Drive to El Chalten

We didn't sleep too badly despite the biting cold!  It was 7.15 breakfast and 8am departure this morning, so I was up at 6.30 to organise breakfast while Mark dealt with our tent.  We did potato cakes made with the leftover mash from the other night with fried tomatoes and reheated beans.  It went down very well and was just what the doctor ordered on a cold morning!

Back in the road, we continued our long drive south.  The landscape continued to be largely flat and barren, but there were some interesting cloud formations.  We saw lots of wild vicuna, which was exciting for the newbies, but not so much for those of us who have been on the truck since Colombia!

The road surface was smooth, so we could at least get some miles done.

After a couple of hours, we had one of Ritchie's mystery stops.  It was at the tiny outpost of Baja Caracoles stuck in the middle of nowhere.  Inside the hotel was a quirky shop which sold everything at highly inflated prices.  We didn't buy anything, but we did change some Chilean pesos for Argentine ones.

At 2pm, we stopped in the town of Gobenador Gregores for our hour-long lunch break.  It felt like Groundhog Day - it was very similar to the town of we stopped in yesterday.  We made some egg mayo sandwiches and had bananas we had kept from breakfast.

After lunch, the drive continued.  We ran out of paved road, so the afternoon was much bumpier than the morning.  It was another relentless drive day!  Apart from a few minutes when we drove past a lake, the landscape remained largely unchanged.

We finally arrived at our campsite in El Chalten at around 8pm.  There were camping pods available here as upgrades, but at US$40 extra per night for a wooden cabin with just two beds and a small heater, we had decided not to bother.  However, it was blowing an absolute gale when we arrived and we were struggling to get our tent up.  Just as we thought we'd succeeded, the pop-up mechanism broke!  Unable to fix it in the howling wind, we had little choice but to ask about an upgrade.  Luckily, we got the last available pod!  We packed the tent away to deal with in the morning and went to check in.  Yes, it's basic.  Yes, it's expensive.  But for protection from the elements and a few good nights' sleep, it is worth every penny!!Read more