Must really try and learn some Spanish :-)
Well after a day spent at the Perito Moreno Glacier our Patagonian Express tour continued onto to El Chalten and its magnificent mountains.
We took the evening bus from El Calafate, we rode Cootra again, okay bus line. The bus we where on today was real sweet, with new LCD screens and a DVD that played DVD's all the way through to the end. Travelling on South American busses, its as much about the scenery as it is about the DVD player. One 20 hour bus ride with a stuffed DVD player can really fck you up... hehehehe But really you need a good DVD player on the bus, I would even go as far as saying it's more important than leg room...
We pulled into El Chalten at about 10 pm, its about a 4 hour bus ride form one town to the next, it would probably be shorter if there wasn't a massive lake between the two towns. The lake is being fed by this massive glacier, I think called Glacier Viedma??? Will have to check that. So all roads must go around the lake.
The drive in is generally boring, the landscape is baron with horses and sheep running around the place like where in New Zealand or something a rather. We did make a random pit stop at some poor persons house by the looks of things where we were allowed to get out and stretch our legs. The movie playing on the bus wasn't paused so me and B both stayed on not wanting to miss a critical part of the movie. hehehehe
So, the drive is generally boring but then you take a left turn and suddenly in the far off background Mt. Fitz roy, Glacier Viedma, Cerro Torre and the rest of the amazing mountain range just come out of no where to totally blow your fricken mind away with its Magnificent Awe inspiring presence. Suddenly, the movie takes a back seat and the setting sun over the mountain ranges takes centre stage, everyone is awake and trigger happy with the camera's even though we are still a good hour and a half away from the town....
This of course includes me and B, over excited about seeing a mountain we have seen in so many postcards we take our fair share of photos also of the mountains from far away :-)
The hostel we stayed at was very nice, it's called Aleyen Aike, or something like that. The owner of the small hostel came to the bus stop to pick us up, EL Chalten is so small we could have walked but it was nice of him to come get us :-)
When we saw we where staying it was 10 bed dorm room with 6 Israelis, 1 irish, 1 german and now 2 aussies, us!!! like I said, Israelis are everywhere in south america. We were worried about not getting any sleep, but being exhausted and one night time cold and flu tablet sure helped us get through the night without any problems. I slept so well the snoring 60 year old German on the lower bunk didnt even bother me :-)
Day 2 - We slept in, today was a big day we had decided to do the big hike to the Laguna at the base of Mt. Fitz roy. 5 hours each way, with a steep final climb at the end before reaching the Mirador. Our expectations where similar to the Torres Del Paine hikes, tough, steep, river crossings and steep mountain climbs requiring goat like foot work to get to the top... But luckily for us, its not what we got.. Wooo Hooo... 80% of the walk was really easy (easy relative to the hikes we have just completed at Torres Del Paine), it was such a leisurely walk that at one stage I said, that the walk could be done in CROCS... hehehe. The steep mountain climb at the end was the toughest part of the hike as predicted. The walk only took us 3 hours instead of the estimated 5 hours.
When we reached the top of the Mirador the views where spectacular, El Chalten had given us a beautiful day to be on top. Clear blue skies, melting snow and glaciers, no wind and 360 degree panoramas of everything.... hehehe glorious day on the mountain... hehehe...
We stayed at the Mirador for about 4 hours, playing in the snow, climbing rocks and taking picture after picture after picture of the mountain, the lake the snow, the people and everything and anything else that was there.
I did a real cool 360 photo of B looking at Mt. Fitz roy that I have put into a small movie clip. Awesome footage.. he he he
The rest of the day we just took in the fresh mountain air, drank the clearest and yummiest water fresh of the glacier and worked on our sun tan.. Truly, a beautiful day at the mountain...
Day 3 - I had promised my self that I would wake up early in the morning and watch the sunrise... 4 am came and I kept sleeping. 4:30 came and I was like, last chance to run up the mountain and catch the sunrise. I was told that the sun hit the mountain at about 530 am, the walk up to the Mirador with B was about one hour and 20 minutes, so I knew I could do it in an hour or less. Got up to the Mirador at 5:20.... gunned it up the hill, it was huge!!! I was so buggered by the time I got up there I nearly fainted. It was cold but because I was running I was all sweaty and wet. Thinking I would be the only idiot at the Mirador to see the sunrise, I was sorely disappointed. There was one other couple at the Mirador and they had gotten there 10 minutes before me.... Germans!!!!
Nice couple, they saw that I was huffing and puffing and they offered me a drink of water from there drink bottle.. Thanks guys... I settled in and started taking photos. I wanted to get a time lapse of the sunrise over the mountain. It was a beautiful morning so I was in for a treat...
400 plus photos later we got our time lapse... Wooo Hoooo and it looks real cool...
The sunrise was well worth the run up to the mountain Mirador... It was a beautiful day......
he he he he.....
The rest of the day, we where stuffed from yesterday's walk so we did a small trail called Mirador dos Condorres and watched videos at the hostel waiting for our bus to take us back to El Calafate....
El Chalten was a great place to hangout and see the beauty of Patagonia!!!
Peace
1 comment:
"el chalten"...
"el" is the article "the", for male gender.
In english there isn't gender difference with the article "the"
In spanish,
we used
"La" for female, singular
"Las" for female, plural
"El" for male, singular
"Los" for male, plural
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