Latitud 490 El Chalten

... niet door de wind in een plas met ijskoud water te worden geblazen.
Op het einde van de tocht kon je nog ijsklimmen. Met speciale ijsbijlen en de crampons kon je zo omhoog klimmen. De gids moest het natuurlijk even voordoen zonder beveiligingslijn.
In totaal was het een dag van 13 uur ik kwam dus om 8 uur gebroken aan in het hostel. Dat was ook de bedoeling aangezien ik een busreis van 32 uur voor de boeg had over de ...

The tiny town of El Chalten is located inside the national park and is surrounded by well marked hiking trails. Our definition of windy was completely redefined when on one hike we reached a rocky plateau which I suspect had lovely views if I Hadn't been stuck sitting down ...

... previous day with no problem. But it seems that the Fin drank water from a pond though, rather than the fast flowing streams and lagunas that I had been sticking to. She spend the whole of that night and the next day being sick :o( I do love setting off for a 9 hour hike over difficult terrain with only a 500ml bottle though, there's nothing better that ice cold glacial water straight from the glacier (even if my hands and face are already ice cold).

Day 3 ...

... hopeless. Eventually we saw a fat guy in an EMPTY pickup with an empty cargo area at the back slowing down and flash his lights. As he came past he gave us the `sorry guys` palms-up shrug. B*STARD! maybe he was some stupid tourist who didn`t want us in the car but didn`t realise it was acceptable to ride in the cargo area in South America? We shouted "WTF!!!" and threw our arms in the air in exasperation, but he didn`t stop. We had a cookie and debated if we should even ...

... The mountain itself, like Cerro Torre, has sheer granite faces which present long stretches of arduous technical climbing. The weather in the area is exceptionally inclement and treacherous. The mountain climbing remains exclusive. So exclusive, that today, when dozens of people may summit Mount Everest in a single day, FitzRoy is often only successfully ascended once each year, and some years not at all. Even though we were blessed with good weather, we decided we ...

Tuesday was our final full day in El Calefate so we decided to book a tour to go to El Chalten which is about 220km north of El Calefate.
We left on the bus in the pitch dark at 8am after legging it down from the hostel after leaving abit too late but thank god we made it with a min or so to spare.
We arrived in El Chalten about 11am not really knowing what to expect. We taught it would be an organised tour of the area which is mainly in the mountains with ...

... because the route is bumpy. When I arrived in El Chalten, it was not raining but it was very windy and partly cloudy. I went to my hostel ( alken) which was not located on the main street on town. It was off on a dirt road. I checked into my hostel , and literally thought I was the only one there for the night. They didn't even have keys or lockers! I met up with some other travelers from my hostel for a hike. Even though the ...

... Stephen helping me down every step... i think i am going to die a slow and painful death... still no sign of the town... i sick of mountains and river valley views.... 7:00pm: first view of ...

... the top. Here is me waving from a rock at the top. The Japanese girl showed up and here is her photo - the V sign being a hello friend sign in that culture. Went down again on my own and found my pack with the worried Japanese boyfriend who was glad to see her photo from the top. But I was surprised she had not passed me on the way down and she was still not back when I left for the hike to the next Refugio with a Peruvian and his American ...

... long break at the lake itself.



It was great to come back to a nice room for once, so we chilled out for a bit before coming back to the PCs and their exorbitant internet tariffs.

Tonight we've decided to eat in (shock horror!), cooking the leftover pasta, sauce and veggies that we bought in Bariloche and enjoying the ...