What happened in February??

Well, I shall make an attempt to fill in the blanks. We headed north from Puerto Natales to El Cafate an onwards to El Chalten. Both towns are tourist traps with wooden chalets and expensive coffee and cakes. El Chalten is the gateway to Parque National Los Glaciers, home to Fitroy and Cerro Torre, two fine mountains. We camped in the town and got use to eating dust. The locals were busy puting in a tarmac road and pouring their first footpaths so when the wind blew we all got sand blasted and boy did it blow. We bought a stack of food and walked the 3 hours up to a high camp in the hills. A popular spot with easy access to loads of nice walks. Joe, Brid & James all decided to spend a day getting sick and I was nearly driven to writing poetry about the windy conditions. We woke up covered in dust daily and walked to some fine lakes, to see a wonderful glacier, and to climb the ridge of Cerro Madsen only 1806m but my first Patagonian peak.





Our return to town saw the start of our true fine living. The local shops were very uninspiring but they did sell chunks of red meat. So a series of barbques were lit and enjoyed and we downed chunks of meat like we had never seen before. We also experienced a day of rain followed by a day of wind and that was enough of El Chalten for all of us. I did get the scissors out on the windy day and cut Joes hair. The before and after can be seen here. He returned from the shower with a hairy molly on his lip and I nearly fell over with laughter when I saw it. The french man beside me at the time didnt know what was wrong as he was support a similar growth. All the rage down here a Joe kept it for some time!! A constant source of laughter. Also took a while for the ¨Joe, theres something on your lip¨ joke to not catch him out.





Onwards by overnight bus to Bariloche, with Jim & Brid hanging with the hippies in El bolson for a few days on the way. In Bariloche we once again camped, 3km out of town, to avoid high tourist prices and noisey hostels. Barbques were once again lit and we feasted on even larger chunks of meat and the finest of Malbec wines. Our days started with a swim in the nearby lake that Bariloches sits beside. Oh so different from when we were there on our honeymoon. The sun was splitting the rocks and rain was a thing of the past.We soon found a good coffee house with fab cakes.


You may notice I talk of food a lot. You need to understand that this is not an obsession. It mearly stems from the fact that when in the mountains we have a stable diet of porridge, pasta and tuna, packet soup and cake if we are lucky. Lunches are usually a sandwich, but after 3 days most bread is pretty lame.





So, with bags full of pasta and tuna, we decided to go for a walk. A long one. Six days in total. Not roundabout but strangely up and down. From a place called Pampa Llinda to somewhere else called Colonia Suiza, for all you budding atlas users. Undulating said the guide book. With all our gear and food it was a challenge to get up the valley sides. However, the nature of the walk meant that we camped in a new valley every night, with Mount Tronador a constant companion in the distance. Called mount thunder as ice is constantly crashing off the glacier giving a threatening noise! We had a lake at each camp and our very own valley to enjoy. The sun blazed down on us as we climbed about 500m up and 500m down each day.With quite a few kilometers in between. Sun hats were all the fashion and snow balls were thrown, pasta and tuna were eaten and glacial lakes were swum in.We treated ourselves to a cold beer on reaching a hut on the second last day.





On our return to Bariloche we met a friend of ours Craig Starkey (featuring in a photo below) in the camp site. Stories were exchanged and steak was eaten. Now our group of five headed to the hills again but this time to climb.





I need a rest, its hot here and I think Im sweating pisco sours...