From Perito Moreno to Ferry Madness

3.2.

Roman has an extreme headache and even after taking 4x400mg Ibuprofen, it doesn't get much better. But today is the day we visit the Perito Moreno glacier, there's no way around it. The 80km drive to the giant ice formation takes us through the middle of nowhere once again, and we listen to music to pass the time. The glacier is absolutely amazing. I've never been so close to such a large glacier, even though we've done one or two glacier tours in Switzerland. The ice walls, reaching up to 70m, that push into the lagoon are simply insane! We even witness the breaking off of huge blocks of ice, up to 30m high, which crash into the water with a loud noise. The entire facility is very well designed and despite the high number of tourists, it effectively protects nature. Back in El Calafate, we buy provisions (empanadas in all variations) and head towards El Chalten, which we learn has only existed since 1985 and is located 210km away. The journey takes us past enormous lakes and a few hills, so it's not quite as desolate as the day before, but still completely away from any settlements. There are only two inhabited houses along the entire route. The last 95km lead straight to the rock massifs of Fitzroy and Cerro Torre. Since it is quite flat, the mountains feel like they are not getting any closer. The weather is perfect and we can admire the granite peaks in all their beauty for the first time. El Chalten is much smaller than El Calafate and not quite as posh. But the hipster vibes are everywhere. There are probably around 10 beer bars, all offering happy hours and usually brewing their own beer. We stop at the first bar we find and try to find a campsite online. We also need to take care of the ferries that we will need in Chile to go from the southern part to the continuously drivable north. We know from our previous plans that the ferries book up very quickly. When we wanted to drive down from the north, the ferries were booked about 10 days in advance. So we think that nearly 19 days should be enough to find a spot.

Unfortunately, no, the ferry on the main route is fully booked even beyond the date! That means we cannot drive to Puerto Montt with the rental car and are practically trapped in southern Chile! We are in panic mode! After further online research, we find other ferries with alternative routes that would still take us to our destination, with a detour via Chiloe, if they are not all fully booked as well. The route with the longest crossing time still has 3! spots available for cars. This ferry is our only chance to reach northern Chile. We go to the online reservation page and start booking. Unfortunately, we don't have cell phone reception in El Chalten, so we can't receive the SMS code for the VISA card, what a mess! We try to approach people who might be willing to lend us their credit card. After half an hour, we find Sebastian, a young Argentine, who is willing to help us. Unfortunately, now the booking site is acting up and it takes another hour until we can use his card, but for inexplicable reasons, it gets declined! WTF! The bar owner has notified colleagues who might be able to help us with their cards. One has to transfer money to the other so that his card can be used for the payment. Unfortunately, we are already in the payment process and time is running out before we can make the payment. AAAAHHH! All further attempts to rebook the reservation fail again due to error messages from the booking site, we are horrified. After three hours and about 30 unsuccessful reservation attempts, we have to give up and go to sleep on a campsite, feeling hopeless that we will ever succeed... The only hope is that tomorrow there will still be available spots and we can make a reservation over the phone during the opening hours of the ferry company...