day 6: first day of spring and el chaltén

day 6 dawned...well, to be honest, horribly. we awoke early to catch another 8am bus and it was snowing out. september 21st marks the first day of spring in argentina (woohoo southern hemisphere), so as the rest of the ifsa program was enjoying the heat and humidity of iguazu falls, we were in patagonia with the fresh layer of snow that had covered el calafate. we took a 3 hour bus to el chaltén, where we arrived around 11. if we thought it was cold in calafate, chaltén was much worse. here, it was colder and wetter; it was sleeting and we still had to find a hostel. after stumbling around with our wet backpacks and guidebooks, we finally found one AND got a discount ("discount" meaning we got to pay 4 pesos, about 1 US dollar, less). we decided to eat an early lunch and unpack our bags a little, because we were going to spend 3 nights here.

happy first day of spring!

we also went to the one supermercado (think real hard on that word) where they sold basically nothing, except for these bags of mayonnaise.

main street of el chaltén

then we decided to stretch our legs a little and go on a mini-hike up to a waterfall

me and bri

the hostel charged us 2 pesos for toilet paper, so we stole our own to save money...

after walking to the waterfall and grocery store, we decided that el chaltén was nice, but had little to offer within the town. however, after we learned some fun facts about chaltén, we began to appreciate it more. fun facts: el chaltén is argentina's youngest "town", founded in 1985. it was argentina's claim to the mountain ranges because they didn't want chile to have the territory. so basically this "town" hasn't really come together yet, it's still just a spattering of multi-colored houses in this tiny valley. there is one small grocery store, and the only ATM is in the bus terminal. many places still don't accept credit cards, so we made sure to bring enough cash from el calfate to last us four days. over half the town is closed until the summer months of november/december/january/february, so we were out of luck (and money) if we wanted to eat out as well. despite it's young roots, el chaltén is the national trekking capital of argentina. it's also pretty well known by trekkers worldwide because of its proximity to the fitz roy range.

after our hike, we went back to the hostel for an early dinner. we decided to sleep in a little the next day because the weather was supposed to be horrible; cloudy, snowy, wet, and possible sleet.