Travelling to El Chalten
Despite leaving Torres del Paine at the same time, Sam and I still went separate ways. Sam was ready to get to Buenos Aires and do some dancing, and I was not quite ready to be done with Patagonia. In fact, I could spend the rest of the year in Patagonia and be quite happy, but the trip must go on.
Since I had just hiked the most famous park in Chile, I decided I should now do the most famous one in Argentina: Parque Nacional del Glaciares.
Sam and I stayed at the Erratic Rock hostel in Puerto Natales for a couple more days, relaxing and recovering from our time at Torres. Plus, it is such a fun place to stay, we were reluctant to leave for our next destinations.
To get to our destinations, we both had to first travel to Calafate Argentina. It was supposed to be a fairly short bus ride, but getting through Chilean and Argentinian customs took about 2 hours. However, I´ve found that as long as I have a good book to read, I really don´t mind waiting around.
From Calafate, Sam took another bus on towards Buenos Aires, but I decided to stay a couple days. My ankle was still bothering me a bit, so I was in no hurry to get to the next hike. I found a cheap, comfortable hostel and spent some time reading and planning the trek.
One thing that had bothered me when hiking Torres del Paine was that I had way too much food. I mean, I had food for 8 days and only hiked 4, but even so, I think I was carrying way too much. I vowed to not let that happen again. I planned good filling dinners, very light snacks for lunch, and granola with powdered milk for breakfast. Nothing too exciting, but it would get me through the days.
When I was satisfied with my selection of food, and my ankle felt strong again, I packed up and boarded the bus to El Chalten, Argentina where my trek would begin.
Comments
One thing I've felt about your blog posts - I always feel like a new adventure is beginning, and I get very excited at each step of the trip.
i've been enjoying following your adventures through the blog. i really must meet you guys one day. oh, and one question: what book are you reading? must be inspiring!
@Kirsten - It is amazing what you can make by adding water. I don't know if they have it in the states, but down here is a powdered milk called Svelty, which I think is more than plain powdered milk, it's sweet and makes a great addition to granola. Much better than the powdered milk I remember having.
I just finished reading "World Without End" by Ken Follet. It was good, I got really attached to the characters and just couldn't stop reading it.
I shoot with a Canon Rebel XTi. I have two lenses, a 28-135mm and a 10-22mm wide angle. Both are great reasonably priced lenses. It is quite a nice setup, especially for the price, and weighs a lot less than the higher end Canon SLRs.