Matthew's web log

Having seen Mt. Fitz Roy yesterday, we use the morning today to hike to the viewpoint for Cerro Torre, the second of the two tall mountains in the area.  The ascent is quite steep and I’m still recovering from yesterday’s climb.  L’ charges ahead while I rest for a few minutes after we had been going for a fair bit.  She then returns in about ten minutes to report that I’m almost at the viewpoint.  Sure enough, after a short distance up, I’m at the viewpoint, too .  Like Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre is partially behind a continuous stream of clouds.  We do get some good glimpses when there were openings in the clouds.  As L’ said, we used up our “clear day karma” on our trip to Denali.  It’s still quite a sight and worth the hike up.

After admiring the view and chatting with a nice German couple, we head back down.  As is often the case, I’m amazed we made it up considering how steep it is going down.

We have time to get lunch at the Waffleria and I don’t repeat the mistake from yesterday’s lunch – I order the waffles with ice cream instead of fruit.  Yummy!  We’re done in time to catch our bus to the El Calafate airport which runs as punctually as Aerolineas Argentina runs delayed.

Arriving at the airport, we take bets on when our 5:10pm flight will actually depart.  L’ guesses 6:30.  When we check in, the airline staff report that our flight is now scheduled for 6:30pm!  L’ high fives me that she wins and we explain this to the Aerolineas employee who just laughs. 

Only later when we ran into a family from NY who was on our Puerto Madryn flight fiasco, do we learn that we are flying to the Buenos Aires international airport (known as EZE)  and not the domestic airport (known as AEP).  This is important for several reasons: 1) the taxi from EZE to our hotel will be 100-200 pesos instead of the ~50 pesos we expected to AEP.   2) We only have about 100 pesos. 3) Taxis don’t take credit cards and 4) outside of Buenos Aires, the country lacks a functioning banking system where you can depend on ATMs having cash. 

While we are waiting for our flight to take off from El Calafate, L’ sweet talks the airport departure tax lady into giving us back our ~60 pesos and letting us repay the tax in dollars.  We  now have a total of 170 pesos (about $40).  After finally taking off around 7pm, we land at EZE where it takes forever to get our luggage.  As expected, the ATM is out of money.  I scout out the taxis while L’ guards the luggage and I determine that a taxi will be 168 pesos.  Done deal, although I’m a little nervous that this was an oral agreement and the meter is off in the cab.  We finally arrive at the hotel and the fare is in fact 168 pesos.  The cab driver gets all of our pesos and we are thrilled to have made it to our hotel and to no longer need to take a flight on Aerolineas Argentina again.

See this morning’s picture of Mt. Cerro Torre:

http://www.sanjoseabrams.com/photos/ArgentinaDec2011/Day%2012,%20Mt.%20Cerro%20Torre/index.html#