Time at El Chalten.

After crossing the border, and having that unexpected adventure through snow and the trekking trail I woke up my first day in Argentina with a nice snowy morning. Still I was 37 k away from El Chalten where I knew there was a casa de ciclistas everyone I met on the road spoke of.

I took it easy that day because all my body ached thanks to the efforts I made the day before, still the 37 k were quite long for my like because anxiousness of some resting place was hitting me.

I made it to El Chalten in the evening and in no time I found Florencia's house a.k.a. El Charito, the first picture I got from the place was 6 tents in the backyard of the house, 5 of them belonged to bicycle tourers and one to a hitch hiker, good times were going to be had for sure.

Snowy morning that day.

Florencia's patio!

Casa de Ciclistas.

The idea of a house for cyclcists is really cool. A free place where to stay, where you can take a warm shower, cook in the kitchen, get to know people who are also travelling and spend some good time with them is simply amazing. Arriving to this places is like arriving to a small already organized community where everybody cooperates for doing things like cooking, cleaning, doing mechanical work, etc. So far I've been in only one at Jorge's house in Mañihuales, before Coyhaique. I know there is also one in Coyhaique, but as I met my friend Pato on the road there was no need to go to the casa the ciclistas in Coyhaique which is run by Boris (everybody speaks about this house too). The third one on the road south is Florencia's house, which for my like is the best ever.

Florencia has the idea of also doing a bicycle trip, hopefully, the next season. She started with the casa de ciclistas because a neighbor of hers used to offer a space for travelers so they could put their tents in the backyard, at no cost. As he then started a bicycle trip, the place was left alone and no more people could get into the space to mount the tent. He then asked Flor if she could continue with the idea and she agreed to do so.

Time at Flor's, yet another casa de ciclistas, but not your regular casa de ciclistas.

I felt like at my own house the week I spent there. Nice dinners were organized everyday and almost everybody would ship in the dinners so the costs were split and we would save lots of money and have awesome dinners almost everyday. Everybody would cook something, hopefully from their own country and so we even ended up having Chilean Completos one night.

Completo night! UUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Bicycle Fishing

 During the day everybody would get busy with their own things or would organize different activities to spend the time; I ended up doing bicycle fishing one day, pretty much like bicycle touring but instead of touring we would move from place to place to find nice spot where we would try to fish something for dinner; sadly no fishes were fished that day but lots of fun were had.

I spent one whole day fixing my bike as the pass from Chile left me with no brakes at all and the mud the bike took in that day made it almost unrideable. I was forced to spend one whole day doing the cleaning and maintenance to my bike in order to keep on at some point.

I also got introduced to bouldering. We had a fantastic cool evening of bouldering and hiking through the local hills of El Chalten in the search of new spots and boulders to climb like small rock monkeys. We spent several hours doing this which passed really fast. Having never done bouldering before I had tons of fun and found it quite easy to do too, definitely something I'd like to keep doing. When sunset was near we went for a cherry trees forest were we ended up afterwards harvesting cherries from up the trees like, this time, real monkeys!!. With all the amount of cherries we managed to get from the trees we made an awesome fondue, jam and even managed to eat tons of cherries in different cakes. Who would think that the bouldering was just for warming up for the real climbs.

Bouldering team! Mate can not be missed!

View of El Chalten from one of the boulders.

Bouldering!

El Chalten is also really well known for the Fitz Roy mountain and the Cerro Torre, two awesome spots and must do trekkings that I also did. The Cerro Torre trekking was pretty cool and quite short, doable in around 5 hours total. I spent one day doing this hike as I took it easy and spent a good time in nature by myself. The lonely cyclist also needs time for himself.

Laguna and Cerro Torre.

Towards Laguna de los Tres.

I also did the long hike towards Laguna de los Tres. It was Connor's birthday (a cyclist in the house) and for celebrating his birthday, together with Kannan (another cyclist) we decided to go and hike up the Laguna de los Tres. We should have departed around 10 am in order to come back around 6, right before sunset, but it is so damn difficult to leave Flor's house during the mornings that we ended up leaving for the trek around 1 pm.

The trekking was quite nice and we even managed to take a bath in the Capri lake as someone had told me I had to do it the day before, it was worth it, a shot of coldness to get more energies to keep on with the walking.. A beautiful spot on the way towards the Laguna de los Tres. At this point I really noticed that winter is coming. The red warning as we started to call it.

Random free kittens for everyone!!

Laguna Capri and the Fitz Roy in the background. OMG A NAKED MAN!

The red warning is when all the leaves on the trees start to turn red and the hills are not green anymore but completely red. The picture of autumn in the hills is stunning. I have been used to see either green forest or white forest (winter). But seeing the red warning covering all the hills is simply amazing.

We kept the walking after the bath at Laguna capri and some obvious Mate time. It was 4 pm and we were more than late for doing the trek up to the Laguna but who really cares about time when you have free and enough time to do whatever you want. We were not under a schedule, we just were in nature enjoying the place and having a nice day and so we kept with the walking at a calmed pace.

After a huge climb we arrived to the most fantastic place El Chalten has to offer for one day trekkers. Laguna de los Tres. Pictures speak for themselves I think.

 

Damn fucking amanzing place with no people at all!!

We had a fun time there, sadly no bathing though as the water is close to be ice. Still usable for the couple of boxes of wine that needed to be cold in order to be drinkable. That's not true anyways, but we still fancied some cold wine, after all, it was Connor's birthday.

Crazy lads up the mountain.

Ah shit!! Too much wine!

After some sandwiches and the boxes of wine, it was time to roll down the mountain, wine did what it was supposed to do. Right before sunset we managed to do the hardest part of the trail and then, the night arrived. A couple of guys we had met on the house and that were camping up there suggested us to spend the night at the camping place with them. Having camping gear and with the idea of a night trek we declined the offer and kept on. Fear of the dark? Nah, why would we fear it if it offers us another cool experience?. We walked through the trail only with the light of a growing moon and some stars. Still, these trails are so well made that it's almost impossible to get lost so we weren't really worried about getting lost, or maybe the wine made us not worry at all ;).

After 4 hours of walking through pitch dark woods and trails where we didn't see a shit and walked just by faith we managed to reach the city. Once again, lots of fun were had during the night trek. It's so fantastic to be able to do this kind of things. I really enjoyed the whole day and the places we got to visit in one single day. The whole damn experience was sooo good.

Back to the city it was time for a deserved beer and some snacks. Sadly, El Chalten in low season is almost a ghost town. THE place we found for having beers had already closed the kitchen (it was midnight) and there was no other place open for having a snack, some fries, pizza, or whatever warm to eat. Someone told us about this place that runs till 2 am where they sell bread, biscuits and that sort of stuff, so after a couple of beers we headed to that place and had some bread with cheese and ham. Not a warm meal but at least some food, sad part is that we had to eat it outside where we were freezing our asses with the cold night and dew. It gets cold at night over this area.

It was over 2 am and we headed our way towards Flor's house where she was still up waiting for us kind of worried for where we were and wondering if we were lost or had just decided to spend the night up the mountain. She never thought we would walk our way back to the city at night as we did. Still she had a warm meal waiting for us which was a marvelous and warm gesture before our deserved night of sleep.

Time for a bit of Pampa.

Sadly there is always to leave to keep on with the road. Still a marvelous week was had at Florencia's with lots of experiences that fill the spirit and fuel you to keep on doing what we do. Travel the earth, get to know people, get to know places and experience them.

The itch of the road and the south started to appear again though and I decided I had to leave on Sunday. Saturday was a chill day to get ready for what was to come. We decided to team up with Connor in order to visit Perito Moreno Glacier and to reach Puerto Natales, the intrance to the last bit of Chile and maybe, just maybe, the end of the road for me, at least for this winter season.

Still I have to say that I had a fantastic week in El Chalten, it was amazing having the chance to do all those things we did in town. So many good times were had and good memories that are not easy to forget. I had a blast of a time there and I am really happy I got the chance to be there and then. More adventures and stories to tell in the future for sure and more friends that I make on the road.

For now the pampa awaits and more adventures have to come.

Till then.

Cheers.