FitzRoy in full-effect.

On the first day of our trek around Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia most of the potentially awesome views were unfortunately hidden by thick clouds. Come the second day, and we were headed toward the Laguna de los Tres mountain lake, which promised wonderful views of Fitz Roy – somewhere up there ->

And here’s the lake/laguna on the map:

…And it kept its promise! Both at sundown…

…And at dawn! ->

So off we popped…

At first the path is really easy, like this:

But later it gets rather uneven: you have to struggle over rocks, and then there’s also the descent. Besides, the internet tells fibs. It states there are 400 meters of elevation gain and loss and 3km one-way. Our telemetry showed different numbers: 510 and 545 meters of ascent and descent, respectively (different devices gave different readings), and the total distance there and back turned out to be… 8km!

I hadn’t seen a full 25% discrepancy in a long time )…

Never mind; we made it in the end. And when we did… wooooaaah: check this view out! ->

A slightly wider view:

And if you zoom in, it looks like this:

Apparently folks sometimes climb up it! But that’s not contemplative tourism. There was no way we’d even think of doing such a thing… We just admired the view ->

The glaciers slowly crawl downward between the rocks, minding their own business:

Marvelous views ->

Way over there someone’s actually walking up that snow-covered glacier! ->

Meanwhile, we took over the location’s “Instagram rock” and a full photo-shoot ensued:

But who watches photographs the watchmen photographers?! ->

But I’ll always prefer unpeopled pics ) ->

Meanwhile, the group of climbers had almost made it to the base of the cliffs ->

Here’s something interesting: during the tourist season crowds of eager tourists head to Los Tres lake daily – for that’s where the most spectacular views of the peaks are. And they do this in three waves. We were in the second one: we started out after breakfast – and on the ascent we met the counter-flow of those who gone to watch the sunrise (meaning they’d set off around 4–5am). And when we were descending after our morning visit we passed the third wave.

Argentinian (and Chilean) Patagonia is an absolutely incredible place for serious meditative tourism. No wonder it’s on my personal Top-100 list of the most contemplative places in the world. And now I’ve seen it myself I can confirm its exceptional beauty, monumentality, uniqueness, and magnificence. Meanwhile, we had to be sticking to our pre-planned itinerary…

What’s nice is that there’s signage almost everywhere here showing directions and distances. You quickly get used to the fact that the directions are almost always correct, but it’s unclear when and how they calculated the distances. They never seemed to match our own measurements:

Never mind. Onward!…

Almost all the trails look like this:

A great place for a quick snack:

Yet another reassuring distance post:

The trees all lean in one direction – caused by the constant wind (you guessed it – blowing only in one directi0n:) ->

Sometimes the trail pushes through thickets, but it’s quite manageable:

Sometimes you see designer tree installations ->

And over there in the distance is the next goal of our three-day program:

Let’s look at the map again: we’d completed two-thirds of the planned route:

Overall, completely useless information :)

We simply need to head over there! ->

You’re probably wondering: where do you stay here and what/where do you eat?…

First, the most self-sufficient travelers can order an individual tour and live in their own tents with their own food and everything else they need in their backpacks. But that might feel a bit too rough-and-ready for some – including us. So we turned to tourist glamping sites – where tents were already up and dinner was practically ready upon arrival ->