Days 43-44: Friday April 8 – Saturday April 9: El Calafate and the Triumphant Conclusion to Our Story
We left early in the morning on Thursday April 7, boarding a commercial bus from El Chalten to El Calafate, our luggage being schlepped by van from our hostel and reloaded at the station. As the bus lumbered out of town, groaning through its gears, every kilometer that passed seemed to loosen the grip of the plague that had vexed us. We held our heads high again and straightened up in our seats, told jokes, fiddled with the heat and light controls, looked out the windows as the scenery reverted once more to the huge emptiness of the steppes, and we basked happily now in the harsh light of the new sun. Life was good, we were healthy; it was morning again in Patagonia.
A couple hours ride brought us to the largish and dandy town of El Calafate, where we settled gladly into the very upscale Hostel del Glaciar. There was shopping, lunching, gathering of goods and repacking of luggage – all luxury activities. On the next day, Friday – our last full day in Patagonia – five of us opted to take the tour out to the Moreno Glacier, where a boat brings you within a few hundred yards of icy towers, shot through with blue in the sunlight and from time to time calving into water not all that far away. We returned to a final wonderful dinner with David and Laura, stuffing more meat into our bodies than we had ever thought possible. So our training had paid off.
Tallying up some of the figures from our trip, we discovered that we had covered over 1350km of territory in Patagonia and gained over 46000 feet. Our longest day was 97km, ridden unsupported. The greatest elevation gained in a single day was over 5100 feet. Our fastest recorded speed on paved road (Bram) was 73km/hour; on unpaved (John) was 58km/hr. We had done all of it together though, the suffering and the triumph, and the eight of us had come to know – and like – each other better over the course or these many weeks.
On Saturday morning we finished our last minute packing and boarded the van for the Airport, beginning the 27 hour trip back to Seattle and the far-away homes that we now leaned towards, at ease with each other and with what had turned out to be a fabulous adventure.
Also, we said, when we get back to Seattle, we’ll be able to put some pictures up to illustrate these last few weeks in the electronic wilderness. The journey just gets better…