El Chalten (29-31 Oct 2010)

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Friday 29th October 2010

We checked out of our hostel first thing (no toilet roll was a little too much for us!) and into a private room next door at Hosteria Fitzroy Inn with a bath - you have no idea how exciting this was for Joanne. Our first room had a strong smell of gas so we asked them to move us despite them insisting it was fine. Thankfully the move happened seamlessly with our bags magically moving while we were out for the day. We went for a hike to Lago Torre – mostly uphill it took 3 hours to get there with gorgeous scenery surrounding us throughout the journey – when we reached our destination we were greeted with an amazing view of Mount Torre with a circular lake below covered in icebergs, some in unusual shapes.

Snapping away for a while we ate our packed lunch and contemplated taking another hike an hour further up the mountain. We headed up the ferociously windy path to the next viewing point, however after a few minutes it didn’t appear we were going to get a better view. Joanne found a large hot rock that sheltered us from the wind so we both laid on it and had a nap. We awoke to make a leisurely decent which was a lot quicker downhill. Heading back via the same path we reached a fork which neither of us remembered? We took the left fork as it said “North El Chalten”. It was actually a different route but brought us out closer to our Hosteria.

We were back fairly early as it was a short hike so we chilled out for a while before hitting the town – well, not quite as it is a sleepy village, but we found a nice restaurant where Richard tucked into another humungous steak and Joanne hoped she would enjoy her salmon but it was smothered in an entire bottle of Soy Sauce.

Saturday 30th October 2010

A wonderful breakfast of toast and jam, cereal, drinking yogurt, fruit, tea and hot chocolate awaited us when we awoke. We enquired about busses for the next leg of our journey and headed of for our 2nd day hiking up to Mount Fitz Roy. This hike was much harder, very steep from the off, as the peak is 3400m and we were headed for the closest viewing point. A couple of hours in, Richard pointed to what appeared to be a ridiculously steep path zigzagging up the side of the mountain ahead and suggested we must be going up it – to Joanne, it looked more like a dried up waterfall - but sure enough, as we got closer a path emerged and we were hiking almost vertically up to the top. It got steeper and steeper but we picked up our pace and lost all the groups who were following us very quickly. Teasing us after a hard climb the trail came to a plateau only to reveal a final climb to the top. Trudging through some snow we finally reached the peak with a breathtaking view of Fitz Roy wand the frozen lake covered in snow below us. It was windy so we hid behind a rock and ate a well deserved lunch. There were lots of groups sitting in shelter from the wind resting after a long hard workout, not sure the step machine in the gym has a program for this! A mad local crossed straight across the middle of the frozen lake, luckily he was successful, but we were sure it could have ended in tragedy. We took the same path back to town which was downhill almost all the way and was a full hour quicker.

Sunday 31st October 2010

It was Richards’ birthday today - 33 years old!!! Unfortunately, being in the middle of nowhere with a limited budget seriously diminished any options for a big present but a couple of cards that Joanne had been carrying around for a month found their way to the breakfast table. Richard had had enough of hiking and wasn’t convinced about the Ice Hiking (not helped by our lack of immediate funds and no ATM in town) so we had a well deserved rest. Logging onto Skype to chat to the family the connection was rubbish, the call quality was low, and the picture kept freezing and jumping.

We decided to find an internet cafe and call back, however this turned out to be a hopeless endeavour : a) finding somewhere with a headset, and b) it was a Sunday in a sleepy town! Richard called the landline and arranged to Skype at the next big town :o(

Dinner at Cevezeria, Richard had an Argentinean Stew which was ok but needed more meat which is unusual out here! Richard was surprised when his desert came out with a candle and a rendition of Happy Birthday in Spanish (well, almost surprised – he pretty much had it sussed when Joanne took 5 minutes to order a coke at an empty bar). The staff were great and gave Richard a free beer, but we couldn’t stay as we had to get up at 4.15am... it’s not easy this travelling lark!

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Photos

Los Glaciers National Park
Hike to Lago Torre

Comments

[Mark]

Spectacular
very jealous!