El Chalten - Day 2 - Trekking up to the foot of Cerro Torre

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At about 8-8:30 we met Claudia and Will at the common dinning area of Rancho Grande hostel to have breakfast and prepare sandwiches for lunch. By the time we reached the (wrong) start of the trail it had hit 9:25am. The route to Lago Torre was fairly easy and mostly relatively flat (at last by my standards, which are set by my beloved parents).

The paths was well shaped and at times with dry tree trunks laid on the ground. There were warning sings that “burning toilet paper causes fire in the forest”!

We definitely were not the only people who went to see the spiky peaks. It felt like were on the high street of a largish town.

On the way, we saw a couple of rabbits, many green parrots (why did I spend all that time in Amazonia since I saw so many parrots very closely without having to search for them like in the jungle?!). The clouds in the sky were clearing away from the previous rainy day so discovering Cerro Torre and taking shots of the peak felt like a game. By late lunchtime, the sky was almost clear but clouds kept on hiding the tips of Torre, Egger and Standhardt. After lunching by the lake we headed to Maestri along the ridge to the end of the forest for a closer up look. The clouds disappeared and the peaks were finally unveiled in front of us! Along the way, I spent most of the time talking with Claudia about the 2001 economic crash in Argentina, the corruption she’d experienced whist working in the public sector as well as about her and Will. I chatted for a bit with Will, too.

The guys misread the map and gave us an option to go back to El Chalten by route A (2hrs) or option B (2:30hrs) missing out that there were 2 hours additional to the 2:30hrs option! Claudia and I picked route B to have a bit of a change of scenery. We walked for nearly 40mins before finding out the truth about the choice we had made. It was getting pretty late about 6-ish, so we turned back to go to route A and even ran at times!

We reached El Chalten about 8:30-8:45pm, not long before sunset. Talal and I went to a shitty dull shop to get some provisions for lunch and a desert as we’d been invited to go for dinner at Roberts’ place. In the end it turned out that Robert was also late for the 8 o’clock dinner and Talal and I ate at the restaurant of our hostel.

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Photos

Parrots!
And they were so close up! I do wonder what was the point of going to the Amazon!

Cerro Torre, Egger and Standhardt
and the coulds are clearing up!