After a very short stopover in El Calafate we made our way to El Chalten, which is in the north of “Parque Nacional Los Glaciares” and home of the famous Monte Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre – the defacto mountaineering mecca of Argentina. El Chalten actually means “Peak of Fire” or “Smoking Mountain” because the first inhabitants thought the mountain was a volcano as it seemed to be “smoking” non-stop. But in reality the summit is almost always covered in clouds. Almost always?! Not for us! Believe it or not – we were lucky again and saw the peaks on 3 out of 4 days!
In winter there are only about 600 inhabitants but in summer it gets flooded with tourists. I am really happy that we were there so early in the season as at the time of our visit not many tourists were around. Only after a short while we already felt like being amongst friends! We found a small hostel with the most helpful owner ever, went for an unbelievable good icecream and for dinner we found a hidden gem called “Como Vaca” (which means “I eat beef”). Fantastic! What else can you ask for in life! :-)
Another good thing about El Chalten is that you can do all treks on your own without any costs – very different to El Calafate where you needed to pay for everything. As we had just come back from a 5-day trek we wanted to take it easy and just went for two little hikes to some nice views of the surrounding glaciers and mountains.
On our second day though we went for a very spectacular excursion - ice-trekking on the biggest glacier in the park called “Glaciar Viedma”! It felt very special to walk on ice that has been there for thousands of years. An experience that will never be forgotten!
On the third day we went for a relaxed 5-hours hike to Fitz Roy and glaciar Piedras Blancas.
We made sure that we were back early enough to have time in the afternoon for some more lush icecream and another visit to our favorite steak house “Como Vaca” :-)
I dont want to go on too much about my passion about steaks, but after eating steak literally every day for the last six weeks I feel confident to say that the meat at this Parilla was the best I have ever tasted in Argentina (sorry James...). Moreover, as we had been there every evening we almost felt like part of the “family” and at the time when everybody else had left the restaurant the waiter and barman ended up playing cards and drank wine with us until late (again!).
The day we left El Chalten Nadja and I almost felt sad. We really felt comfortable there and easily could have stayed a couple of more days, but unfortunately time did not allow it as we had to catch a plane to our next destination.
The day we left El Chalten Nadja and I almost felt sad. We really felt comfortable there and easily could have stayed a couple of more days, but unfortunately time did not allow it as we had to catch a plane to our next destination.
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