Today is a long day of driving, 500km to El Chalten. That is basically it really, its a very hot day too at about 30C and sunshine. We do the usual breakfast, de-camp, luggage put away and are soon ready to get on the road bright and early. I basically sleep most of the way, with the only time off the bus being at rest stops for snacks, and lunch.
The lunch stop is so windy we need to take cover to make sure the food doesn’t blow away and there are a good few incidents of flying plastic bags being chased round by members of the crew to get them in the rubbish bin.
We finally make it into El Chalten with the spectacular and dramatic scenery, with the iconic mountain Fitz Roy in view. We go to our hostel Los Pioneros and get into our bunk rooms with en suite bathroom and we agree the rota for showering. I am happy to go last and wallow in the water for a while. We all basically go our own ways, mainly to the laundry in order to get all our things clean, I am basically out of most of my clothes with just one option left which hopefully will be good for hiking.
The laundry is only 3 doors down from the hostel which is great, by the time I get there though 25 people have already put in their laundry!! so mine will be done 5pm tomorrow. I head back to the hostel and a rough plan for hiking is made tomorrow, and it sounds like the best thing to do is walk to Fitz Roy via the Laguna de Los Tres hiking trail with is 20km round trip!! This should be good practice for the W-Walk in Torres del Paine in a few days.
I start to head out for food and then get offered some left overs by a couple of girls on the trip, its a mishmash of the chicken we cooked, some pasta and rice, but goes down well as I am not that hungry really. Next stop I head off with an English couple to the B&B bar for a drink, then we go looking for others in the group (unsuccessfully), Greta (the youngest in the tour at 18) is keen to go out, she’s put on her party top but all of us are keen for a relatively early one with the thought of the hike tomorrow which is meant to be tough.
Needless to say we catch up with a few others, and head to the Bourbon bar for a couple of Pisco sours (nice venue, crappy service!!) and then early to bed with the plan to meet at 8am and hit the road.
Spin My Own Dreams 