El Chalten - April 2, 3, 4

Monday morning around 8 a.m. we piled into the Truck and drove through the steppe-like hills to El Chalten. The approach to El Chalten was like driving into the Rockies from Calgary. You see this massive, snowy, jagged mountain range in front of you which gradually comes nearer and nearer. We must have a hundred photos because every view seems so much better than the previous shot. Finally we arrived in town. El Chalten is a small tourist town that is apparently growing, and some may say, haphazardly. If you imagine a couple of cowboys in a western movie riding slowly, and tired down the dirt main street of a ghost town, with the tumble weed blowing ahead of them, and not a soul to be seen - you might begin to understnad our first impressions of El Chalten. The gale force wind never stops. The dirt from the roads whirls through the air and is made worse by any car that drives past you - the low level buildings are built randomly with no apparent planning, and the people hurry as fast as the wind will let them past you, heads down - intent on reaching their destination. After we checked into the hostel - which is once again outstanding - clean, lots of atmosphere, good food, clean beds - no bed bugs - although we did meet someone in El Calafate who had gotten bed bugs in another hostel in El Chalten - Ray and I walked down the windy, dirt, main drag, across the Fitz Roy River to the Tourist Information office. There we learned all kinds of information about the various mountain climbs, who did them, when, and which mountain. We learned about a forest fire in 1911 which totally devastated the area and from which many parts still have not recovered. As we walked back, I began to feel a little more connected to this town and now that I have spent another day here, I am beginning to appreciate its unique character, its smallness, and friendly atmosphere. It is actually, the trekking capital of South America and a place where many come to climb the mountains such as Cerro Torre (3102 metres) and Cerro Fitz Roy (3405 metres). You might wonder about all this hiking, all I can say is it is training for the 4 day Macchu Picchu trek still ahead of us.

Today, Tuesday, Ray and I did a walk up to Laguna Torre which gave us terrific views of the Cerro Torree range. The actual walk was much easier than our previous walks in the Ushuaia and Torres del Paine and the walk itself took us about 5 hrs 20 mins and we spent an hour at the Lake eating. It ws a pretty amazing dining room with lots of cloud activity over the Torree Range and the Glaciar.

Tomorrow, I am going on a 6 hour horse ride up into the mountains and Ray is going to hike up to see Poincenot and Fitz Roy. Right now, we are staying in the hostel to eat and mingle with the rest of our group and other hikers. When we leave here the day after tomorrow, we have 22 hours of driving to reach Bariloche on the 7th.

If I don´t get to do any more posts before Easter - I hope you all have a very happy Easter, and hope you will have your families close to celebrate. We are really missing Alanna and being close to her, so we will have our celebrations when we return in June. Howerver, I do believe we are arranging some Easter celebrations on the Truck. Happy Easter!

PS
I am really sorry about the lack of pictures - but the Internet is so slow, we do not seem to be able to upload. I will do so as soon as we can - maybe from Bariloche - so keep checking previous posts.
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