Patagonia - Here We Come!

Monday January 27, 2020

Buenos Aires, Argentina to El Calafate to El Chalten, Argentina

An early start for us today.  We caught taxis to the airport at 6am and landed in El Calafate by about noon. We had booked a private van to transport us to the hiking mecca of El Chalten.  What a change from Buenos Aires!  The temperature is about 20C cooler than BA. I think we’ll see it as a nice relief from the heat. The landscape is barren and rather stark-looking. In the El Calafate area there are definitely hills, but nothing visible that I would call a mountain. The lakes that we did see are a beautiful turquoise colour. As we approached El Chalten we started to see some of the famous mountains in the background although the clouds obscured the biggest ones.  We saw quite a few guanacos in the fields as we approached El Chalten.  These animals are closely related to the llama.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera handy.

We had a bit of a misunderstanding at the hostel. We thought we had booked a private room, but turns out we just have dorm beds in several different rooms. Oh well.....

El Chalten itself is most definitely a tourist town. Wikipedia says there are only about 350 permanent residents here. Hostels and restaurants galore, with a few hotels thrown in. I guess the area is renowned for its bitter weather so the buildings are pretty basic. We have wifi at the hostel but it’s sketchy. El Chalten is famous for its hiking opportunities into Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, so hopefully the weather will cooperate enough for us to get out a few times.  The forecast for tomorrow looks pretty good so we’ll try for a long hike to Fitz Roy.

Some info from a Lonely Planet book..........  "The vast Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is Argentina's greatest single tract of wilderness.  The park owes its pristine conditions to geography; it straddles the Hielo Sur, the largest icecap outside the earth's polar regions.  The Fitz Roy Range, with its rugged wilderness and shark-tooth summits, is easily the de facto mountaineering mecca of Patagonia.  Cerro Torre (3102m) and Monte Fitz Roy (3405m) provide epic ascents for world-class climbers.  This sector occupying the northern half of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares offers numerous, well-marked trails for trekking and jaw-dropping scenery - that is, when the clouds clear."