Cabanas Cerro Torre El Chalten

... Route 40 in Argentinie naar Bariloche.
De eeste nacht in de bus dus prima geslapen en wakker worden met zicht op het uitgestrekte landschap van patagonie. Maar na een paar uur gaat het wel vervelen en na een hele dag in de bus is het moeilijk slapen. 2 nachten in een bus achter elkaar is net iets teveel. Vrijdag ochtend eindelijk aangekomen in Bariloche de hoofdstad van het meren gebied.

saludos,

Geert

... rocks to prevent being blown off, all the while being blasted with hail.
The highlight was walking on glacier Grande and climbing the ice using picks - a rather surreal landscape of jagged ice, brilliant blue tunnels and crevasses amid streams of melting glacier.

... Fin was still ill and the English decided to stay with her, but another English from my last hostel had arrived last night and I set off with him. Weather was cloudy again but the winds were still below Day 1. We went to Laguna de Los Tres to get a view of Cerro Fitzroy as there was no chance of seing Cerro Torre today. We didn't even get a glimpse of it but it was still a fine hike. The last few hundred metres were very steep and over ice and snow, with a strong ...

... trying to hitch any more or just throw rocks at passing cars in the hope that makes them pull over.

My feet were f*cked after 4 days of walking wet. Normally i can walk forever, even in these boots, but when the skin is wet it gets painful fast. We had perhaps a third of the way to go. It was going to take until the evening to get back with this wind. Really, the worst waited until last on this hike.

As the vehicle approached, a small truck, i began flapping my ...

... leave the sunmmit for another day!

The route we had taken meant that we didn't see another soul for four hours. As we traipsed our way through the forests, we saw numerous red-headed Patagonian woodpeckers who didn't seemed perturbed in the slightest by our presence.

Our destination was the glacial lake at the foot of FitzRoy's vertical face known as Lago de los Tres. We reached it after a steep climb and some rather "ginger" walking across snow ...

... scenery etc.
We arrived and were greeted by a girl on our bus who i taught said she would be back in 5 mins to explain our day etc. 10 mins later we found out that most people had been inside the hostel for this talk so we missed the introduction which mainly gave advice on what treks to take and which treks were closed etc..
Now we learned it was no organised tour but we were on our own hiking to different parts to get views of the surrounding areas etc..
We ...

... was not outstanding , the scenery was very beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. As for the town of chalten , there is lots of travel agency, but they are open in the morning and close during the late afternoon , and then re open again around liked five pm. There are nice little ( and i mean little) restaurants in town. The food is pricy in comparison to the food in Buenos Aires, but I thought it was very good. I ate at the kitchen ...

... few more tears... 7.30pm: collapse on our bed... both cant move with pain of muscles.... quite a funny sight.. wondering how we are ever going to get up and go to the toilet or even think ...

... with whom I walked in the evening twilight. Hope she was OK. Arrived about 6.00 pm, after 9 hours on my feet, at the Refugio Los Cuernos to be told there was no booking for me and no bed. I said I was going nowhere and would sleep on the floor if necessary. I bought a beer and sat and waited. Eventually bought a second beer which I thought was a good sign and had a game of chess with a guy I had met the previous night at Refugio Pelhoe. Then it ...

... bottle of Malbec that we bought there too.

Tomorrow we'll do one of the longer treks and then reward ourselves with a meal out somewhere.

There seem to be plenty of choices here for eating out, and the town itself really seems to be expanding, with some very nice hotels going up. Again most of the buildings have an alpine style ...