Los Cerros El Chalten

... Depois de muito barro cheguei a placa que indicava o inicio da trilha. Mais uma vez, um bocado de neve e gelo mas alih era tudo quase plano, tornando o trecho mais facil.

O Chorillo del Salto eh uma queda d'agua de uns 30m entre paredoes de pedra. Ao cair, a agua continua o caminho do rio mas boa parte da superficie estava congelada com a agua correndo por baixo do gelo. A queda d'agua em sih nao tem nada de especial mas o lugar eh muito bonito ...

... do this in one day... 8am... breakfast and start to base of trek 8:30am... woops we have no food... better go back and get some.. could be a long day.. 9:00am... start the trek... or should ...

... with some home-brewed stout and pilsner. Very nice. After 3 days at El Chalten I headed North for Bariloche in the Lakes District of Argentina. It was a 2 day bus ride with an overnight stop at a very average hostel. The first day was on dirt roads. Amazing scenery though, with many Eagles sighted. I think this is going to be my one and only bus trip with a duration of 2 days x 12 hours per day on a bus!

... Laguna Toro, so legs went into autopilot and had to cross wet marshland and glacier fresh streams in bare feetwhich nearly went numb. Toby not to happy with his new Teva, unreliable shoes.. Had worst camp night as the wind was non stop and all I thought was we were going to loose our rationed food. But we survived and had some tasty apricot jam as energy food on our return journey! Glad to get back to El Chalten for hostel and shower after 4 days on the go.

... am officially in love with El Chalten. I love the small town, I love the pristing hiking trails and I love the scenery. I love drinking the fresh stream water, I love the crisp air, I love the landscapt and I love having my breath taken away by mother nature time and time again. I will leave a large part of my heart right here.

... branches, fallen trees, fungus covered trunks, weird parasites and the occasional stream with clear drinking water. It was easy to see that there were no settlements or sources of pollution above, so the water was fast flowing clear, cold and delicious. Eventually we emerged onto open mountainside to bypass the Mirador (for wimps) and take the formidably steep but not rugged path to the ridge. Here I could not keep up with Vicky and she leapt on ...

Long road trip stopping overnight in a small village, camping in a backyard campground. We reached El Chalten by late afternoon, with our car running on no gas. We filled up on arrival and got 40.5litres in our 40litre tank, a close call. The weather was terrible. Cold, rainy, and extremely windy. There is a free municipal campsite but we could not face camping in ...

... with milk). Basically as soon as we had set our bags down we set off to look for another hostel for the following nights. The next day we moved to the Albergue Patagonia, just up the road. Really great place with very friendly and knowledgable staff. The next couple of days were just spent hiking around the area to see the famous mountain ranges in the area. No real hills but with great views - win win. The first day we headed out to see ...

... Although we had to settle for only partial views of the Fitzroy and more full views of its equally jagged but smaller neighbors, it was a very pretty hike to the base camp. In a fit of questionable judgment, we decided to climb up the 1000m of wind-buffeted switchbacks to the panorama. To our disappointment, the clouds did not part. Nonetheless, it was worth the effort as the end point of our hike brought us dangerously close to the glacier and ...

... so we looked forward to getting up and about tomorrow.

The good thing was that we were dropped off directly outside the hotel that we'd booked because that was also owned by Chalten Travel, so at least that saved us the hassle of walking around town with all our bags at midnight!

After checking in I jumped onto a (very expensive) internet connection for a few minutes to check the Liverpool & Chelsea results and then ...