The mysterious way to the Cerro Fitz Roy
They call it one of the most difficult mountains to climb, because of its knife-shaped form, but hiking around this beautiful mountain in southern Argentina is really value for money. ‘Cerro Fitz Roy’ (named after the captain of “HMS The Beagle”) or also named ‘Cerro Chaltén’ is only a three-hour flight plus a three-hour bus ride away from Buenos Aires. Perfect for a three/four-day excursion during or after your Spanish studies at AMAUTA Spanish Buenos Aires!
On Saturday I went with two friends to the Buenos Aires Ezeiza airport to take an Aerolíneas Argentinas jet towards El Calafate Airport, in the southern part of Santa Cruz, Patagonia, Argentina. After three hours our plane landed on time in sunny El Calafate. We took a taxi to the centre of the small town where we took a bus towards El Chaltén.
After spending the night in a nice hostel, called “El Alamo”, we went to the border of the “Parque Nacional Los Glaciares” where we started our hike next day, really early in the morning. It was still dark and mysterious. When the sun came up clouds accompanied the first sunrays. After 4 hours of walking in cold but stunning landscapes we started climbing a mountain to reach our goal: the Cerro Fitz Roy. Normally this hike takes 1 hour, we did it in almost 2 because of the huge amount of ice on the path. Because of that ice that path almost dissapeared, so it was really like climbing a mountain without any adjustments for humans.
When we reached the top, for a moment, we wanted to cry… there were only thick clouds and we couldn’t see anything at all! But all of the sudden the clouds disappeared for 15 minutes and this gave us the perfect overview of what we wanted to see: the “Laguna de los Tres” and the famous “Cerro Fitz Roy”. After relaxing with the overwhelming view in front of us we went back down. We had to hurry because our bus back to El Calafate left at 5pm. We were 30 minutes early and were able to relax in the bus with our amazing adventure in our minds.
