In April 1834, Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin left the Beagle at the mouth of the Santa Cruz River and set out upstream with three whaleboats and twenty-five men, looking for the source of the river. The current was too strong to row against, so they hauled the boats from the bank with ropes, taking turns in harness, for more than two weeks. They turned back with the snow of the Andes in sight, without reaching the lake the river flows from, and came down in a few days what had taken them more than two weeks to climb.
Darwin wrote down what he saw along the way: water “of a fine blue colour, but with a slight milky tinge”, cliffs of basalt, herds of guanaco on the steppe and condors overhead. The lake they never reached is Lago Argentino, and the river still carries its water to the Atlantic in the same colour. Today a stretch of it can be travelled the easy way, downstream, in a morning from El Calafate.
A morning on the water
Patagonia Profunda runs the half day: a 4x4 with the kayaks in tow takes the group out along Ruta 40 to the river, and from there it is some fifteen kilometres downstream in double kayaks to Estancia Río Bote. Two of our team paddled it in April.
The day starts with three briefings: how to put on and look after the dry suit, what to do if the kayak turns over, and how to paddle. Dry suits, boots, gloves and life jackets are provided. Then the river does the rest. The water is a clear turquoise, the banks are steppe and bare cliffs, and guanacos watch from the slopes as the kayaks go by, or run down them in a cloud of dust. The guide, who leads kayak expeditions, keeps the instructions coming and still leaves time to stop paddling and take it all in. The paddle takes an hour and a half to two hours.
Lunch at Estancia Río Bote
The kayaks come ashore at the estancia, where lunch is waiting. On the day our team went it was a board of cold cuts and cheese outdoors, then steaks with salad cooked on the disco, the ploughshare griddle of the Argentine countryside, with soft drinks and wine in a well-kept shed, and chocolate mousse to finish. The menu changes with the season, and in winter the main course is a lentil stew. On cold days there is something hot as soon as people come off the water, especially welcome for anyone who has ended up in the river.
For the planner
Pick-up is at the hotel in the morning, at 08:50 from September to April and at 10:00 from May to August, and the group is back in El Calafate in the early afternoon, about five hours later. It runs all year and is cancelled only for strong wind or if the guide judges a traveller unfit to paddle. The operator rates the river as demanding; it is class II, and in our experience of intermediate difficulty. The minimum age is 16 and the maximum 65, and it is not suitable during pregnancy. The operator needs each traveller's weight and height in advance to assign the kayaks. Travellers should dress in layers and bring sunglasses and sunscreen. Companions who do not paddle can go straight to the estancia and join for lunch, and vegetarian, vegan, coeliac and diabetic diets are catered for on request.
Photos: Patagonia Profunda and Kallpa.
