Patagonia Camp

5.5 hours from El Calafate by car across the border. Finally here and a proper Chilean welcome with a Calafate sour.

Pisco sour with calafate, buffet breakfast, coursed dinners, BBQ lamb and wine tasting, free flow wines, beers and cocktails.

Glamping in the most literal term

Eastern part of the national partk. Hike up to see the conglomerate rocks and some 4000+ year old cave paintings.
The round pebbles glued together by slit signifies that this location was once the bottom of the sea a long time ago.

First part of the hike was easy and scenic with a pair of flamingos at Lake Totoa.

While only a short 1-2km hike, it felt very tiring trying to walk on a beach with huge gravels and the wind blowing full force in your face.

Family of condors hovering. An easy trail with an interesting terrain which varies from open grass field with huge boulders, to closed forest canopy with magnificent trees.

A very zen-like moss and lichen covered scape at the end of the Pingo trail

Patagonia camp's style to end a hike, no matter where you are, there is always beer, cheese, ham, trail nuts, hot coffee and tea waiting

2nd part of the hike was across the open steppe landscape. Hoping to chance upon a Puma but so such luck. The closest was several Guanaco carcasss which were there Puma was here signs.

We were suppose to be able to see the 3 towers from this lunch point, but nature is shy today.

This lake is the remains of the last glaciation process. It is not connected to other lakes and streams and will evaporate with time.
The white shores are thrombolite (seens only in a handful of places in the world), signs of existance of microbes (earliest lifeform on earth that photosynthesis) and have cause the sediments to glue together to form the thrombolites

Having my favourite chickpea hamburger, caramelised onions with chicken slices.
hot soup that the guides were carrying felt so good in the cold.

We thought that the tough part was the steep ascent to the very windy weber lookout point. We were so wrong.
Weber lookout was panoramic, with the normal "Patagonia Breeze" that can literally blow you off the cliff.
The descent was via the other side of the ridge and was truly the highlight of the hike. a 45-degree slope of black slate, strong winds plus rain in your face really made this stretch unforgettable.