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Today is my last day in Calafate and although it had been a nice visit 4 days has been the perfect amount of time. I had a few small jobs to do in the morning which included cleaning the dog cages out and then I would have the rest of the day up until 4pm free. I chatted with Herman in the morning did my exercises and then got the last of my things together. At around 2pm Herman had agreed to take me into the city on his bike and on the way we stop at Ana's work and say goodbye. Just as we were about to leave Ana rocked up at the house and offered to give me a lift into town. After hanging around Ana's Hosteria trying to get the Internet to work I headed into the Main Street and luckily was able to get the local wifi to work for 10 minutes before I had to head to the bus station. The bus to Chalten only had about 15 people on it and it left very late but the drive was incredibly scenic and the bus driver even made a 30 minute stop where we could take photos. Just before Chalten there was a police roadblock and they police came onto the bus asking for IDs and weirdly the policeman who was checking my papers also sniffed my passport - for what reason I do not know. When I arrived at Chalten Hernan was already their with Matilde and her housemate. The two girls are lovely and I can tell our stay here is going to be really nice. The town is very small with just 1000 locals and about 5000 tourists, a couple of supermarkets and a few bars. We went to the house and it was a crazy setup with about 7 people living in and around the house in tents, caravans on the floor etc. It turns out Chalten is a climbing meca and I met two German guys at the house who just so happen to be the two best and most famous climbers in the world. We drank Yerba Mate, chatted and laughed late into the night, I met about 20 people who came over to visit and chat about climbing routes for the next day. At about 11pm we started on the red wine and had a little tuna and milanesa on crackers and this very strange egg plant paste stuff. Hernan and I couldn't believe our luck with three gorgeous and very down to earth girls to share meals, laughs and red wine with. After the second bottle of red we headed to the bar meeting every single local on town I think (when you meet anyone here you must greet with a kiss or a kiss and a hand-shake). The bar was a wood cabin with a snow lodge feel and everybody was rugged up in all their beanies and thick jackets; we met some of the other housemates and then ordered a bottle of red wine to share - this time it was the famous Malbec (rated as the third best wine in the world). At around 1am there was a live theatrical / musical act performed by this slightly crazy red-headed lady. The act was all in Spanish and involved singing, dancing, poetry, theatre and photography - basically telling a story of travels around South America and all the different music from the different countries and the people. It was very enthralling and had everyone's attention for the full two hours, at the end they passed around a hat and everyone could give a little tip. By this point I was about to fall asleep, another bottle was ordered and I don't think any of us wanted to drink more but soldiered on and soon as we finished started to hear home. We made a short stop at the disco where all the locals and tourists could have a dance but we were also tired we headed back to the house.
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