El Calafate - El Chalten (and back again)

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Sorry it´s been a while......After getting our final supplies together (on Thursday 26th March) we got on the bus to El Chalten, which raced the only other company´s bus there all the way across dirt roads. On arrival we pitched our tent in the local camping ground and went to the visitors lodge to start planning our days there. However, the next day it started raining very early morning and didn´t stop so we became tent bound for almost 2 days! Fortunately there was a gap in the weather that second day and we were able to visit 2 viewpoints, 1 overlooking a huge lake and the other El Chalten itself (which definately wasn´t a pretty village!). We also visited Chorillo de Salto a big waterfall about an hour from the village, then swiftly headed back to our tent with a litre o wine that cost the equivalent of 60p before the rain started again!

By the Sunday morning the weather had almost cleared , so we packed up again and started our first hike up into the mountains to a campsite called Poincenot. The walk was beautiful, taking us through woods that then led to huge outlooks over the valley, snowing most of the 3 hours we were walking. We arrived at the campsite early eveining and set up the tent as quickly as possible (it was so cold!), to then jump in and not show our faces until the next day. I hadn't been coping too well with the cold and even Chris admitted it was pretty chilly, so we managed to rent me another sleeping bag that fitted me and my own bag in quite comfortably! The next morning we left our belongings in the campsite and headed up to Lago de los Tres, from which we were able to see a beautiful glacial lake at the top, and were meant to be able to see Mt Fitzroy's peak, though it was a bit too cloudy to see it all! After climbing back down (a precarious job because of all the ice on the steep path), we walked an hour and a half down river to then climb over some huge boulders to see Piedras Blancas, another glacier and glacial lake. After a well deserved lunch we packed everything up to head to the next campsite: De Agostini. The trek took about 3 hours, the first hour of which led us through a very wet bog (we're still nbot sure if we were o the right path!). Again we set up quickly on arrival and prepare to hop into the warmth, though couldn't resist checking out the sunset behind Cerro de Torre, another spectacular peak hidden by a bit of cloud. We cooked yet another interesting meal on our little camping gas before passing out. We woke up to sunshine in a crystal sky the next mroning and took advantage to go and see Cerro de Torre in all its glory before packing up to do the 3 hours hike back to El Chalten. The weather was perfect and were able to sit on the grass enjoying the sunshine once we got back!

We made big plans for a big hike the next day over another carton of wine, but woke up incredibly early to the pitter patter of rain again. The trek was one you needed clear weather for and it didn't take long for us to jump at the idea of warm showers in a hostel for the night. We grabbed our bags and left the tent to go in searh of a hostel when it startes snowing again! The next 24 hours consisted of keeping warm, eating nice food and sleeping! Due to the bad weather we headed back to El Calafate on the Thursday lunch time. We had on night in a little hostel run by a very odd man and thenspent the day at another before catching our 3am bus back to Rio Gallegos to start our journey north to meet Kim.

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