Down in the Deep South

Over the last week we´ve been down in the deepest depths of Argentian Patagonia in the freezing cold. We took our tent and sleeping bags and headed off toward the small town of El Chalten to see Fitz Roy - a huge mountain whose summit stands out about 1,000m above all the others around, so it´s fairly impressive to say the least. We were blessed for our arrival by a clear day and the prominent mountain, clearly in view. Fitz Roy is strange, as it nearly always has a bed of cloud behind it and as it reaches the summit, this cloud slowly rises creating the look of a smoking volcano. Strange, but very intriguing. It´s so impressive, it´s very hard to take your eyes off it.

El Chalten, the town at the foot of Fitz Roy is a strange place. It was only built in 1985 to support the increasing tourism in the region and only has about 2,000 inhabitants during the summer and about 200 in winter. Not suprising really, given the weather conditions, which are harsh to say the least. It´s mid summer and the days hardly reach 16 degrees. With the wind chill, you can take this down a few more! The region is known for strong westerly winds, but we underestimated these quite significantly.

We set off on a cool, clear day with the intention to camp in the national park for a few days. This would allow us to take in the frosty blue glaciers, turquoise lakes and aweinspiring mountains. As we set off Fitz Roy was straight ahead in our view (very lucky as it had only been visible for a few hours in the last 8 days) and the fierce wind blowing dust in our faces. Unfortunately it began to cloud over and lashing rain started soon after. Luckily we reached the campsite quickly and set up the tent. The rain didn´t stop until the next morning and so we cut our camping trip short and headed back to the town, all soggy and wet. It didn´t stop raining all the next day either, so we made a good move, particularly since our tent was begining to let water in!

I´ve not been feeling too well, so I spent yesterday chilling out in the hostel while Stu went ice climbing, which he thoroughly enjoyed.