Our next destination was El Chaltén, the self claimed hiking capital of Argentina. Its most famous attraction being Mount Fitz Roy. The Tehuelche indigenous people called it El Chaltén, which means smoking mountain. Only late in the 1800’s it became clear that the mountain doesn’t smoke, but that there is most of the time a cloud floating around the top.

El Chaltén was 90 kms off the main road (RN40), but it was a beautiful drive. Driving through the boring steppe/pampas landscape towards the looming mountains and massive glaciers in the distance. El Chaltén isn’t the prettiest place on earth, quite the contrast with its surroundings. It is a very new town, founded in 1984 and only in recent years it has started to boom. There are some really nice buildings, but there is a bit of cohesion missing and the town really seems to be in need of decent city planner or local government that cares, more about that later. Tired from a long drive, we headed to La Cerveceria, the micro brewery and had great food. Julia had a salad which was a bit more sophisticated then the typical lettuce and tomato and I decided to try the Locro, which is a local speciality. It’s a stew with beans, corn and various meats, very tasty. All washed away with some pilsner of course.

The next day was a wet one, it rained all day. Walking was out of the question as visibility was minimal, so we just ate lots and drove out to Lago del Desierto for a look. The day after it didn’t look that promising in the morning, but we hit the trail for Cerro Torre (3128m) a bit later and enjoyed a great walk. We had beautiful views when we got to the lake at the bottom of the mountains in which the glaciers end. We were amazed by how much more pleasant the experience was compared to Torres del Paine. A lot less people, nicer trail, nicer nature, started right in town and no massive entrance fees. We couldn’t wait for the next day, which was forecasted to be nice, so ideal to hike to and hopefully see Mount Fitz Roy (3405m).

RA40 has a status in Argentina similar to Route 66 in the USA

The mountains surrounding El Chalten in the distance

El Chalten

Cerro Torre

Glaciar calving in a lake under Cerro Torre

We woke up to a glorious day and headed for Mount Fitz Roy, which is supposed to be an 8 hour return walk with a big climb. We took it relatively easy and met lots of people on the trail, some we had talked to before in Torres del Paine or Puerto Natales, lots of nice coincidences. The last hour to the look out was very steep and quite hard, but we did well, getting to the top in soaked t-shirts. We had lunch on top with views over the lake, glaciers and the massive granite peak of Fitz Roy. We both agreed that this is probably the most spectacular hike we have ever done. The scenery was interesting during the whole hike and we even got to see a large woodpecker from very close up, drilling holes in a tree. He wasn’t disturbed by us at all!

Valley towards Lago Desierto

Main attraction of this area, famous Mount Fitzroy

Being able to drink the water in most National Parks is great, it’s refreshing as it comes from the glaciars and it means lighter backpacks!

Hard last hour to the top, fleece is necessary as the wind is icy

Mount Fitzroy is the highest peak, made of granite. And of course some more glaciars, it is not hard to see why this NP is called Los Glaciares!

The name of this walk to Fitzroy was ‘Tres Lagos’ because when not facing Fitzroy you can see the three lakes in the valley below you. 360 degrees amazing views, worth the effort.

Large woodpecker, not worried about us getting up close and personal, just hammering away.

That night we decided to eat out again, as we didn’t have much energy left to cook and we didn’t like our campsite, so the less time spent there the better. We tried to go back to La Cerveceria, but there was a queue outside, fair enough… So we went next door, to Fuegia Bistro where Julia had trout with lemon sauce, real mashed potatoes and grilled veggies. I had a rather large steak with Malbec sauce and potato gratin. After my disastrous steak experiences in Chile I have been hesitant to order it again, but this was cooked to perfection. The owner appeared to be Dutch and we talked to her for a long time about Argentina and El Chaltén. She was very open about the situation when we asked about the messy state of the town and how we thought it could be so much nicer if someone took control. The main problems here are disinterest and laziness from local government and people opening new places left right and center, but all aimed at making a quick buck. Nothing is built to last. Not sure if this is only an El Chaltén problem though. Both the quality of building and the inefficiency of local governments. Local governments seem to employ large amounts of people, but with little output. Take for example Los Antiguos, a town with about 3000 inhabitants, they have 400 people working for the local government. According to a local source we talked to for a long time, if you want to get anything done it is very hard. Nobody knows anything and they are not interested in helping you ahead. Procedures are unnecessarily complicated, lots of redundancy of information. It is something we recognise very well. We have found Argentineans very helpful in some occasions, but this was mostly outside their job. Work seems to be quite often more about attendance than achievement. Maybe this ties in with the economical problems in Argentina, of which I would like to write a post soon.

Our time in El Chaltén has come to an end and our next stop will be Perito Moreno National Park, a very remote NP with only 1200 visitors a year.