day 7: matching vests

day 7 dawned exactly as the weathermen predicted: wet, rainy, and cloudy. we woke up after sleeping in a little and thought that taking it easy for the first part of the day would be a good idea; to recover from our full week of early buses and traveling. we chilled in the hostel, reading and crocheting until lunch. after lunch, we lounged in our room for a little, trying to decide what to do. it was at this point i was kicking myself for not bringing legit hiking boots or enough outerwear because it was so wet outside. we decided to do a short hike up to mirador de los condores ("lookout of the condors"). we hiked up a small hill and got a nice view of chaltén from higher up...it is a really quirky town because it's so young. the houses don't really fit together and the roads are more like sidewalks. the trail for the condor lookout was washed out, so we took another longer trail, mirador de las águilas, or "lookout of the eagles".

el chaltén from higher up

mirador de las águilas

beautiful and snowy

view from our hostel window

on our way back, we stopped in a cafe to buy postcards (if you want mail send me your address!). we also stopped in an outdoor store to browse. we all bought matching vests which the salesman gave us at a nice discount if we all bought one and used cash. we decided that because we were on a strict budget, we wouldn't go out to dinner in chaltén (not that anything was open..) and would buy vests instead.

now, i think i've made some good decisions while i've been here, but buying this vest might top out all of my other decisions. we wore them around the hostel while we cooked and chilled, and they are so warm, which is practical because it'll be the dead of winter when i return to the united states in 2 months. plus, they embody almost everything we saw in patagonia. the brand is "che patagonia" ("che" is an informal way to greet someone, as in che, que tal? aka "hey man, what's up?"), and the vests have small penguin tabs as zipper pulls (to symbolize the penguins on the valdez peninsula. we didn't see penguins but we figured it was funny anyways), and the back has an embroidered outline of fitz roy and a hiker. so yeah. one of the best investments ever.