El Chalten

Sunday, Mar 23 – Day 97

It’s another early bus this morning, leaving at 7:30 am. The trip takes 3 ½ hours on a gravel road (a rock road may be a better description) to get to El Chalten, and we have to slow down occasionally for the packs of wild llamas and emus that are on the road.

As we get to the outskirts of town, we see a group of four Andean Condors, which have to be the biggest living animal that can fly. They are absolutely huge. I don’t know if they are endangered species or not, but they are really beautiful to watch.

El Chalten is a cool little town, but unfortunately, it is showing signs of progress. Several years ago, there were fewer than a dozen houses here, now there are some 200. You can still drink from the rivers here, but the population is growing and they are going to start paving the roads this year.
It’s a beautiful day, so at 1:00, we head off on a 17 km roundtrip trek (10.6 miles) to see Cerro Poincenot, a 9,300 ft. spike. It took just under 5 hours, which is quite a bit better than the time we were making at Torres del Paine. The Argentine trails are much better marked than those in Chile and the topography is a little easier today.

We have a micro-brewery next to our hostel, and they use unfiltered glacier water to brew their two beers, how cool is that? We met two girls from the US, which turned out to be somewhat of a downer though, as they reminded me of what a pain in the ass they are compared to the South Americans.