 9:30 and after some biketransportationdiscussions, andrea found her seat in the bus, leaving back to bariloche. two weeks of biking with her, a long time for getting close to somebody.

so the hasinos were on their own and had a little break, cos heavy rainclouds brought bad weather again. we had coffee and "milka con dulce de leche" in a gas station, were we saw the "deutsche welle" tv-program. to watch german television was some kind of strange, after a long time of travelling. the patagonian wind blew strong and after some kilometers, we were back on a gravel-road, leading directly into the argentinean pampa. the sky became darker and the rain was pouring. we were wet and looked for room for the night, to dry out. a lonely hospedaje offered a stinking room for 100 pesos and we denied. no way, josé! after 20 more kilometers in the pouring rain, we finally found a place at villa lago rivadavia.too bad, that argentina got more expensive in this special region, so we are completly busted now. the next tellermachine is about 100 kilometers away, oops!

and one special experience was missing on our trip til now. cycling a dirt road is bad, but cycling a muddy, wet dirt road is real shit, and you are looking like a hog!
but we were dry now, had a hot-toddy-tea and heard sentimental music on mtv... .