Skip to main content

Trekking in El Chalten - Day 4: Lago Capri and Loma del Pliegue Tumbado


Samuel and I took advantage of the wonderful weather and Eric’s recommendation about the beautiful lakes to walk to Lago Capri. I was not prepared for the beauty of the walk there and back - it exceeded expectations! The river valley, and open vegetation at the beginning of the walk afforded us a view of a condor circling above. Eager tourists with tripods and expensive cameras madly photographed while expostulating in what ever their native language was. This was matched when we later saw a red headed woodpecker and a black and white bird, deep within the forest. Without the technology we were not able to take as professional pictures. So much for the wild life, we also took in a lovely, uninterrupted view of Mt Fitzroy and enjoyed a small break at Lago Capri, which lived up to Eric’s description of its merits.






Eric headed out in the other direction, walking up Loma del Pliegue Tumbado and running back to town.  The climb was 1100m (400m up to 1500m above sea level) and the views from the summit were breathtaking (sorry no camera on this journey).  The trail down from just below the summit pyramid was pretty smooth so it made for a great downhill run.  All up just under three hours of very hard exercise!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Inca Trail day 4

This was the day we would arrive at Macchu Picchu so we awoke with a keen sense of anticipation.   To celebrate the last day on the trail, somehow the chef had whipped up an enormous cake which was served after breakfast.  After a discussion with Marco about the likely weather over the next two days we agreed that it would be best to tour Macchu Picchu as soon as we arrived in mid afternoon rather than wait until tomorrow. Marco assured us that this would mean less crowds and better weather (he was right). We could see the backside of the mountain above Macchu Picchu in front of us as we started out.  Unlike the last two days, today was mainly downhill.  We would have to descend about 1,000 meters and judging by the first part of the morning walk, most of this would be on steep and slippery rocky steps. After alternating descents and traversing along steep hillsides through cloud forest and bamboo groves we reached the ruins of Intipata. Intipata was a very...

Dining in Denpasar

 A key part of any holiday experience is food.  During the first week of our stay in Bali we had two nice and very contrasting dining experiences. Merah Putih is billed as the best Indonesian restaurant in Denpasar. It was just a few blocks from our Seminyak villa so we prebooked well ahead of time for a visit. The restaurant venue is very impressive - from the inside it looks a bit like a giant greenhouse, including the plants. The food was spectacular.  While every dish was good, the Bak Pao Sapi (Beef steamed buns) and Semur Sapi (slow roasted beef cheek) were incredible.   Then for Christmas Eve lunch we had booked at Starfish Bloo at W Bali, one of the swankiest Sunday Brunch venues on the island.  Sunday brunch buffets are a signature Bali experience with many of the big international hotels putting on all you can eat extravaganzas once a week. Needless to say the meal was jaw dropping.  We had a great table close to the beach where we enjoyed un...

Santa Cruz

Unlike our first island hop, Isabela to Santa Cruz was done by boat (see the addendum below for my thoughts about inter island boat travel).  At least the early morning trip was a smooth one.  Luckily we had managed to book an apartment in Puerto Ayora which meant we could do some of our own catering for a change.  By the time we arrived we were slowing down some, we felt we'd seen much of the wildlife the islands offered and frankly, we were exhausted. So we didn't venture too far from Puerto Ayora. One nice place near town we did visit (Eric went twice) was Tortuga bay which was exactly what you would expect a tropical beach to look like.  In fact it had two beaches, one a surf beach and one a quiet cove where you could snorkel with barely a ripple.  There wasn't much wildlife here except a few Iguanas (and one turtle) but the warm water was great for a swim nevertheless. As with San Cristobal we took a taxi trip to the highlands, crawling in Lava tub...