El Chalten, Argentina

These mountains are truly majestic. Huge granite towers.

And we are so incredible lucky to see them in all their beauty.The sky is blue, only very few clouds and we see the whole range standing right in front of us.

When we arrived here in El Chalten it was cloudy. We didn’t see any of the mountains. But we saw a lot of other travellers. The amounts of huge backpacks that are carried through the streets of the little town almost shocked us.

We haven’t seen that many foreign travellers anywhere on our 5 months of South America.

We checked into a nice hotel where Christy could at least enjoy a great view while I would go hiking for a day.

The next day I started my little hiking tour up to a nice lake. There where many people on the trail and even though the views were fantastic there were just too many people for me to fully enjoy the walk.

So I decided to take a less frequented walk that connects two valleys and turned off the main track.

It turned out to be a great decision: a great path and a lot less people. In fact I didn’t meet anybody for almost an hour. The narrow path led through thick bushes and grotesque trees. Some parts of the forest could be part of a Harry Potter movie plot.

It was quite, just some birds sang their song and the wind stirred up the leaves in the trees and bushes.

Just when I was taking some nice pictures of a beautiful red headed wood pecker two hikers came around the corner. I could tell by their accent they were from Nuremberg where I studied for a long time.

As it turned out we have friends in common and so they updated me on the news of an old friends of mine. What a coincidence and pleasant surprise.

Unfortunately there were still clouds so that I did not have a full view on the main attractions here: the Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre. But the walk was still very beautiful.

The next day the sky was clear. We had a great view on the mountains surrounding us. The two massive granite towers said farewell to us presenting themselves in a picture book panorama.

The landscape is nice, but very repetitive on the way south.

We met these two guys: dutch travellers on Honda 250s.

At a gas station Christy had another motorbike traveller having a look at here x rays: the guy was a doctor.

The wind on the Ruta 40 was a killer. We were really glad not to be on a motorbike.

Closer to El Chalten the landscape became more beautiful.

Great mountains with a little bit of fresh snow.

We checked in a nice hotel. Thats the view we had… not bad, eh?

We followed a valley into the National Park

The clouds were lifting a little bit.

These mountains look cold. And they are.

A little bit of the Fitz Roy is visible…

… and his lovely wife.

More nice views.

The next day: dark blue sky.

Still some clouds in some corners..

Now THATS a mountain! The Fitz Roy!

The incredible granite tower of Cerro Torre.

A condor using the heavy winds to cruise around…

Our farewell present from the National Park: what a panorama.

A last view on these incredible mountain range.

Back on the Ruta 40 direction south to El Calafate