10 days in El Chalten

We arrived in El Chalten to introduce the boys to trekking. 

Patagonia, not a bad place to cut your teeth, although I think the boys' interest in a stunning glacial view is probably more transitory than ours, unless there is something extra, like a huge chunk of ice falling from a glacier, in which case their undivided attention is assured.  

We’d passed by La Leona on the way, where Butch Cassidy is reputed to have stopped during his bank raids in Southern Argentina with the Sundance kid. We made a note of that being a film to show the boys. (select "Read more" below to continue)


El Chalten (1,800 people) is a new town, although bears little resemblance to either Milton Keynes or indeed Stevenage. Nevertheless Argentina established El Chalten in the 1980's as a means of staking their claim to prevent encroachment from Chile, following a border dispute.  From a distance the town is a patchwork of small different coloured single storey houses and cabanas, and this is the sight you become familiar with on returning from most treks. You can already see though, the impact of growing tourism here, with a few much larger buildings starting to appear. 

El Chalten from Mirador de los Condores

There are numerous really good trails here of varying difficulties so something to satisfy most appetites and skill levels. Within minutes of leaving the town, you are in the wilderness, and feel the fresh air and calm of being out on a good walk, with the prospect of some fabulous views (and a very slim chance of a puma encounter) ahead.  They take their trekking very seriously here, and all the buses that come to El Chalten pass through the Information Centre.  Whilst picking up useful historical and geographical information, and learning about the treks, the dos and don'ts of trekking here are made very clear, and reinforced on the trail signs, which all helps make for a great experience.

On the last week of school in early July this year, Frankie's class, J2.4, had a school trip to London to see the Changing of the Guard. Once the trip had dispersed, Frankie and I, together with Jason and Jessica Guano, also in Frankie's class, decided to extend the trip and went on an open-top bus around London. At one point, Frankie and Jess complained about having to walk about 300 yards, and I distinctly remember Jason and I exchanging the same concern - if they are bored after that short distance, how will they cope when we will frequently be doing much longer walks?  We know Jason and Jo have had no problems with Jess and Charlie adapting to the longer walks that are part of a big trip, and thankfully, our boys seem to have taken this in their stride too.   

Looking back over our 10 days here, the boys have really stepped up (sorry) to the trekking challenges.  We started with a simple 7km hike to a waterfall and back, and then managed an 11km trek to get our first view of a proper glacial lake. The wind was unbelievable, racing down glacier across the lake and nearly knocking us over as we stood on the top of the moraine admiring the view.  

Freezing and windy at Lago Torres

We had a shorter steeper hike to a hanging glacier which was fun, and gave us the idea of setting the boys (and indeed ourselves) a real challenge of Lago de Los Tres - a 20km one day hike, to complete arguably the nicest trek in the area.  It has the highlight of a steep climb of 600m in altitude which promised amazing views of Cerro Fitzroy, the highest point in this part of Patagonia, at 3,400m. See “Our big Patagonian trek” for more on this (suffice to say Jules and I were more tired than the boys afterwards!)

Boys on the Lago de los Tres trek, with all the right gear!

This ice berg is f-f-f-f-f-f-reeeeeeeeeezing!

We noticed how much better prepared many other people were on the trails.  We'd been in sunshine for four months and hadn't packed much in the way of warm clothes (there just wasn't room!) The one fleece I had was left on the bus as we arrived here which was ironic as I'd carried it all that time without using it and now when I really needed it, it was gone!  We didn't have the waterproof leggings and technical fleeces, goretex everything, backback waterproof covers etc, (although we did hire a pole each for one trek which was quite handy for the very steep parts) so we just layered up on what we did have - lots and lots of t-shirt layers - and at least a waterproof top - and this seemed to do the job.  It did get cold on the highest places, but there weren't too many complaints. 

The best water you ever tasted, straight from the high streams

One of the very few hanging valleys you can trek to

Louis and Frankie, probably pointing out interesting glacial features to each other

Boys with Mauricio and a "choripan" - the best Gaucho hotdog in Argentina!

After travelling for a while we found that in low season, you can turn up to a place and sometimes get good discounts if you are willing to commit to a few days accommodation, which also avoids the hassle of packing and unpacking continuously.  Unfortunately high season rather crept up on us without realizing, so we were unable to take our own advice and ended up moving 4 times in 10 days at El Chalten!

On the move.....yet again!

Our first blog entry on arriving in Argentina was about our strong first impression of Argentinian people, and this has proved to be no coincidence.  With the exception of a mad bus driver in Buenos Aires whose passengers on the number 111 that day were clearly an irritating inconvenience, whom he treated with disdain by driving like a drunken teenager with a death wish, whilst repeatedly trying to trap exiting passengers in the doors, we have consistently met great people.  People who are happy to take time to share with you about themselves and their country, and are interested in your travel, your family, and patient to try and understand your faltering Spanish. El Chalten introduced us to more lovely people.  Like Gonzalo and Veronica, who run some very cosy cabanas at Aires del Fitz and who went to great lengths to make sure we got the most out of our stay, whilst also enjoying a couple of very enjoyable evenings catching up over some wine (Argentinian, of course). Like Santiago, at El Barranco, who gave us some really helpful trekking advice for both El Chalten and Bariloche, and who spoke self-taught English so well you’d have sworn he’d have lived in an English Speaking country, yet he’s never left Argentina. 

Gonzalo and Rex, the very playful puppy

Santiago and our first Christmas Tree

While waiting for the bus to leave, we did a quick summary together of the things we liked about our time El Chalten:

• Lovely people
• Great treks you can do from the village
• Drinking refreshing, cold water from the glacial streams and lakes
• Amazing views everywhere you look
• Cosy laid-back safe atmosphere
• Friendly animals including Bien Bignose, Rex, Milky, Sparky the black dog, and Fellx and Tom the cats
• Best hot dog ever at the base of the hanging glacier walk
• The incredible colours of the glacial lakes
• Really interesting wildlife - we saw a condor, a skunk and enjoyed a really close up woodpecker encounter

This was definitely one of the favourite places of our trip so far, even though it was the coldest and rainiest!