Our big Patagonian Trek - by Louis

We woke up at 7:30am and found ourselves having to go at 08:00, we had a quick breakfast and headed off in Gonzalo’s car (our good friend from the cabin).

All ready and prepared for the big day!

When we got to El Pilar hostel, the closest hostel to the National Park, it looked like quite a nice place, but any way we weren’t staying there.  We started the walk with a cool path made with a big white slippery pipe and then had to walk through some marsh lands and we finally got to a normal path. Then we looked at the map and not surprisingly we were only about a quarter of a millimetre on the map and actually it wasn’t much more than a quarter of a millimetre on land!

One of the first great views along the way

So we carried on playing “Trekking Bingo” and by now I had 1, Frankie had 0, Mummy had 1 and Daddy had 0 .  We got to a campsite and by then we were doing really well on our bingo, all I needed was a maté, a toilet, a tent and I had my first line, so I got a bit of chocolate and a biscuit.  But I had to persuade Daddy for the biscuit because Frankie got the first line and he got two things.  I did get it in the end and I was happy. We met these American people and they had camped so they only had to do 7 kilometres today, but we had to do 20 kilometres.  We had done about 6 and a half so far. We got to a tree to stop under because it was freezing in the rain and wind and I had a T-shirt, one of Daddy’s T-shirts, a fleece, a shirt, a coat and that was about it. 

Unfortunately Frankie won the first Trekking Bingo line! 

Me with my special trekking clothes!

We were up in the clouds!

When it had died down, we headed off to the lake and after a few minutes it stopped and we had the most amazing salami and cheese sandwich. OK ham and cheese is actually rubbish so this is only a bit better, but who cares, it’s food! We finished it with great difficulty and Daddy forced us.  It filled us up alright and we carried on and came to a sign and it said “Climbers right, and Laguna de los Tres, left.”  We carried on up the trail on the left and started up and up and up.  When we got half way up we had our first view of snow!!!!!

Oh Oh! Danger ahead!

On the way up the steep slope

One of the typical rickety bridges on the way up

We hadn’t seen snow for a year or so now and totally forgot how cold or how thick it actually is.  When we got to the top we saw a big lake with ice on it.  It was so pretty, the twinkling white ice and the Cerro Fitzroy towering over it all.  It’s the best view you can catch on camera in the whole of El Chalten and we got to see it!

Our first view of the frozen lake and glacier

There were huge icebergs, and it's true that there is much more of them below the water than above!

We climbed some moraine and went down the other side and we saw, and got to touch, the ice.  It was cold and clean to drink, well suck.  It was really fun and most of the ice around you was solid and it was OK to stand on although we didn’t.  We went to see another lake on the other side and it looked like a boat.  It had a big cliff with a waterfall down there, you wouldn’t want to fall down.  Then we wandered back to the icy lake and had our dulce de leche sandwiches and made them last, they were yum yumady yum in my tum!!!.  We said “Bye Bye Laguna de los Tres.”

All that hard work just for a photo!

We walked back up the moraine and down back to the hut, past the family of four who were still on their way up.  We went over the bridge with the rushing white water beneath us and a sign saying "One person at a time" which was a bit worrying.  Finally we got to the camp-site which was luckily under a forest and vaguely dry, well dryer than outside of the forest.  

We walked some more for an hour and met some people we knew well, they had spotted a woodpecker and it was pecking away at a big tree. It flew to another tree and we saw the tree where it had pecked all the bark away and made a hole in the trunk.  You could see sap spurting out. We walked on and Daddy forgot his pole so he went back to get it and he said “You carry on and I will catch up.”  We got to a trek junction and they both looked right, so we waited for Daddy.  Meanwhile Daddy found his pole and got distracted by the woodpecker who was feeding his babies with a big maggot he caught, so it took ages. He got to us after 15 minutes, 10 seconds and 3 milliseconds. 

Pecking for food!

When we could see El Chalten, we spotted a........well, it is the smelliest animal and the only animal where if you get hit by the smell you have to bathe in ketchup.  You will have to buy a lot of ketchup and you wouldn’t be able to go to Tesco with that smell wafting around the supermarket! Yes, it is a skunk. 

Our Chocolate Explosion!

We finally got to the sign "El Chalten", our legs in agony, heaps of delight and relief, we opened the door of the Waffleria and plopped in our chairs. We ordered a waffle with egg for me and the same for Frankie.  We munched them up and had for Postres (pudding) well I had a chocolate Explosion with Daddy, it was a waffle with chocolate sauce, chocolate ice cream and hot chocolate, it was heaven......  Mummy had a banana and honey one with Frankie , they said it was yum yumady yum!

We all finally went to bed at about midnight feeling very tired and very happy!

Well done everyone!