El Chalten, Argentina

Monday:
Today we took an 8am bus from El Calafate to El Chalten, which took about 4 hours on a largely unpaved road. The ride itself was quite interesting though because we stopped about half way at a place called La Leona which is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid out for about a month in 1905 after robbing a bank in Chile. We arrived in El Chalten (a town with 600 year round residents) around noon and after checking into our hostel immediately set out to try to see one of the famous peaks in the area, Cerro Torre. The weather continued to be bad and we had to do the 3+ hour hike in the rain and wind. But, it was well worth it. The colors are amazing, with the leaves being shades of yellow, orange, and red. However, we were unable to see Cerro Torre as the fog, rain, and clouds engulfed the valley and blocked all views. We are now settled into our hostel and Im attempting to get this email out on an internet connection that took 17 minutes to connect to my Gmail. So, I am not even going to try to send pictures from here. The internet connection in El Calafate isn't any better, so the pictures will probably have to wait until we get to Bariloche, around April 10th.

Tomorrow we will hopefully hike to a spot where we can see the most famous peak in the area, Fitz Roy, named after the captain of the Beagle, on which Darwin was the naturalist. It is an 8 hour hike, so we hope the weather improves a bit. Tomorrow night we will be returning to El Calafate. On Wednesday, I will be attempting the Big Ice trek on the most famous glacier in Patagonia, Perito Moreno. It is a 7 hour hike through the glacier and it is supposed to be unforgettable. Hopefully we will have better weather when we get back to El Calafate.

The only disappointment I've had so far is not being able to see the Final Four. However, I am happy to miss those games in order to see and do what we have the past few days. I will write more when I can and will send pictures when I am able.