El Chalten, it ain't no Chateau

An early morning bus ride through the Patagonian badlands found us nestled for the night in El Chalten, a small climbing town tucked into the curves and corners of el nord de la Parque Nacional de Los Glacieres. The bus ride itself, was uneventful, each and every minute was filled with the most breathtaking landscape, husky purple and green hills dipping into turquoise lakes and stretches of cold plains stretching farther even than the early morning sun rays. It was a dream so arresting I couldn’t close my eyes for fear of missing it. A land where there’s one single solitary road cutting through the heart of landscape, the land of wild llamas and wilder beauty. A land of scarcity, mountains, ice, a wild land, hard but not without its share of promises.

Any other town in Patagonia wouldn’t quite fit like El Chalten. The town itself was small, one road that only branched off for beaten tracks, hiking trails, and mountain routes. The road was new, just put in the past year. The town was lacking much infrastructure, for this it was filled and over-running with beauty. A place in nature, it is the access point for climbers and trekkers to reach higher planes, the summits of glacier Mt. Fitz Roy. We made the 8 hour hike, just to get to a viewing point of the glacier, we all had to have siestas at the top...