Overnight at refugio Frey
A girl in my hostel had warned me. She tried to go to Villa Catedral by bus, but the bus never showed up. She was at the wrong stop. Supposedly I was at the right stop, but time passed and I didn’t see a bus. 5 minutes. That’s possible. 10…
My most expensive hike yet
There are many accessible hiking trails around Bariloche, but some lie a bit deeper in the Nahuel Huapi national park. Several trails, including some to the mountain huts, start from Pampa Linda. A rough dirt road gets out there and the road closes during parts of the day. Yet I…
Los Alerces, but which one is it?
I’d come into Argentina to see the los Alerces national park. With the fires around El Bolsón, I’d decided to skip the Lago Puelo area and this was my chance of camping near the lakes and enjoying some nature. Of course there was now also a fire here, but it…
Queulat, just before it closes
“We haven’t really had much summer this year”, says my host in the hostal in Puyuhuapi when we compare the weather here with the Netherlands. “It’s been very rainy.” And of course it rains during my stay as well. But it suits the setting. I’m here to head into the…
Cerro Castillo
Doubts. They just keep coming back. No matter how many hikes I’ve done, problems I’ve solved and adventures I’ve lived, I always end up questionning if I’ve got what it takes. This time I’m feeling particularly vulnerable. I leave camp early and the thoughts start rolling in. Then I’m doing…
Patagonian challenges
Some days are tough. There’s not always a clear reason and often it’s more a feeling of being out of sorts. Of being in your head. Of not really being in the moment. And I had this the day I took all my things into the Chacabuco sector of Patagonia…
In between
Crossing the border from El Chaltèn to Villa o’Higgins I’m sitting on a big boulder. There was a sign that says “mirador Fitzroy”. I have already exited Argentina and this time even received a stamp, but although I’m on Chilean territory, the border authorities do not know I have arrived…
Trekking los Glaciares: laguna Torre
After a beautiful first day, I woke up to a much better day than expected. The sky wasn’t completely covered in thick grey clouds and my tent wasn’t wet. How unexpected. Some people head up the steep trail to laguna de los tres in the dark in order to catch…
Trekking Los Glaciares National Park: Fitzroy
The weather forecast looked horrendous when I booked my campsites. But if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that the mountains are unpredictable and in many places the forecast has been wrong. So I was pleased to wake up to a seemingly perfect day. Sure, there were some clouds, a…
The land of fire
At the end of the world, as they call it, you can find the national park Tierra del Fuego, land of fire. I’m not sure where the name comes from, but there are signs everywhere saying you can’t make a fire. Fire has devastated much of Patagonia’s national parks and…