El Chalten

As of our last post, we were in El Calafate, Argentina, about to head for the small town of El Chalten. I mentioned something about the glacier that we went to see - some of you might have seen something about it in the news or on the internet. When we were there, it was two days before it formed the ice bridge that subsequently collapsed into the lake. Luckily, this happened at night, so we didn´t feel too bad about missing it. Here are some pictures from when we were there:

A shot of the glacier from several kilometers away:

Closer, from a different angle:



Even closer:



After spending another night in El Calafate, we rode the bus out to Chalten, which was a four hour ride along a rocky unpaved road, along with a half busload of people like us. When we reached the town, it was cloudy and rainy and we headed off along similar dirt roads in search of somewhere to stay. Luckily, it was the closing of the tourist season, so there was plenty to choose from and we found a four-person cabaña for (relatively) cheap. Chalten is a small and very relaxed place where everyone is there for one reason - to hike and enjoy the outdoors.

The view from our cabaña:



I should have know by some of the names of the places in this town - for example, Paseo de los Viento (Passage of the Wind) - that we were in for a windy stay. The wind blew so hard that night that dust came through the walls of the cabin and made things gritty. The next day was sunny so we went on a hike that was supposed to lead us to a lake with a great view. We hiked for three hours and got within about 200 feet of the lake and the view until the hurricane-force winds stopped our advance (well, maybe it was only tropical storm-force, but it was still strong enough to knock us around) and we didn´t get to enjoy the view. Here are some pictures from before we got blown back:


The next day was supposed to be a hike to view the peak in the picture from our window, but when the wind finally stopped, the rain started. So we spent the day playing Scrabble and drinking hot coffee. Travel is hard, you need to take it easy every once in a while. Of course, the next day was rainy as well, but we decided to brave the rain in hopes that it would clear up while we were hiking. It didn´t, but the scenery was spectacular:

Another good thing about this small town is that they had a travel office that sold airline tickets. We scored some to fly from El Calafate to Buenos Aires, which involved a lot of waiting and delays, but was still shorter than the 40 hours required to take the bus. While we were having breakfast before our flight, Melanie saw the roof she wants for our house:

It´s the roof that you plant!