"Cerro Fitzroy v Torres Del Paine" is a popular topic in this part of the world, and the majority of people that I have spoken to say that Fitzroy wins. As all I had really seen of Torres Del Paine was cloud, I figured I would be joining the Fitzroy camp as it could hardly fail to impress me by comparison. Then I learnt that Cerro Fitzroy is called Cerro Chaltén by the locals which means Smoking Mountain… no, it is not an active volcano, the 'smoke' is the cloud that is pretty much constantly swirling away at the top and rarely shifts to reveal its peak – brilliant! So, you can imagine the look on my face as I was greeted by a cloudy sky in the small town of El Chaltén. However I had been assured that they said the weather was due to clear the following day… but, knowing how often "they" are right I was not optimistic.

On my bus journey I had sat next to a German girl called Nancy who loved above anything else to talk. I think we were the only two non-Israelis on the bus, and it made me think back to Brazil where I was usually the only non-Brazilian on a bus… I really do wonder sometimes if there is anyone left in Israel! Nancy did not have a reservation for a place to stay, but I had made one through my previous hostel as I had heard that it can be tough to find a bed there this time of year. After calling six other hostels to hear they are all full, we finally found space at one "Hostel Glacier Marconi".   As much as I was glad to have somewhere to stay and that they could also accommodate Nancy, I have to say that I think this was the worst hostel I have ever stayed in.

I'll try my best to keep this as brief as I possibly can, but you know how much I love to write essays for my blogs, so no promises. Basically the woman who runs the hostel (and is married to the owner) is a nightmare. She is incredibly rude and short with everyone, huffs whenever someone tries to get a discount there from an advert that they have put in a guidebook, and she has no time for anyone with less than perfect Spanish. You are not allowed to drink alcohol in the hostel, but there is nothing to say that you cannot use the fridge to keep beers cool for the next day of hiking/to take out to drink elsewhere at night. One evening this witch found a couple of beers in the fridge and went crazy, eventually confiscating/stealing them from the guests. I will not list every single problem I had in this place, but essentially they ranged from the minor things such as having to buy your own toilet paper/their idea of cleaning a bathroom being to empty the bin; to major things like only booking me in for two nights despite me clearly saying three nights and them saying this was ok, with the first I hear of it being when I have to check out as someone else is coming and they have no room for me on my last night :s

On our first day there Nancy and I signed up to do the glacier hiking here. True to the word of the ever-knowledgeable "they" it was much cheaper here than hiking on the Perito Moreno glacier. It also included ice climbing and a rope river crossing. When we were booking it, a slightly overweight Austrian woman came in and also signed up. She commented that she was pleased we were also doing it as she thought that we didn't look like keen speedy hikers! How very charming. When she showed up the next morning with walking poles and moving at a snail's pace I felt very insulted that she thought we could be anywhere near as slow as her. We set off at 7am for a 10 hour day of walking: 2 hours to their camp, another 1.5 hours to the glacier, 3 hours on the ice and then the same 3.5 hour walk back to the town, allowing for an hour of resting here there and everywhere. However, because of the Austrian snail we did not make it back until 8pm, three hours later than we should have returned!

The first part of the walk was all uphill, but nothing too strenuous. As I wasn't sure whether my shoes would be suitable for the crampons when we reached the glacier, I had hired some walking boots. I think that shoes are one of the most horrible things that you can rent, and these ones were evil giving me many blisters by the end of the day. Once we reached the camp we stopped for tea and biscuits in a little tent. This was a very welcome refreshment and there were many jokes going around about English people and tea. Then we set off again via a very windy and narrow path with steep drops either side. At the other end of this path was the river crossing which was much more fun than wading/step stoning across.

Next was a very steep and sweaty climb up through a forest. This was fairly hard going and I couldn't help but wonder what it must be like when it’s raining, especially on the descent. Once we got out of the forest we stopped off at a stream for a much needed water bottle replenishing session before descending to the glacier over lots of big (and loose) rocks. By the time the Austrian snail had made it to the glacier I had already eaten half of my lunch, put on my crampons and grown rather impatient!

As soon as I got used to the crampons making the already hellish walking boots even more uncomfortable, I had lots of fun exploring the glacier. We walked to an ice tunnel just next to a very tall vertical face of ice - this was to be the site for our ice climbing. On my first attempt I only got around half way up the wall before my arms gave up on swinging the ice pick with enough force to secure it into the wall. However, after eating the rest of my lunch I was good to go and made it all the way to the top, although I don’t think I’ll be getting any prizes for my speed! The walk back to the town was harder as I was tired and my feet were in pieces; all this walking cannot be good for me! It was helped however by the weather completely clearing up to give a very rare perfectly clear view of Cerro Fitzroy and his friends… turns out that "they" got it right with the weather afterall.

The following day brought with it more walking. As my feet were begging me not to enclose them in any more shoes I decided to make the hike to Cerro Fitzroy in my flip flops. I was still incredibly tired and I don’t think my mind was really with it as although I remembered to take my camera with me, I very helpfully left my battery charging at the hostel in the commotion of being forced to check out a day early and there was no option of switching my bus ticket as all of the buses out of town were full. The weather was good again, but not quite as perfect as the previous afternoon. It was a reasonably tough walk with an hour’s climb at the end which would probably have gone a lot smoother had I been wearing proper shoes! All in all it was another seven hours walking for an already exhausted body and I had nowhere to take a nap when I got back to the town as I had not been able to find another place to stay. As I had a bus the following morning at 6 o’clock I figured it would be a good idea to go out as late as possible and then magically find a place to sleep if places were not open until this time. Or failing any Paul Daniels-like occurrences I supposed that I could sleep on the kitchen floor of the hostel as the witch did not work the graveyard shift.

There was a tango show at one of the bars on the main street, so we decided to go and check this out over dinner. I’ve not been to many tango shoes in my life, but this was by far the worst. The "performers" were a couple of coffin dodgers who could barely walk let alone dance. The man was enthusiastic enough and tried to whip up the audience’s excitement whilst his partner in crime sat behind him on a bar stool looking like she was waiting for a bus which was taking hours to arrive. Eventually she reluctantly got up to dance and there was literally zero passion in their routine, although I’m not too sure whether this was such a bad thing. Every now and then the guy would have to slyly shuffle back towards his woman as they had drifted further and further apart. We were also treated to some singing by the female half of this dynamic duo, which sounded rather similar to the noise created when you drag your fingernails down a blackboard.

After this exhilarating performance we headed to a nearby bar called The Cervezaria which was a million times better. They had run out of their own home brew beer, but they had plenty more on offer including a never-ending supply of free popcorn to help you build up a good thirst. It was Saturday night and it turned out that we had arrived just in time to secure the last seats in the place to be that day. Almost no women came into this bar, and a constant pour of men who looked like they’d just come back from the mountains continued all night - quite literally the heaven to contrast the hell of the hostel. I managed some matchmaking in Spanish for one of the girls from my hostel and also had a chat with one of the guides from my glacier trekking trip… it’s amazing how much my Spanish improves once I’ve had a few beers!

At 3am this place closed and I was left with three hours to kill before my bus was due to leave. As I had not done any camping in Patagonia I thought that it was about time I did some. A couple of the guys that I had been chatting to in the bar were staying at a campsite just around the corner from my hostel., and they very kindly let me sleep for a couple of hours in their tent before I set off on my 38 hour scenic route bus journey via El Calafate again. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that damn Calafate fruit, then maybe I might have managed to get my hands on one of the rare direct route tickets out of town.  

So, in conclusion to the debate of  "Cerro Fitzroy v Torres Del Paine" I would have to vote in favour of Fitzroy, but with different weather who knows…