El Chalten

El Chalten, Argentina

In anticipation of some hiking over the next couple days, we did some shopping here in El Calafate this morning. For some mysterious reason, most of us (who shall remain nameless but whose names start with M, K, and Dex) decided to send their gloves back home after Nepal. Kylie also needed new long tights, since hers have holes in the knees. Her hiking boots -- which threatened to hurtle her off the trail in Nepal -- were getting too small as well.

El Calafate is really quite a nice town with a laid back, mountain feel. The main street has dozens of restaurants, a handful of tour operators, and a bunch of outdoor shops. We successfully found everything we were looking for plus rented a four-man tent for the hike in El Chalten. Even better, we retrieved my credit card that I’d inadvertently left at the restaurant the night before. Though it was still closed, the woman inside recognized us and came to the door, card in hand. Whew. Muchisimas gracias!.

Many of the places here don't take credit cards and just as in Nepal, the maximum amount you can extract from the ATM is fairly low -- 2000 Argentinian pesos or about $125. In order to pay for park fees, buses and hotels over the last couple days, and still have money for our stay in the much smaller town of El Chalten, Meg and I together have made no fewer than 12 withdrawals at the local ATM. With the largest bill only equivalent to $6, our wallets are bulging.

For today´s three hour bus ride, we luckily got to ride on the upper deck. There were surprisingly few people, so I could jump from side to side to take pictures.  We saw dozens of the llama-like guanacos and when we first arrived in Argentina, the large Emu-like birds, the Rea. Patagonia is definitely in the category of New Zealand South Island for natural beauty.

El Chalten is significantly smaller than El Calafate. After settling into a youth hostel, we each dumped out the contents of our bags in an attempt to rid ourselves of all unnecessary weight. With just the bare essentials in our packs, we felt ready for the next day’s hike and headed out for dinner.

During the past week, we´ve already grown tired of the pasta and sauce-less pizzas that seem to be so popular here in Patagonia. To our delight, the meal at the small Yenu restaurant was a huge departure, and in the end, we all agreed it was probably one of our top five restaurant meals of the trip. Meg’s smoked eggplant ravioli, my trout with barley, and the kids chicken schnitzel, not to mention the lemon pie and berry cheesecake, were superb. It´s always nice to be pleasantly surprised. With a tasty meal in our stomachs, I'm hoping we’ll be supercharged for tomorrow´s hike.