Chile to Mexico

A two year overland journey across South and Central America

Chile to Mexico
Argentina Walks 

Estamos en El Chaltén

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El Chaltén… marketed as the trekking capital of Argentina, and hey it’s easy to see why 🙂

We loved our time in El Chaltén… it’s a small town with amazing views and fantastic walks that you can do straight from the town… no transportation hassles to get you to the trailhead – just your own 2 feet – AWESOME 🙂

El Chaltén – on a clear day the views as you enter the town certainly have the wow factor!
Another nice view from town 🙂

The vistas aren’t always this good in El Chaltén though… put it this way – we were grateful that we’d added a couple of extra days to our stay in case of bad weather – we certainly had to use them!!!

We did 3 full day walks (watch this space to read about them….) and 2 shorter walks during our week there. The first of the shorter walks started from the park office and took us to a viewpoint overlooking town and then to a second viewpoint overlooking a HUGE lake 🙂 Our first attempt at this walk was aborted…with gusts of wind up to 80km an hour – it felt a bit unsafe – so in spite of the new intrepid hiker that I’ve become (I have now managed a stream crossing!) this was just TOO MUCH!  – so I insisted it would just have to wait! The views were worth the wait though 🙂 Check them out…

Looking back at the trail and the Fitzroy Range
A lower viewpoint gives us our first view of the town…
Looking down on El Chaltén from a higher vantage point.
Another slightly different view (it was hard to pick the pictures!) which shows how it all fits together!!!
PB on his way to the second lookout point.
The road into Chaltén seems quite far away!
Lake views from the final viewpoint
Back at the bottom, happy the weather has not gone downhill completely – and we can still see the Fitzroy range 😉

The second short walk took us to a waterfall… the trail was a mix of dirt path and walking along the gravel road (the trail bits were way nicer!!!) The waterfall was pretty, and we managed to take a few shots before the rain came down…(pictures not vodka… 🙂 )

As we leave El Chaltén we get stunning views 🙂
PB strides out on the gravel road – eager to get back on the more walker friendly trail… but enjoying the view nonetheless 🙂
Back on the trail, but the grey clouds are still looming with the promise of rain…
Chorillo del Salto!
And as no post is complete without a bird picture, here’s one of an unidentified bird (we’re behind on our bird list as well as our blog posts!?!?) posing for us at the waterfall 🙂

Apart from walking, El Chaltén had other things going for it too 🙂 🙂

Firstly… empanadas… nowhere else in Argentina has 5 kinds of vegetarian empanadas on offer – it’s unheard of!! Che Empanadas was a fab place – there’s no disputing it!

CC looking VERY happy as she has a full belly ater visiting Che Empanadas!!

Secondly…. craft beer… but I guess most places in Patagonia seem to be good at this too!

PB enjoying a refreshing local IPA after a hard day walking 😉

Thirdly… our cute, friendly hostel – here everything was possible – including getting us a taxi on our final day to get us to the bus station…. it was pouring down, we’d packed our waterproofs (not the smartest move I know, but we had…), and in spite of all the taxis in town being booked (there are apparently only 3 or 4) the manager managed to make a few calls and get us a ride, meaning we arrived at the bus station dry and happy 🙂 🙂

Nunataks – a home away from home (with the added bonus of having a bakery with delicious baked goods right next door) 🙂

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