Ice climbing at minus 5 degrees - exploring Patagonia

Patagonia was just amazing! Another highlight on our already pretty long list of beautiful places in this world.

We flew from Buenos Aires a few 1000km South to the - what we thought - end of the world, a village called El Calafate. Surprisingly we arrived in a pretty much developed little town with loads of cosy restaurants, alpine-style (Huetten look) accomodation and little shops full of Argentinian handcrafts. All of this set amid a stunning scenery. Next to the deep turquoise "lago Argentino", surrounded by white peaks (the Glacier national park). And with a true Antarctica feeling, caused by the freezing winds. Which meant that latest after 10min walking we had an excuse for being rescued by a yummy submarino (hot chocolate) or an Argentinean Mate tea in a sweet cafe.

But not only the scenery and the weather reminded us so much of home (we heard it is already snowing in Munich...)...
When waiting to go on a boat trip to see the famous glaciers up close, we met Matteo and his wife (being there on a honeymoon) .. a friend of us from the Bocconi MBA!! In a queue at the end of the world - unbelievable!!!! So we got a fresh update from home and chatted until late in the evening. It was great! And it made the pretty touristic boat ride a bit more fun...

Apart from the standard glacier tours, Patagonia is an amazing place to discover untouched nature and do all kinds of adventures you can think of. We climbed through the massive, deep blue ice of the Perito Moreno glacier (the bluer the ice, the older it is...). An unforgettable experience, getting into the crampons and walking over hidden rivers and waterfalls...

2 days of our (far too short) Patagonia trip we spent in El Chalten (an even tinier village 4hrs from Calafte) to hike through the mountains around the Fitz Roy range. It is all natural parks here (UNESCO proteced!) which are incredibly well maintained by a passionate crowd of locals (the walkways are better marked than in the Alps). Unfortunately both days were too stormy and cloudy to actually SEE the famous peaks, but it was worth it, just for the great treks. And with photoshop we can paste the peaks into the white spot (the clouds!) of our posing pictures at the "Miradores" (viewpoints) :-)

Our week down there was flying and - far too early - we had to go back to BsAs... although looking forward to get our bones warmed up a bit and chilling out for a week in one of our favorite cities :-)