Day 108 - Apocalypse now...

El Chalten claims to be the national capital of trekking. Trekking is hiking. In Tanya's opinion, the word "trekking" is pretentious. She says, "it's like using 'futbol' for 'soccer' in the US, but worse". In my opinion, if the whole world uses it instead of "hiking" and "futbol" instead of "soccer", who's really being pretentious here... Regardless of our linguistic disagreement, there is no argument that the place has the right to be the national (or world's, or Universe's!) capital of hiking/trekking!

El Chalten is a tiny mountain village located a little over 200 km from El Calafate, so it takes about 2.5 hours to get there. Unless you make a pit-stop at estancia La Leona to get coffee and apple pie by the fire and all of a sudden discover that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were enjoying coffee at the same exact location for a month after a big bank robbery at Rio Galleos right before they fled to Bolivia. (Ohhh, what a great movie!!! I want to watch it again, right now!!!) Then, it takes 3.5 hours.

Oh, and if you wish to make your trip just an impressive couple of minutes longer, make sure you stop by the Bay of the Wind. Dramatic sounds accompanied by equally dramatic views.

Weather permitting, all you do in El Chalten is hike, hike, hike. There are myriads of treks of various difficulty levels and duration. Weather not permitting so much, all you do in El Chalten is drive, drive, drive. The scenery is spectacular all the way to El Chalten, in El Chalten, around El Chalten, and out of El Chalten to the magical lake Lago Disierto.

At first, I was a little disappointed that it was drizzling all the time (and drizzle coupled with only +2C / 36F is good neither for trekking, nor for hiking), but then I realized that this weather was a pretty lucky thing to happen. Doom and gloom of low season Patagonia created this absolutely awesome apocalyptic special effect: dark low sky, fields of prickly shrubs with an occasional leafless black tree broken into the weirdest - almost horizontal - shape by incessant winds, age-old indifferent snow-mountains, no people for miles and miles on end... It feels like the only protection you have is the oxygen in your car, and if you open the window and breathe in the ouside, that will be it...

I still did some little treks in the rain. The air was actually super-breathable and delicious! And every time when the sun graced the land with its brief presence, the whole land would magically transform into... my favorite San Juan reef in Cozumel! I have goosebumps as I write this now...