El Chalten...Paradise on Earth?

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SO lonely planet describes the tiny village of El Chalten as paradise on earth ´when the sun is out´. Perhaps they visited at a different time of year or perhaps they were an estate agent in a previous life!

After reading this statement we were all really loking forward to visiting this tiny Patagonian town. Nestles at the base of the Fitzroy mountains we had images of swiss style cottages and cute little cafes aligning a tin ymain street. Oh how wrong were we! We arrived at night time after getting a good deal at the local bus station which included return fare to El Calafate and 3 nights in a hostel and bearing in mind we had been on a bus for two days we opted straight for an early night...it is amazing how tiring sitting down can be!

We thought 3 nights would give us enough time to have a look around the village on the first day and then have a day or two hiking into the Fitzroy mountain range to see some glaciers and lagunas. However after wandering around the village for perhaps 5 mins we realised there is nothing to see and everything is closed..bummer! The village itself only has a population of 500 people during winter and is expanding rapidly to cope with the huge number of tourists that desend on it each year, however planning permission seems to be non existent and it would seem anyone can just build a property anywhere they like, resulting in a hap-hazard mess buildings along roads which have been half finished... To top it off we decided eating in would be the way forward to saving some cash only to end up spending about 20quid on a bit of manky old lettuce and tin of tuna (apparently it is known for being a very expensive town!).

TO cheer ourselves up we decided to get out of the village and go on a short hike and to be fair we were pleased-The views of the mountain range were stunning and aside from me slipping on a flat surface and almost getting my leg stuck down a drain it was a very pleasant walk, followed by a pretty good meal and a bottle of winea and a game of sh*t head back at the hostel.

The following day we decided to embark on a 19km walk to see a glacier with Irene another fellow traveller we met at the hostel. THe walk was spectacular and thankfully not too strenuous. After a couple of hours of walking through some ancient trees that looked like something out of the chronicals of Narnia we arrived at the lake at the base of glacier. It was here we decided to have our lunch and it is at moments like these we realise how lucky we are to be doing this trip. Having your lunch at the base of a glacier on a Monday morning is one of the best feelings in the world!

Tired and aching we arrived back at the hostel for a bit of a snooze before heading out to treat ourselves for dinner. Typically however every restaurant in the guidebook seemed to be closed or being renovated so the only restaurant that was open made a killing out of the four starving hikers!

So although our experience of the village ourselves was slightly disappointing theviews of the mountains and the lake made up for it and we were glad we had made the effort to go.

Next stop El Calafate and the Perito Glacier!

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