Day 73, 74, 75,76
43,959 – 44,285 326 Miles (21,585 Miles Overall)
El Calafate, Argentina – Puerto Natales
We got up today and were super pumped up to watch the final game of the World Cup with Argentina vs France. We packed up the bike and rolled a few blocks away into town to get fuel before we went to get seats for the game. As we were riding to the gas station I see a KTM 1290 with Mosko bags. After I got fuel I made a loop around the block and looked at the KTM and as I was riding by I see the couple who owned the bike through the glass windows in the bar. They waved us in. We pulled over and parked and went in to meet them. I ended up speaking to them for the last few weeks in this huge group chat a bunch of us are in. They had room for us so we sat with them for the game. They are such a sweet couple and have such good energy. Im glad I made a loop around their bike and met them.
We all watched the game together and fuck was I pretty much crying the whole game because I wanted Argentina to win so bad. The whole country needs it so bad and it was Messis dream and final season playing so they really needed to win. The game was wild and when they finally won the town went absolutely wild. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life watching the last 4-5 games while being in Argentina. I was so happy Sameera got to witness this whole thing too. I wish we were in a bigger city like Bariloche to see the after party but we got what we got. We hung out in town for about an hour and then hit the road to get to Puerto Natales at a decent hour. We took the shitty dirt road yet again and I was 99% sure we were going to camp at the border with no food or water because we were getting there quite late on a Sunday night.
We got lucky. We pulled up and it was the quickest border crossing of my life. In and out of each one in under 2 minutes. We shot back into town and back to our old hotel we got a room for two nights.
Day 74
The next morning we made plans to meet with Lorin and his wife to ride the loop around Torres del Paine. We didnt have any contact with them since he didnt have any service riding over the dirt road section but we said we should try to meet up around 11. We got some food and rode over to the border crossing we did last night and with our luck there they were. They were almost done with the crossing and we were all on our way. We rode up around the northern part of Torre and the views were magnificent. Sameera was in heaven. There were so many glacial blue lakes along with huge rock formations that were in the park. It was heaven. We hung out for a few hours back there and rode like animals on the bikes on the dirt roads. I didnt have my luggage on for once but with Sameera it was almost the same. I still had a blast.
We rode back into town for lunch and while I went out to exchange money Sameera surprised me with a few micheladas at the lunch table. I was excited. We went over to the shop to book a campsite for tomorrow night into Torre and then the bus station for a ticket to the park at 7AM. We met up with Lorin and his wife for a few hours for a lovely dinner with some wine and then went to bed super early so we could get up at 5:45 for the long day we had ahead.
Day 75
We got up quite early and got a taxi over to the bus station. We ended up at Torre and took the Catamaran into the park for a pricey $30. This god damn country is too expensive and its by far the one I dislike the most. We got to the campsite by 11am and got our tent out and set everything up. We loaded up a few things in my backpack and went for a hike into the French Valley. The water around the campsite was so clear it was beautiful. The hike up to the French valley was also super nice going along some lakes in the park and around the park. My feet started to hurt pretty bad on the hike and we had to go back early. I think I have stress fractures on the tops of both my feet or some really bad ligament damage from hiking in Fitz Roy.
We got back to the campsite after a 12-13 mile hike and cooked some dinner on my camping stove along with a beer each and then went down to the beach to hang out and relax. We were too tired to stay up and watch the sunset as its near 10:05pm so we went back to the tent and just hung out in there. It started to rain later on in the night and it was lovely listening to the rain all night in the tent.
Day 76
We got up and it was still raining. We gave up on hiking over to the 3 towers because my feet were in such bad pain. We packed everything up and decided we would take the ferry back to the mainland and then see what happens with the weather when we get there. Luckily when we got there the weather cleared up so we decided to go for it. We got a small bus to take us into the campground for the base of Torre and we threw our bags in a storage place behind the counter. We had to make a run for the 3 towers because technically the trail closed at 11 and it was 11:45. The woman let us go though because she said she thinks we could get it done. Its normality a 5 hour hike and we had until 3pm to get past the step climb to the lake at the 3 towers. We put a few protein bars in our pockets and my water bottle I can refill from rivers along with our phones that were at 30% and started hustling. Next thing you know were at the lake under the 3 bases at 2:45pm which was some insane timing. We hung out there for 20 minutes and took a bunch of pictures which was beautiful. I really liked this place up here. It was hot as hell at the base and freezing cold up here. There was a glacier up here that was melting with 100 streams into the lake up there.
We started our descent with my feet killing me and we split up on the hike down. I ran down as much as I could because walking slow hurt more than running did. We made it down at about 6pm and were stuck there until 7pm where a bus could give us a ride out to the main road where we had to find tickets for a bus back into Puerto Natales.
While we were waiting out there on the main road pretty worried about a bus showing up with 2 empty seats I started throwing my thumb up at cars driving by and the third one said jump in! So we got a ride back from a few people heading into town as well and that worked out just perfect. We got some food and went to bed early as possible. We were smoked
