30th January 2015 – El Chalten

Today is a rest day in El Chalten which is a base town for trekkers and hikers in the area.  The town is only small with many hostels, hotels and restaurants. There are backpackers and travelers here from all around the world.  We’ve come across Irish, Israeli, Russian, German, Dutch, American as well as Argentinian tourists. Those we spoke to were most interested in our trip, and hopefully some will follow our blog and our adventure as it unfolds.  One of the bonuses of traveling is meeting interesting people from different countries.Some of our group chose to do a 7 hour hike, the majority did a 4 hour hike.  We along with 3 others opted for a 37 km drive on a rather rotten dirt road (haven’t had enough of these), which took about 1.5 hours.  Dave picked up a hitch hiker on the way as he had a spare seat.  Chris is a delightful young German woman who stayed with us all day.  We all spent the time happily chatting as we hiked for 2km mostly uphill climbing over tree roots & rocks to come out at a small glacier that was melting into an icy cold lake & running off into a very rapidly flowing stream down the mountain.  Michael took off his shoes & socks & went paddling.  It was beautiful & worth the road trip and hike.     When we arrived back down at the car we had a cup of tea & a BBQ chorizo sausage in a roll cooked for us by the man who runs the camping area.