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On Saturday we flew down from Boneus Aires on a reasonably undelayed flight for South America and landed in El Calafate - luckily the pilot could see the runway as we couldn´t spot it! The amazing senery was just a taste of what was to come over the next couple of days with beautiful snow capped mountains and crystal clear lakes. After the best nights sleep ever in my own room with a double bed - think I´m going to like this this tour we headed down to El Chalten by bus. We´ve quickly discovered we are the only people on the tour and are yet to find the tour guide! A taxi dropped us at a bus station and after being asked for more vouchers we don´t have we found a bus that seemed to have our names on a list! The drive was beautiful with our first view of Fitzroy Mountain a spectacular peak we were going to hike to the next day. There really is nothing in El Chalten it exists merely to serve the hikers and climbers who come to the Fitzroy range.
On our first day in the town we were picked up by Pepe our hiking guide. Certianly was not loving his hello kiss on the cheek with his massive scratchy scary beard! He´s definately of the traveller way with his dreadlocks under a tea cosy, sexy clingy walking trousers and chewed nails - eugh! Really nice guy though! He led us off on our first ever hike - a mere ten miles of hilly mountain terrain. Pepe did seem a little concerned when he asked how much hiking we´d all done and got a unanimous reply of this is our first! We headed (well I tripped and stumbled most of the way) to the base of Fitzrtoy mountain seeeing a pecking woodpecker, a giant hare, an eagle, and condors. The viewpoint we made it to was spectcular and we were lucky to have a beautifuly clear day with no clouds obstructing the mountain. On the way back we headed off the walking trail along the horse trail - pushing through bushes and mud we made it to a cool waterfall which made a beautiful photo with the mountain in the background. We also stopped off at a amazing (running out of awesome words) lake which was perfectly clear. Every stream and puddle is crystal clear and apparently perfect drinking water - although gave that one a miss personally. That evening we collapsed and watched a film!
The second day saw our second hike - safe to say 13 hours hiking in two days has definately killed us. Especially as i´m refusing to eat the pre packed sandwiches - managed a little bit after Lisa opened it and wafted the yucky aeroplane smell away! Living on cereal bars at mo. Today the trek was much more up and down and pretty tiring - especially when Pepe pointed out where we were heading an hour in - on the horizon! We made it round to the side of Mount Fitzroy to a frozen lake with two glaciers stemming from the base of the mountain to the lake. Despite the ice it wasn´t deep enuogh to walk on the lake, so we entertained ourselves trying to get the perfect photo of each of us in front of the glaciers! Given our complete lack of photography skills this took quite a while! On the way back Lisa had a small incident with a log but made it through relatively unscathed, given her rather dramatic slide down the stairs to dinner last night she´s beating me in the falling stakes - sure my time will come as soon as we try and walk on ice!
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