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Published: March 23rd 2013
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After a great time in El Calafate (forgetting the bug bites), Sonya and I were both keen to discover more of the spectacular beauty that southern Patagonia has to offer. A three hour bus ride north brought us to the tiny town of El Chalten, at the foot of the Fitz Roy mountain range in the middle of nowhere. The town attracts tourists during the summer months because of its many walking trails to various mountains and lakes in close proximity.
Now, as you may know, we're not exactly avid ramblers. In fact, we don't even own a pair of those super-trendy walking shoes between us but the beauty of Patagonia will make you do crazy things. In our case that meant a 12km round trip to Laguna Capri, under the gaze of Mount Fitz Roy. In preparation we hire a pair of walking boots each and I rent a warm jacket in fear that my solitary jumper may not quite cut the mustard during the bitter cold nights here. So with some sensible footwear, armed with more layers and carrying a packed lunch in my backpack, we set off on our hike. We came to the end of the
town where the tarmac road turns to gravel and then take a left to get onto the trail. After 100 metres or so, the trail starts getting a little steep. We both are breathing heavily. What had we let ourselves in for.
We press on anyway. The trail winds up the hill and every couple of hundred metres brings with it a different view of your surroundings. First there's the town behind you, I hadn't appreciated just how small and isolated El Chalten actually was until now. You can see every building in the settlement and could have even counted them too without much trouble. To our right, in the distance there's a peak and in between a valley with a crystal clear, blue river running through it. Pretty incredible scenery so far. We continue along the trail, which goes from being tree lined to on the very edge on the hill in a matter of minutes. The views are amazing but you wouldn't want to stumble! The next view point we come to is facing Mount Fitz Roy and its sharp, jagged snow-capped range. It's an imposing sight. As we were walking only a relatively short distance, I
think you'd have to be mad to trek to base on the mountain let alone try to climb it. Clouds cover the summit and we couldn't clearly make out its peak so we continue on. By now we are getting hungry, the supposed one and half hour trek has taken us almost two hours because of the photo and rest stops but we were on the last leg to the lagoon. As we arrive at the campsite, in front of the lake, we are weary; legs burning and short of breath but as we come out of the clearing to Laguna Capri it all becomes worth it. What we find is a beautiful circular mill pond skirted by a pebble beach on one side, encompassed by lush greenery and boasting a spectacular view of Mount Fitz Roy. Not for the first time on this trip, Sonya and I are completely taken back by what we're seeing. We take some pictures, have our packed lunch on the pebble beach looking directly at the mountains and then rest our heads for a second. We feel asleep for over an hour. We must have been exhausted! When we awoke we were both looking
a little red in the face, we'd burnt in the clear Patagonian skies despite our time in Brazil getting accustomed to the strength of the Southern Hemispheres sun. We then noticed the clouds were no longer covering the summit of the mountain so we took some more photos and made our way back down to the town. The descent was much quicker than the way up. We're shattered when we get back to our hostel but feeling fulfilled after seeing the mind blowingly beautiful landscapes of El Chalten.
That night, as our reward for a good days walking, we ate pizza and chocolate brownie with ice cream and dulce deleche (a sweet Argentinian toffee-like condensed milk) before hitting the hay early for a good nights sleep. The next day we walk about 3km to a nearby waterfall. Luckily this trek was on the flat so it wasn't too taxing. The waterfall was cute, a single stream of water cascading down between two big rocks to create a pool of water at the bottom. However, compared to our last experience of a waterfall at Iguazu, this was a little underwhelming. We had lunch by the pool and then walked to
the other end of the town to begin another trail to Mirador de Los Condorers, another view point of the Fitz Roy range. The trek is steep but short, taking about 40 minutes. At the top is a fantastic view of the mountains from further away, giving you perspective of just how big the range really is. We take photos of the view and then try to be arty by putting the camera on a timer and taking shots of us facing the mountain, with our back to the camera. On the way down, I'm tired and I'm dragging my feet down the steep decline. Not a wise move. I skid and end up slamming down onto my arse and elbow. Ouch! I get myself cleaned up and that night we head out to eat with a few girls for the hostel.
We'd had two great days in El Chalten, a place which is any hikers wet dream but also, as we found, it was somewhere any happy go lucky, beach bum traveller can come to escape, discover the perfection of Patagonia and fall over on a mountain. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the pictures. Jon
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