1/8-Wind and Boom Aplenty!

It was a chilly one this morning, but that might be expected since we were camped near a glacier. It was also spitting rain a bit. By the time I packed up my tent, it was a little wet. Like Markus said, tents are meant to get wet. Actually, my footprint was wetter than my tent (camping on grass always makes for a wet footprint. 

A visitor while I was fixing my breakfast. 

We got one of our earliest starts today about 8:45. That’s not counting the pre-butt crack of dawn start to get to the boat the other morning. 

We had high hopes of a good gravel road from Lago Del Desierto to El Chalten, and it was…for awhile. The scenery was amazing though. 

The road was, at times, so close to the river, it seemed likely it would flood quite easily. There were also good sized puddles to negotiate. 

About 10.5kms in, we came to this memorial park. It was for something about when Chile wanted the land. What was more interesting was this. 

“Moss Man”, the latest in the Marvel Superhero lineup. 

At this point, the road got a bit rougher. The wind also picked up substantially. But, joy of joys, it was a tailwind (a foreshadowing of days to come???)! And the scenery…

That’s Camilla


We stopped at a spot out of the wind for a snack. 

There was even a bench. 

Not much further, we came to a camping place that had a small cafe. I got hot chocolate and a traditional kind of dessert that has a shortbread type crust, topped with membrillo (quince), and a pastry lattice. It was pretty good. 

Then it was back out to the tailwind and the rough road. The hardest part about the road was that there was so much traffic. We had to ride to the far right because there was almost always a car, or two, or three coming. It was also pretty dusty. Most of the cars slowed down (as much for the road conditions, as for us). The wind was so strong, there were times I didn’t even have to pedal…just hang on and steer while the wind pushed me along. 

See that it says “Bonanza”?

Closer to El Chalten we saw a lot of hikers. I was looking to see if one might be Caroline. Just before the gravel ended, who should I see? Caroline!!!

A Caroline sighting! She was heading out to trek some of the many trails in this land of glaciers. 

She told us where she had stayed last night, a bed and breakfast called La Cima. We stopped at nearly every cabaña and hotel along the main road. Everyplace was either fully booked or super expensive. We finally ended up at La Cima. For the first time, we are in separate rooms, but it’s fine. This one was 40,000/night (we’ll stay 2 nights) for me. And, as it is a B&B, it includes breakfast. 

The town is crawling with people, mostly trekkers, but also families on holidays. The Boom has definitely arrived here in Chalten. Relatively speaking, it’s not that big of a town, but it is bigger and busier than anyplace we’ve been since, probably, Coyhaique. 

The things we need to accomplish while we are here is, getting money (hopefully from an ATM, but if not, I’ll exchange some USD for pesos), getting an Argentina plug adapter, resupply (and checking out if there is any new food), and doing my laundry (which I already did). The next stretch to El Calafate is 130 miles. If the wind continues as it was today, we will make that pretty quickly. 

It definitely feels like we are in a different country.