Our bus picked us up at 8am from our hostel in El Calafate, ready for the 3 hour trip to El Chalten. It was actually a minibus, and Nicola and I were lucky enough to sit in the front with the driver, getting amazing views the whole duration of the trip.
Our driver was great, he stopped at pretty much every viewpoint between El Calafate and El Chalten so we could jump out and take some photos. It helped that I shared my Whittaker's chocolate with him! It was a very scenic drive through some typical Patagonian countryside. Especially the views of Lago Argentino at the beginning of the trip, then the views of the mountains as we drew closer to El Chalten.
El Chalten is a very cute little town, smack bang in the middle of the Los Glaciares National Park. It is generally acknowledged as the hiking capital of Argentina.
We got dropped off at our accommodation and that afternoon we decided to stretch our legs and go for a little wander. We headed to the Park Headquarters, right at the entrance to the town. We spent some time looking around the interesting displays inside, before chatting to one of the rangers about our walking options for the next couple of days.
There was a trail that started directly behind the headquarters leading to a couple of viewpoints, so we thought that might be a nice shortish warm-up walk.
When we got back we headed to a deli-type place which had been recommended to us by our hostel owner. It was a very cool little old-school shop. El Chalten was full of these cute little places. We stocked up on bread, cheese and salami, ready for our two big days of walking.
Thursday's adventure was the hike to Laguna Torre, 18 km return.
El Chalten was such an easy place to do some independent walking. The trails were really well maintained and well signposted. You could also walk to all the trailheads from the town centre. My favourite feature was the 1km markers along the path so you knew exactly how far you had gone, and how far you had left to go.
The above sign amused us...
It was a really nice walk, and weather-wise we had a bit of everything... Sunshine, rain, snow and wind, you name it, we had it!
We finally reached Laguna Torre, and without exaggerating, it was one of the windiest places I have ever been in my life! It made Wellington's wind seem like a gently breeze... We took shelter amongst some rocks in order to rest and refuel.
Wind aside, it was a magic spot, surrounded by snow-topped mountains with a glacier coming almost right down to the lake.
The scenery is this part of the world is simply majestic. New Zealand is a beautiful country with amazing scenery, but it is the scale of this place that blows you away. The people on the lakefront in the pics below help to give some sort of perspective.
On Friday it was up nice and early, ready for another epic day walk. Today's plan was to do the trail to Laguna de los Tres. This walk was slightly longer than the previous day's one at 10.2km each way.
Again, we had it all weather-wise, although today also added a bit of intense hail into the mix! If anything, the wind was even stronger than the previous day, not something that I would have thought possible... When we did get our snow and hail, it drove into our faces horizontally. Walking into it was pretty full-on at times!
Not long into our walk we met these guys coming the other way. I'd hate to know how much all their gear weighed! They were obviously returning from some epic backcountry skiing/snowboarding adventure. They looked brilliant in all their brightly coloured garb.
It was pretty overcast on our way out, and the main attraction in the area, Mt Fitz Roy, was being shy behind its blanket of clouds. However, the closer we got, the more the cloud lifted and we started to get some great views.
We arrived at the Poincenot Camp and had to make a decision whether or not we continued on to the final leg of the trail. The last hour or so was meant to be incredibly steep and exposed, and the ranger had recommended we don't attempt it in high winds... Considering it was blowing an absolute gale, we decided it would be silly to go up, just for the sake of a better view and completing the walk. Some parties of walkers decided to continue on, but a lot made the decision to turn back. From the camp we crossed the river and continued on for a little bit, but turned back once the steep ascent begun. We found a relatively sheltered spot to sit and eat a bit of lunch before heading back towards El Chalten.
Unfortunately we didn't see any puma (apart from the ones on the rugby field in Buenos Aires!), but it's reassuring to know what to do if I ever come across one in the future!
By cutting our walk by a few kilometres we had plenty of time for photographs and enjoying the view on the way back.
We had lovely views of the valley as we neared El Chalten.
After another huge day of walking it was a lovely sight to lay eyes on the town and know we were nearly home.
The next morning we checked out of our hostel at 10am, but left our gear there as we were getting picked up at 2pm for our return bus to El Calafate. We had a few hours to kill, so did a nice easy walk out to a local waterfall. It was meant to be an hour each way, but we did it far quicker than that.
It was nice enough, although a bit different from the stunning scenery we'd had the previous couple of days.
Once we got back into town we grabbed something to eat, before heading back to the hostel to wait for our bus. It was a good trip back to El Calafate where we returned to our America del Sur hostel. It is always nice returning to a place you've already been that is nice and familiar. In fact, we were even in the same room we had stayed in previously! It was very much just a matter of crashing for the night, as the next morning we had a 5am(!) pick-up on a bus that would take us to Puerto Natales in Chile, from where we would make our way to the Torres del paine National Park.
