El Chalten, the town. We both really loved El Chalten. It is a small town, built in 1985 and now has 700 inhabitants, mostly (all?) geared to tourism, but some is serious climbing as well as the kind of trekking we were doing. In many ways it seems like a "frontier town" with many small square buildings, many only partially built out of brick blocks (mainly). There are many restaurants and hotels and they are really interesting designs, using lots of wood and different angles and furnishings. Quite a lot of character. Just across the road from Los Nires (our hotel) is an old small wooden building with half on stilts like a queenslander, and it is a chocolate place that makes the most fantastic, rich but not over-sweet hot chocolate. Inside is old climbing gear and a staircase with a ski as a railing takes you to the small upstairs room where you sit in the sun with views of snow capped mountains to drink the brown hot warming comfort! YES!! ...
Well, finally got to a reliable internet connection in Bariloche, so I thought I'd better update while I can! We arrived OK, but it was over 30 hours due to a 6 hour delay in Santiago - setting the trend of things to come. On advice we packed all the electronic gear in our carry-on (Thanks Jeanette and Pat) and everythig arrived OK. We had to wait 3/4 of an hour to get our bags though, not sure why, but we were relieved when they arrived. The flight to Puerto Varas, about 900km south of Santiago was fantastic. The weather was mostly clear and we saw lots of the Andes and many lakes. Some mountains had snow, but not as many as would further north, as they are higher there. Got a taxi OK at Puerto Montt to go to Puerto Varas, and my Spanish was continuing to be useful (thanks Nancy), and I am enjoying tryong to use it. Everyone is SO friendly and helpful. We arrived late and very tired, but had dinner an a fish restaurant above a fish market (El Mercado) and w...
Hotel Tronador has been our home for 4 days now. It is about 70km from Bariloche that you get to down a timed one-way road. It sits on a emerald green lake with mountains in the background, and the 3400m Mt Tronador at the end of the valley. It is called Tronador because of the thunderous sound of ice breaking away from the glacier and floating in the lake - not OUR lake, which is a little warmer. We have spent each day walking for about 5 hours on the mountain paths to lookouts (usually very steep), over rivers and swing bridges, to other lakes, to glaciers, waterfalls and just generally in the forest. When we were at Mirador del Valle we saw two condors just above us. The forest is interesting, as it has some flowers, but lots of native bamboo that gives it a tunnel effect in places. The days have been warm (25 degrees) and very sunny. In the afternoons the sun is VERY hot and we swim in the cool lake. Everyone is very friendly, most people speak english , but som...
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