day 4: if you haven't seen "the next 3 days", i suggest you watch it....3 times in a row

you'd think a 4 hour bus ride would be a piece of cake after 19 hours, right? wrong. first thing that went wrong: "the next three days" played again. now, this is a russell crowe movie. if you haven't seen it, it's not bad. it's totally watchable. it's like jason bourne (hey dad) and national treasure with some action and more guns. we watched it on the poop baby bus. so we get on this 4 hour bus and guess what movie is playing? the next three days. except this time, it's in spanish with english subtitles (the first time was english with spanish subtitles) so it wasn't horrible. then, it starts over again. i wanted to die because i was so bored and so tired. it sounds pathetic, but it was so bad. especially because the first 3 hours of this bus ride were through the bleak area of patagonia, it looked like the midwest...flat, flat, and more flat.

welcome to río gallegos. this is the view from the bus terminal. that concrete box is the carrefour.

view from the bus....getting closer to patagonia...

FINALLY we get to el calafate, where we wander around in the freezing cold trying to find a hostel. we found a really nice, cheap log cabin hostel, dropped our stuff, and strugged back into town to find the first restaurant we could.

main street in el calafate. they have a casino, too

and of course, all the outdoor stores like timberland, north face, and patagonia!

our second hostel of the trip

calafate

literally the best meal i've had in argentina

co-presidents of the clean plate club meet again

view from the bus terminal...

...not kidding...

walking down from the bus terminal, which is a hairs breadth away from the main street, via this small passageway...

el calafate is like a smaller, argentine version of lake placid. it gets pretty touristy in the summer months (oct, nov, dec), but it was pretty quiet while we were there

after a delicious dinner that filled our otherwise empty stomachs, we went to bed feeling full, tired, yet ready for the next adventure: glacier perito moreno.