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Published: March 13th 2012
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Friday the 9th. Departing El Calafate and onwards to El Chalten aka The Trekking Capital of Argentina. A tiny town with something like 600 residents but many more tourists filling the streets, hostels and restuarants. We found ourselves a cozy campsite down by a big, braided river and headed off to get in on the trekking trend.
The trailhead to Lago Capri was close the the campsite and we wound up narrow trail for about 2 hours. The whole time Matt was compulsively looking for a Condor as he had heard that they lived near rock outcroppings and that they existed in Argentina. This wasn´t enough info to convice me so I spent more time looking for catapillers and watching kayakers in the river below. Then we came upon two hikers stopped in the middle of the trail with a camera at-the-ready, looking out in the valley. And there it was, a huge black-white bird soaring around the valley and riding the wind currents higher and higher. Even a thousand feet above us it was still visible. Our best guess is that it had about a 10 foot wing span. Later on we got another close up glimpse when it
passed us still on it´s hunt for prey.
Had a view of Fitz Roy (might sound familiar to rock climbers reading this?) before heading down. It wasn´t until we were back in town that we realized we´d forgotten to go to the lake. Too much condor distraction I think.
Saturday the 10th. Still in El Chalten and another hike to Lake Torre. Full-day of hiking with a jagged, blue-white mountainside glacier as the destination. Fitz Roy in the backround but couldn´t find any climbers with the binoculars, mabye it´s not the season? Certainly a magnificent view though we thought it might be a tad more exciting (since we´ve done quite a few similar hikes now) if there were a monkey riding a lion running across the glacier. Met a fellow UVA-er on the return hike.
Decided to forgo a canned peach dinner and try La Cervecaria. As we walked in I asked a couple leaving what they though. They said ¨ehhhh ohhhh well, ehhhh, it was ok, but we´re from Oregon so you just can´t compare¨to which we responded jokingly ¨well we´re from colorado¨ BOOM. It was a microbrew that made a Rubia and a Negra. I
enjoyed the beer but Matt was with the Oregon couple. 2 below or bust. Anyhow, the real reason I write about La Cervecaria is the food! Dinner was Locro, which is according to them, the most commonly eaten food in Argentina. A beef, bacon, corn, bean, carrot and other vegetable stew that was out of this world. Maybe I was just hungry after 8 hrs of hiking but I though I might melt with deliciousness.
Storms in the sky later that night so as not to repeat the Torres del Paine soggy night we opted for a hostel dorm. Tiniest place with 3 bunk beds crammed in and it was a full house. Great way to meet interesting travellers though!
Sunday - Depart El Chalten to return to El Calafate to hop on a bus for the next 24 hours to get to Esquel, Argentina.
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