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El Chalten is a National Park and in order to get here we travelled on a bus which took 4 and a half hours and was the coldest bus in the world (I had my fleece jacket, hat, gloves and was still cold!!!) and also the bumpiest bus in the world. The road consisted of mostly a mud an holes everywhere!!! Great fun/NOT!!!
However the El Chalten is beautiful, it is a national park and they have some hostels a few shops and a few houses in the middle of the park which is sourrounded by mountains. It felt like we were in the Antartica here as it was snowing and cold. So our first day consisted of eating loads and drinking loads of wine! The 10 of us are managing our budgets fantastically as we have manged to down grade our wine tastes and are now drinking cartons of wine which are one litre and are costing 4 pesos which is like 80 pence!!! So we chuck in 10 pesos in our kitty and we cook up some great food with that and get very drunk!!!
We all still get up at 9 the next morning and go treking up more mountains in order to see the Fitzroy mountain range which are very beautiful. The trek is hard going and we climb from 10am and we get back to the hostel at 7 pm!!! The mountians are so nice and there are glaciers in the mountains to which are very cool, lots cool different colours. Saw loads wood peckers just pecking away with cool little red heads. I loved the woodpeckers!!!
The best day so far is the next day, me, Jenny and Rachel go ice climbing on the Glacier. We get up at 6.30 am for a 7am departure!!!! Thank god that the guide gave me the helmet with the light on, otherwise I would have hated walking in the dark. For the first 1.5 hours it was totally pitch dark and we had quite a hard climb. Jenny was totally knackerd but thankfully a Isreal guy who was also our our trip held her hand and made the guide stop. We walked through the mountains, past nice lakes for 4.5 hours (stopping for like 10 mins) until we reaced a rope, the guide attached us to the rope and we had to pull ourselves over the rope which was a bridge over the stream. This was fun! Then we start our climb onto the glacier, which involved climbing up the steepest mountian ever, then we stopped by a waterfall for lunch. Taking in the views back over where we have just been treking and getting excited about being so close to the glacier!! Then we continued down the mountain over massive rocks until we finally arrived and were actually on the glacier. Our guide helped us put or crampons on (which are the metal spikes which attach to your walking boots) spikes at the front and side and bottom!! (By the way mum, the walking boots are great thanks!!)
Crampons are amazing. Usually when u walk on ice, u have to be carefull not to fall, obviously u all know, however the when u have your magic crampons on, u can do whatever u want. Its great, its like having a magic power on the ice. U can stab your feet in, climb up really steep glaciers and run down the other side of the glacier and stab really hard, up and down u go. Its soooo much fun, totally buzzing the whole time on the glacier, there are lots massive cracks in the ice, so obviously u have to look where u are going. Its really hard to explain the feeling of walking on ice on a glacier, miles away from anything! Walking on the glacier was such a buzz, so unlike anything I have ever experienced or done before!!!! We walked/stabbed our way to where we would climb on the ice. The ice wall!!!! The guide gave me two like hammers in order to stab the ice and attached me to a rope via by harness. So its like climbing a wall made of ice and u use the hammers to climb up the wall and the front two spikes in your clampons to climb up. Its very hard, and scary when u have to take the hammer out in order to climb higer. And then as u get near the top of the ice wall its really scary cause u are sooooooo high up! Very hard, but loads and loads and loads of fun! I have loads cool photos to down load so u guys can see - Lorna the ice climber!!!
So totally buzzing back over the ice, we are all buzzing and being so brave running up steep ice and down the other side and I decide I want to stab a piece of ice that looks like it will break and be a hole under it. So I have one stab and it breaks a little and so I go right back in with my right foot and stab so hard!!!! Doh Doh Doh
The ice breaks and my whole right leg falls down the whole and I get soaked right up to my bum. I am sooooooo lucky that I did not fall down the hole and die! I managed to pull myself out and roll around on the ice laughing!!! Silly Girl No 1 as if I had fallen down that hole, that would have been game over!!! Anyway next time I am on an iceberg, i will not go stabbing ice that looks like it might break!!! So the walk back up the mountain is great as one of my legs is totally wet and my boot!!! I also manged to stab my combat trouser and have a big rip in the bottom of the dry leg. Then we dry off walking up the mountain and down the other side. Over the rope bridge and then after I come off the rope bridge, Rachel starts laughing so loud and announces to the group that I have a rip from the front of my trousers right through to the bum, making my left bum cheek on view to everyone!!!!! Thankfully I can tie my fleece around my ass!!!!!!!!!
The walk back is very hard as we are sooooooo tired, and the last hour i can hardly lift my legs. We keep praying for no more up hill climbs and cry when we finally see our hostel. Two days of the hardest treking I have every done,we all feel absolutely proud of ourselves and are still buzzing from walking on the glacier.
I have loads bruises on my legs my hands are purple and my thumb is sore (these are my injuries from my iceberg nearly swallowing me experience)!!! But what a great experince it was! Everyone must do it if they ever get the chance. Nikki and everyone else signed right up to do it the next day.
After the last two days, i spent the next two days chilling out and resting. The only memorable instances that I can remember were trying to flirt with a guy who had joined us and Rachel trying to quitely announce to me that I had a big bogie up my nose and my silly mate Dave hearing and announcing it to the the whole table and everyone including the bloke checking out and laughing at my boogie!!!!!
Next journey involves departing here on a bus at 6pm and arriving in Barriloche at 12 noon 2 days later!!!!!!
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I love it love it love it. Silly girl stories are the best! I want to go stabbing! Going to check out the photos now. The group you've met sound so cool but then of course they are as cool people always meet cool people!