Cabo Froward
We headed down to Punta Arenas last Thursday (30th Jan) to do a bit of exploring before going on our trek to Cabo Froward. It is an incredibly windy place – anyone who has been on the Cairngorm plateau will have an idea of how strong the wind can be – but we were in town. Sometimes they put up ropes on the corners of the main square to stop people getting blown away. We had an interesting hostel, run by a Chilean Rastafarian. He played Bob Marley 24 hours a day so this is now the sound of Patagonia for us. Punta Arenas is quite a large town with a port that is visited by cruise ships. It also has several interesting museums as well as the second most beautiful cemetery in South America. But the highlight of our stay there must be our visit to Isla Magdelena to see more penguins. We went in a Zodiac which was quite exciting as it bounced over the waves. In contrast to our previous penguin experience we were able to go ashore and walk amongst the penguins. There are about 120,000 of them nesting on the island. The young ones still had some grey fluffy feathers. They come right up and will give you a curious look and peck at your shoes. We spent about an hour there watching them going in and out of the water, waddling about, climbing up and down the cliffs etc. They are really comical the way they jump down little steps on the cliffs and slip and regain their balance. At one point lots of them suddenly rushed out of the sea and up onto the beach. I noticed a sealion in the water which had been the cause of the panic. After that we went to another island which was the main sealion stronghold. They were lounging about on the beach and swimming around, the males having the odd altercation as they are prone to do.
On Monday we set off on the trek, our rucksacks bulging with all manner of goodies. Katie and I are definitely a lot more frugal when it comes to trekking supplies but we had salami, cheese, chocolate, pasta, rice, even 2 carrots and loads of other things. (There she goes, on about food again!). We caught a bus to start of the trek at about 7.30am and were walking shortly after 9. Initially we walked on a gravel track between the beach and some woods, along the Straits of Magellan. We could see across to Tierra del Fuego and occasionally dolphins broke the surface of the water. There were lots of fuschias along the way. Eventually the track finished and we walked along shingle beaches for most of the morning which was quite hard going. At lunchtime we came to a lighthouse (Faro San Isidoro, I think). Then on along more beaches and through the woods to our first campsite after about 7 hours walking. There was a disused house there with a stove so we put up our tents and collected driftwood to light a fire. We cooked our dinner in the hut and sat round the fire which was nice and warm. We had a late start the next day (about 12pm) because we had to arrive at a major river crossing at low tide to make sure the water was at its lowest point. We crossed a smaller river straight after leaving the camp and then after more beach walking we entered the turba, an area of dense extremely muddy woodland followed by a long stretch of bog. It was really fun scrambling about in the mud between tree roots! On leaving the turba we arrived at the river crossing just after lunch. It came well over our waists and was very cold indeed. We all stripped down to our undies and held our rucksacks over our heads and waded across. It wasn´t very fast flowing thank goodness but it was a relief to reach the other side and put warm clothes on again. After that we had to scramble arouind a headland on rocks and this warmed us up. We reached our second campsite at around 8pm and by the time we had had dinner we just collapsed into our sleeping bags. It rained hard all night and we got up early at about 6.30am in order to cross the nearby river at low tide. But it was a raging torrent with all the rain so we took one look at it and decided to go back to camp. We built a fire and got warm and also toasted our wet things from the previous day. Imagine a group of people holding their smalls out over a fire on sticks while they steamed dry and you have the scene. There had been fresh snow on the hills in the night and as that melted during the day it became obvious that the river was not going to go down. So we had no choice but to head back. If we had crossed the river we were only about 3-4 hours from Cabo Froward, the most southerly point on the American mainland. But it was not to be. So we headed back to our first nights campsite. The first river we had crossed was much lower than it had been, probably because of a lower tide, so we were able to get across just rolling up our trouser legs. This was a great relief! We arrived back at the campsite at about 11pm and a lot of people (there were 11 of us) decided to sleep in the hut this time. The river near the hut had risen and we all got quite wet crossing it in the dark. The next day was sunny and quite warm (for Patagonia) and we stayed at the campsite until about lunchtime before retracing our steps to just short of where the bus had dropped us off on the first day. We camped in the woods and had a good fire going. We had popcorn over the fire and someone in the group made pizzas in a saucepan, which we must try. The next day (Friday) we caught the bus back to Punta Arenas and another session with Bob Marley. We all went out for a late lunch at an eat as much as you like Chinese buffet (yes, in Patagonia!) before retiring to the hostel with more pocorn and some videos. It was a much tougher hike than the W and the group we were with was really great. They were all Yanks apart from us but I think we flew the flag with honour!
We are now back in Puerto Natales hoping to head off to the Mount Fitzroy area tomorrow for more hiking.
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