Our first two days were spent hanging out in the hostel and watching the rain. It was also pretty cold, so we had no desire to go out and hike in the rain, cold, and wind. Luckily we had teamed up with an Australian group of three who we met from our previous hostel in Calafate: Pat, Trish, and Christin. We managed to have a good time together despite the bad weather.
Finally, there was a small break in the rain the afternoon of our first full day, so we went out to stretch our legs for about a 2 hour hike and overlook the small town. And we do mean small....the town was started less than 25 years ago and has less than 1,000 residents.
The next day, Monday, was considered decent weather, or at least an improvement, so we joined the masses from town and headed out on a trek. We took a separate van to the trail head from our Ozzie friends, but soon caught up with them on the trail. Good thing we did because it turned into quite a fun hike!
First, we hiked through a forest and then had to hike uphill through the snow to eventually get to the Mt. Fitz Roy viewpoint. It took us about 4 hours to get to the top for the view. We weren't exactly equipped for such hiking, but we trekked our way through it. It was great getting to the top even if the clouds did not want to cooperate.
You can't really see Mt. Fitz Roy in any of these pictures; however, wait a minute and you'll get to see it below in the sunshine!
One of the wonderful things about hiking in Patagonia is that you can drink the water straight from the streams. The water comes off the glaciers and is crystal clear. It is the best tasting water!!
After hiking back down, we came across a lake, a very, very cold lake because it's full of glacier water. Matt being Matt asked Pat how much he would pay him to go for a swim, in his birthday suit. Pat quickly responded, "100 bucks!". Matt convinced himself that he wouldn't do it, but then he quickly changed his mind. And in he went!
Matt refused the $100 because he probably would have done it for free, but he was more than willing to accept a dinner for his feat. So the five of us went out for a fabulous dinner after our 8 hour hiking adventure. We had some of the best lomo steak, wine, and dessert that night!
Tuesday was another bad weather day, but we were okay with it so that we could sleep in and rest our bodies, while the Ozzies headed off to their next destination.
Wednesday, as forecasted, was a super-duper-fantastic, clear day. We headed out for a great day of hiking to see Cerro Torre, one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, from the Lago Torre viewpoint. The views along the way were stunning. Rivers, lakes, glaciers, mountains, valleys, forests.....all in one place!
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| That's Mt. Fitz Roy in the background. |
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| Cerro Torre is behind the lake, but covered by clouds! |
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| We managed to get a pic of it later when the clouds cleared. |
On the way back, we decided to make a detour and extend our trek by 2 hours so that we could get a clear view of Fitz Roy. It made for another long day and an 8.5 hour hike, but it was well worth it because we finally got a good view of the impressive mountain. Hard to imagine, but yes it's the same mountain we attempted to see 2 days earlier in the rain and snow.
We once again welcomed bad weather on Thursday to let our bodies rest, and decided we would head back to El Calafate the next day to catch up and make use of good internet. El Chalten is so remote that the internet barely works....think back to the days of dial-up connections. We're so glad we left on Friday so that we were able to use internet in Calafate and stream the A&M upset over Alabama on Saturday! Whoop! It was hard to explain to other travelers what we were so excited about :-).
In El Chalten we stayed at Albergue Patagonia Hostel. It was awesome. We stayed in a 4 bed dorm for roughly $15 each a night. It was one of the first hostels built in town and had a lot of charm and warmth.
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