Friday, December 24, 2010
Such an early start to the day; woke up at 6am and ate breakfast at 6:30. I slept horribly again due to the wind and felt exhausted, not quite up for a 15km walk. At 7am we loaded up Peggy, picked up a guide and headed to a drop-off point, near Hosteria El Pilar, from where we would walk back to El Chalten.
We started off into the trees at a medium pace with a full rainbow stretching across the mountains giving me hope that the clouds might clear. After the first 45 minutes or so, the group split up. Kate and Sarah set off at a very fast pace. I felt guilty leaving the guide since he was supposed to be providing information, so Vince and I kept up with him walking along the Rio Blanco. Just before the viewpoint for the Piedras Blancas glacier, the guide headed back to find the stragglers and told us to continue on.
So, for the rest of the morning, Vince and I hiked together. I hadn’t really spent much time talking to him before, and found out that he’s in his first year of law school in Quebec and had a few weeks off for Christmas. He has an older brother and an adopted Haitian younger sister. Even though it was cold, he said it was so much warmer than the 20 degrees below that he’s used to this time of year. We spent some time talking about travel, but at least half the walk we just enjoyed each other’s company.
At some point I had to use the facilities, but there were none to be found. When Vince told me we still had almost two hours of walking, I found a good bush to hide behind and peed. Not my first nature pee, but certainly the first in rain. Oh man.
It was nice to have someone to share the experience with, as basically the entire 15km was in rain and wind. The trees provided good cover, but there was a huge meadow with no protection from the elements and I got soaked (I mean, I was dry underneath my waterproof clothes, but they were covered in water). We were walking towards sunshine, but every time we had a break in rain, it started up two minutes later. At one junction, there was a couple minutes walking into the wind and I almost got blown off course. The wind was something like 80km/hr. Looking back towards the mountains the clouds covered the beautiful view, but at least looking ahead we had partly blue sky over the river and valley.
Vince and I made it back to town at noon. After stopping at the hotel, Sameena and I went to find food since we didn’t want to eat the pack lunch from the hotel. I had a small ham and cheese empanada at a café where Sarah, Kate, Nick, Brad and Steven had been relaxing for the past hour.
At 1pm we were back on Peggy for the drive to El Calafate. It was the shortest ride yet, only three hours with one bathroom stop. By the time we arrived, the weather had cleared and we had a quick walk around town, basically one main street and a lot of cute shops. Even though it was Christmas Eve, a number of places were open.
Kate, Sarah and I were so hungry that we decided to eat dinner while we were out and by 6pm we’d finished our burgers and fries. I made a few stops in town before going back to the hotel. Sarah and I spent the rest of the evening in the room relaxing (well, I was on my netbook looking for hostels in Quito and a flight from Colombia to Quito so that I wouldn’t have to cross the sketchy border). Got to have a great Skype conversation with mom, dad, Shell Becky and Greg. Merry Christmas and Shabbat Shalom.
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