Cerro Tres Picos in Photos

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Aha! I am alive. Camping was pretty much awesome, and Sierra de la Ventana, estancia Funke, and Cerro Tres Picos were beautiful. Yea, I finally figured out where I was. I had to climb a mountain to orient myself.

But I’ll tell it from start to finish..

We took a cab to Retiro, the bus station in B. Aires. Our bus left at 10 p.m. It took us 8 hrs by Omnibus to go Southeast to the city of Sierra de la Ventana. The trip turned into a 10 hour trip because of an accident on the freeway in the early morning hours. Our bus was not involved, but was delayed.

Bus ride to Sierra de la Ventana

Our seats were the best ever. We were at the top of the double decker bus, right in the front. It was like flying over the insterstate, except insanely more comfy than a plane. That’s Jesse int he green and Earl reflected in the window.

My ticket:

Condor/Estrella Ticket

The Condor/Estrella motto is “A blue light on the path.”

We got to the very small town early Friday, got some coffee, stocked up on food and water, missed a bus we needed, ate lunch, then took a remis to estancia Funke.

Inside the car

We got to estancia Funke, after about an hour drive, at about 2.

How patriotic

There we met Monica, a woman who works in the house shown in the background, which is a welcome center of sorts with rooms to rent, bathrooms, etc. She: 1) took our 90 pesos for the 3 of us to spend 2 nights camping on the land, plus a 50 peso refundable deposit, 2) gave us a “map” and proceeded to explain in Spanish and using actual printed photos, the way to get to the top of the mountain. Please note that I use the term map very loosely. An embarrassment to cartography!!! It was basically a drawing, not to scale, with a suggestion as to how to get to the mountain. ***Photo of map pending***

Jesse (left) and Earl

So we started out…..

The men check the map

And soon became lost.

Cow gate

There were lots of these things, which allowed cars to pass but not cows. They were all over the poor excuse for a map, but none of them were marked. Actually, none of the trail was marked. It just said “pass cow gate. Pass another with an electric fence beside it. Pass another…” etc

A window in the yellow house

We did pass the yellow house, which was on the map.

Do you understand that this place was huge and we went the whole of Friday afternoon and night without seeing another person? After maybe 2 hours, we called Monica, who told us to turn back and go back to the welcome center. NO WAY!!! we said. WE’RE AMERICAN!!

So fromt hen on we decided to forget about following any sort of marked path and just walk straight toward the mountain.

Field

We crunched our way through a field of dried plants….

Wind thinigies that tell you the direction of the wind....

….oh yeah, weather vanes. We passed these.

Electric fence

I had to get over 2 electric fences (with the men’s help) and crawl under this electric fence. I’m still not sure whether they were truly electrified because none of us would test.

Where's the mountain?

We’re getting close(r).

We did finally find where we were, and guess where it was? Right at the beginning of the map. We didn’t even get on the map that day, only to the point where the map starts, but it was so much fun….and then we watched the sunset.

Sunset

We set up the tent, and I watched, in a cow pasture….pretty much the whole of estancia Funke is a cow pasture. It was cold at night, but I could see probably every star in the sky over us and the milky part of the Milky Way. The stars are different here because of the change of hemisphere. And did you know there are, like, billions? I have never seen so many.

END OF FRIDAY!

Saturday we woke up with the goal of reaching the top of Cerro Tres Picos. It is the highest point in the province of Buenos Aires at about 1,239 meters vertical high.

As we walked to the base of the mountain, the view constantly changed-

It was a long walk to the corral, where we left our gear and only took water and some things, like my camera, to the mountain itself.

But before we left all our gear, we ate-

Jesse prepares a delicacy

The men ate their thing, and I ate mine. Here, Jesse prepares a water cracker with mozzarella, strawberry jam, and canned Caballa, which should translate into “most disgusting-smelling fish ever to swim the cursed oceans” but actually translates into “mackerel.” Later, when we packed up the trash to take back to the welcome center to throw away, guess whose pack the trash with the mackerel tin went into? Yeah, all my stuff smells like mackerel.

So on we went to the mountain, where we saw a dude descending the mountain. It was a dude we had seen that morning. Turns out he has climbed the mountain 109 times. He said we wouldn’t be able to make it up and back before sunset, (2 hrs), so we shouldn’t try. NO WAY!!! we said. WE’RE AMERICANS!! WE DIDN’T TURN BACK BEFORE, WE WON’T TURN BACK NOW!!!!

So he waited for us to get back, to show us the way back to the corral in case it was too dark.

We made it to the top of the mountain in 45 minutes.

Jesse

Earl reaches the top

Me

And me, sitting on top of the stool which marks the absolute highest point.

The view

The view part 2

We spent maybe 15 minutes at the top admiring Argentina. It took us about 30 minutes to climb down, then it was back to camp, where we set up our tent inside the corral, which is !!! basically a cow pasture. Jesse cooked dinner again in the portable stove and it was awesome. It was less windy and I got more sleep, but it was still cold.

END OF SATURDAY!!!

Sunday morning we woke and hiked back to the point where the map starts.

Jesse attempts to feed horse

There were horses and cows all over this estancia (which means ranch, by the way). LOTS.

From there, some awesome hikers gave us an awesome ride in their awesome truck back to the welcome center, then all the way back to Sierra de la Ventana.

These are them -

Earl, Jesse, Guillermo and his niece Soledad

Then we celebrated. Two big meals, ice cream, pool and several bottles -

We boarded the bus out of town at 11 p.m. and I slept most of the way back. We made it back in time for me to eat breakfast then go to the 10:10 a.m. class!!

END OF TRIP!!!!!!

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