El Chalten

We got up early to get the bus to El Chalten. The taxi dropped us off in plenty of time and we boarded a reasonably posh bus. The roads were a mixture of tarmac and shingle-y stuff. The trip took four hours and we arrived in time for luncheon.

After lunch we went on a short (2hr) walk to the local waterfall. It was pretty.

A waterfall reached

I was a little concrned about the threat of rain and so we hurried back (in the dry - hmm). The wind in the valley was something to behold. We had been warned about the wind in Patagonia, however this was our first experience of it. When it picked up the dust, the only thing to do was turn your back on it until the gust died down.

We returned to our hostel.

Our Hostel

And went out for something to eat. The restaurant we chose was OK, but seemed to not be doing most of the things we ordered from the menu.

Suitably refreshed and tired from the early mornings and outdoor activities - we went to bed.

T fell fast asleep and I read for a bit. The bathroom floor had been a bit wet when we got back, so I got up to check it - to find that it was starting to flood. I quickly grabbed our (only very slightly damp) stuff off the floor and went to reception to see what they could do about it.

They were very quick and moved us to another room with very little fuss. (Apart from the semi-slumbering T scaring the living daylights out of the nice man). Unfortunately, our new room was near the common room and was very noisy until about 1am and then from about 5am onwards. This time it was I who had difficulty sleeping - T slept the sleep of the just.

We had breakfast; got packed lunches and set off for another walk. This was a much longer affair. After about two hours up hill and down dale, we were rewarded with the sight of some pretty peaks.

Torre and friends

We sat and had our packed lunches with a lovely view.

Savouring the view

Upon returning to the hostel, we were assured that the flooding problem was fixed and we returned to our quiet location.

Food was Locro (me) and Pizza (T) in a nice little bistro. (You have to understand that El Chalten is tiny (pop. 317) and the tourist season is almost over - so finding a nice place wasn't as easy as it should have been.)

After rescheduling our return to 8am (instead of 6pm), we returned to the hostel. After learning our lesson from yesterday, we mad sure that none of our stuff was on the floor and went to bed.

Sure enough, the water did come back a bit (not as bad as the day before though) and we were assured that it was under control.

About an hour later, just as I was dropping off, our neighbours across the hall returned to find their room flooded. They were not quiet about it either. It took about an hour of shouting, talking loudly and other noises before they had finally moved into another room. (It had taken us about 5 mins - including waking T up). I did think about popping my head out to tell them to shut up, but felt that they were stressed enough and that there might be a language barrier preventing me telling them that we had the same problem last night and managed not to wake up half of Patagonia.

Up early (this is not a good pattern we developed here) again and back to another hostel in El Calafate.

This one was nice and it did not flood. Chile tomorrow.