El Chalten

I like this town better. I totally screwed up by not booking more nights here instead of El Calafate. The hiking is MUCH better here but there's a shortage of housing, so we cut our losses and are flying to Buenos Aires after three nights here.

There's gold in them thar hills, and it's us. This is a classic gold rush tourist town where the locals can't build fast enough. Matt and I have a private room in what's essentially a hostel with shared bath and kitchen for
$115/night. But we have met some great people including a couple from Freiburg, Germany, a sister city of Madison (they had no idea) and an Italian woman hiking with her dad. I got some great advice on Italy from them.

On our first day, we only had time for a short hike and climbed a nearby cliff. I saw Condors for the first time ever. We met a nice group of 30 something Americans there and witnessed their friend proposing to his British boyfriend. We all applauded afterwards.

The next day we did the big, famous Fitz Roy hike, officially called Las Tres after 3 large peaks above a glacier and lake. It was hard. I clocked almost 18 miles for the day. We were in bed by 9 pm. It doesn't get dark until after 10 pm and there's a total of 17 hours of sunlight this time of year.

We met or heard lots of Americans, Argentines, and even more Spaniards on the trails. We also met a very interesting Thai dentist finishing an advanced degree in Indianapolis. Poor thing. I learned a lot about Thai culture in that last half hour of hiking and did my best to recite numbers 1-10 in Thai. Hey, it was 34 years ago that I was there.

Today we did an easier hike along a river that was 18 or so Km. The weather was perfect both days. For dinner we had Guanaco stew. That's an animal related to a llama, but looks more like a deer. Not bad.

We've got a 2 and 1/2 hour bus ride and a 3 and 1/2 hour flight to get to Buenos Aires. That's a lot easier than two to three overnights over 50 hours on buses! We're at 50.5° latitude South and it's a long way from Buenos Aires.

More photos and videos are here.
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