El Chaltén

The 22 hour bus ride to El Chaltén turned out to be a 23 hour ride, but it really wasn't so bad. The bus wastes a lot of time detouring to towns that are off the highway, if it was direct it would be a much shorter ride. We were able to sleep through a lot of it. Unfortunately the bus wasn't a very nice one, no special seats or anything but we survived. The drive was South along route 40, which is like the Argentinian version of Route 66. South of Esquel there is pretty much nothing for a very long time. The scenery is mostly flat desert with small grass like plants covering the ground. We saw tons of guanacos (llama like animals) and we even saw rheas, which are like miniature ostriches!

We spent 3 days and 3 nights in El Chaltén and we stayed busy hiking from the moment we woke up until we went to bed each night. We are quite far South now, and the days are very long. It doesn't get fully dark until after 10. We went on a hike each day that we were there, and we got glorious cloudless skies and no wind which is apparently not so common. There is a downside to this, however, no clouds made it rather hot, as did no wind. But no wind also means you will have an army of enormous horseflies buzzing and orbiting your head most of the time that you are hiking! We did and that part was very unenjoyable!

The mountain range that we were hiking around is known as the Fitz Roy range, which consists of several granite towers which rise out of the flattish surrounding desert land. Since we had cloudless days we had no problem seeing all of the towers and spires of the range and it was amazing hiking scenery, probably never seen better in my life. The range is protected, and all of the hikes are within Parque Nacional Los Glacieres (North).

The town of El Chaltén is the youngest in Argentina and it still quite small, very expensive and strange. It was literally thrown together in 1985 so that Argentina could stake claim on the land before Chile did. It sits in a valley between two glacier rivers at the foot of the Fitz Roy range.

Each day our hikes got longer. We started with a 6 hour day to Laguna Torre, which takes you through dwarf ñire and lenga forests (Southern Beech varieties) and along the Río Fitz Roy to a large glacial lagoon. The greenish waters of the lagoon are from the del Torre glacier which sits at the base of one of the granite spires which is named The Tower. From this place you can see many other towers as well, but not Fitz Roy, the tallest one (3405 m). You can also see several other glaciers.

The second day we did a 7 hour hike up a mountain called Loma del Pliegue Tumbado. It was hot out and it was uphill the whole way, but from the top the views were amazing. Many hikes are described as having 360 views but this one really did. Everywhere you looked there were glaciers, mountains, rivers or lakes to look at. We could see the whole Fitz Roy range and probably 20 glaciers, and again no clouds! It was spectacular! The scenery on the way up was pretty too, we had views of town and we passed through many pretty meadows. One of the meadows had some very happy cows grazing in it! It is strange to me that no matter where we are on a hike, the cows are never far away.

The third day was an 8 hour day to Laguna de Los Tres. This hike was on the other side of the mountain range from our two previous days of hiking, and had fantastic views of Fitz Roy. We took a shuttle a little ways North of town so that we could do a through hike instead of out and back from town. This was nice because it allowed for more downhill than uphill, but we were still ready to drop dead by the end of the day! The downside of doing this was that a million other people started the hike at the same time we did. We walked along the Río Blanco through the nice shade of the forest with many views of glaciers, mountains and river along the way. The highlight of this part of the walk was seeing the Piedras Blancas glacier from across the river. It had a pool of water around it being held in by piles of rocks and there was a huge water fall pouring out the of the glacier. After 2 hours we came to the base of the up portion. It was a very steep, rocky, hot, dusty, shade less hour and a half from there, but it was all worth it when we got to the top. We could see two glacial lagoons, Laguna de Los Tres and a second one that we hadn't expected to see, Laguna Sucia! One was a milky turquoise green color and the other was a clear bright blue that I have never seen in water before! The lagoons were surrounded by a half moon of rocky mountains, tower and spires and blue glaciers. It was absolutely phenomenal. The walk back was nice, very different landscape from the start of the hike. It looked like Utah with red rock and desert plants!

The water in rivers and streams here, and everywhere we've been is so clean you can drink from them. So we've been partaking of the water along the way, it is quite nice because you don't have to carry so much and you can drink as much as you like without feeling like you have to ration it!

The cell phone pictures really won't do justice to the scenery we saw. And for the Laguna los Tres hike the view was so big I had to take separate pictures of each lagoon. You will have to use your imagination to piece them together.

We took a bus last night 2 1/2 hours South to El Calafate where we will visit Parque Nacional Los Glacieres (South). This place is home to the enormous Perito Moreno Glacier! We will be here 3 nights and staying at the America Del Sur hostel.

Esquel

Something that we have found rather annoying throughout this trip is that when you travel by bus you are not allowed to load or unload your own bag. You have to wait in line behind everyone else that was on the bus while some random guy not even affiliated with the bus company hands you your bag, that you could have just as easily grabbed your self. Then you are expected to tip and they will ask you for money if you don't readily offer it and if you pretend not understand they will show you money and say in English, tip for my salary! This really blows because is hard to keep small bills around for such occasions. We usually have the Argentinian equivalent of $20 bills, and it's not like we'd tip that much! This is what happened to us when we got off the bus at Esquel. We saw some other people grab their own bags, cause the line was taking forever. So we grabbed ours and started walking away. The luggage man, who had some sort of speech impediment, started chasing after us and shrieking and showing us money. He wanted a tip even though he never touched our bags! We didn't have any small bills so we just stood there staring at him while he shrieked and eventually gave up. It was very awkward. If Jeff and I had a dollar for every bag we ever loaded into a bus, we'd be multi millionaires! Plus the bags we load are about 5 times heavier and more difficult to move around than our than our backpacks!

We have now been in Esquel 3 days. We hadn't intended to stay so long but the bus to our next destination (El Chaltén) wasn't until today, Monday.

There's nothing really to do inside the town of Esquel and not many tourists come here, but there's something very pleasant and peaceful about it. I really liked it here. In a way it reminds me of San Martín de Los Andes, with many nice houses, lots of them A frame cabins with yards full of pretty flowers. The town is surrounded by low mountains and hills. And they take siesta very serious! The streets become deserted and everything closes from about 2 to 6!

Our first day we did just about nothing since we are still sick and wished to rest. We took a nice walk to the bus station to buy our onward tickets and also to book a tour to visit Los Alerces National Park. On the way back we found a nice pine tree with a perfect nest for people, so we climbed up and took a rest. When we got back to the hostel (Casa del Pueblo) we had a nap and then spent the rest of the evening in the hammocks.

The next day we took a bus to the nearby town of Trevelin, which is a Welsh settlement. There are many Welsh settlements in Patagonia and some of the people in these towns still speak Gaelic! They also still serve traditional Welsh tea service, and this is precisely why we went to Trevelin, to visit a tea house. I am still having difficulty understanding Patagonian Spanish so when we entered the tea house (Nain Maggie) and the lady asked us if we wanted complete tea service we just blindly agreed and didn't ask questions! I thought it was pretty cool she brought out fancy tea cups and a big pot of tea, and a little carafe of milk, a plate of cheese, four slices of bread which is made with flour they grind at their own mill, locally produced cherry jam and butter and two scones. Another 10 minutes later she brought out another plate, this time full of cakes and pastries, five different kinds and two of each kind! It was an incredible amount of food, more than we could eat for sure! We could have shared a serving! We also prefer to call these things un-sweets because although they looked like desserts they were not sweet! There was something called black cake which looked like a black fruit cake and tasted like it was dipped in whiskey! Not good! There was also some sort of sour apple pie type thing, a sour raspberry tart sort of thing, something that resembled flan pie and a piece of very dry chocolate cake. It was all quite strange to us. We only ate half of them and we got the rest to go on a paper plate, which I ate on our tour the next day. Jeff was not impressed and didn't want anything to do with them! I didn't care for them much either but we paid for them and I don't like to waste! We we paid the bill we were quite surprised that the tea service cost $20 each!! By far the most expensive meal we have had in Argentina! After tea time I was on absolute carb overload and we went and took a rest in the shady grass of the local park before returning to Esquel! We had corn flakes and white bread with dulce de leche (caramel spread) for breakfast, I think I am becoming malnourished on this trip! Too much bread!!!

Today is our third and last day in Esquel and we went on a boat tour of Los Alerces National Park. It was a very expensive park to visit. Including the park entrance fee, boat ride and transportation it cost us $107 each, which is double the cost of any other tour we have done! The main attraction in the park is to see the Alerce trees that the park is named for, and more specifically the Abuelo or grandpa tree, which is 2,600 years old! The only way to do this is to take the boat, as there are no trails into the area of the park where the Abuelo is located. We had 2 separate boat rides to take to get the ancient alerce forest. The first was about an hour and a half ride down Lago Futulaufquen, up the 3.5 km long Río Arrayanes and into Lago Verde. It was a very scenic ride across a very deep glassy glacier lake. The surrounding hills and mountains were reflected perfectly into the lake. The part on the river was pretty cool because you can see the bottom the whole time as it barely meets the depth requirement of 90 cm for the boat to pass through, so they zig zag around avoiding sand bars. The shore in this part is lined with the red orange barked Arrayán trees, some of them are growing right out of the turquoise water like mangroves. After the first ride we had to get off the boat and walk 1 km to Lago Menendez and board a second boat. It was another glassy glacier lake and this time we could see a glacier and snowy mountains along the border with Chile. After another 1 on this boat we disembarked in the Alerce forest. Unfortunately our boat had 80 people on it and there was another boat there with just as many people aboard! It was ridiculous. This was the part of the trip we had been most looking forward to. They split the groups into "small" groups of 40 and tried to stagger us down the trail. We probably walked no more than half a mile and it took us an hour doing baby steps the whole way! And sadly the forest had been logged until 1937, so there were very few Alerce trees! The wood was seen as very valuable, as it is extremely rot resistant and used to build roofs, flooring, houses, boats, etc. We only saw three trees that were over 1,000 years old and a small hand full of younger trees. The Alerce trees are very similar looking to the Giant Sequoia trees, but they are extremely slow growers. We saw one tree that was probably 2 feet tall with a trunk of maybe a centimeter and the guide said it was probably 40 years old! They only grow a few millimeters a year at most! They are the second oldest living trees on earth behind bristlecone pine trees!

Our entertainment for the walking part of the tour was seeing all the silly Argentinians photographing each other with every random tree, fallen tree or trunk. They make really ridiculous sexy poses, especially the ladies, but the guys too! (We were the only foreigners on the boat).

After the brief forest walk we boarded the boat and had to do the same thing all over again, only this time it was blazing hot and miserable!

We are now back at our hostel. In two hours we will board a 22 hour bus ride South to El Chaltén, the trekking capital of Patagonia. It is a very busy place and we plan to stay for 3 days. We had to make reservations at two different hostels because there wasn't a single place in town that had room for us all three nights! The first night will be at Rancho Grande Hostel and the second two at Aylen-Aike Hostel.

*I have included a photo of a monkey puzzle tree! (Araucaria araucana)

El Bolsón

We spent a week in El Bolsón and wish to someday come back, possibly during the fall when all the trees are red. There are so many outdoor activities nearby, and we did many of them, but there are still more that we are leaving for next time.

The first day it poured rain the entire day. We didn't know what to do with ourselves, so we mostly slept. It was probably good for us to sleep since most of the rest of the trip will be non stop hiking, and Jeff was also getting sick with a cold. The hostel we stayed in (La Casona de Odile) was just as nice as we thought it would be. It has a very nice big backyard on the river filled with weeping willows and birches and many hammocks for resting in. And also includes a nice breakfast of homemade wheat toast and strawberry jam and cereal. (We are still getting used to small breakfasts!) The only downside is that it's a few miles outside of town, but this luckily kept most of the annoying hippies away. (:

On the second day (Monday) we began a three day trek in the mountains. We did not bring a tent on this trip, but most wilderness areas in Argentina have refugios, little cabins out in the middle of nowhere for eating and sleeping in. It was a somewhat expensive taxi ride to the trail head but we split the cost with an older Argentinian man (César) who was also staying in our hostel. Over the three days we hiked a little with him but not the whole time. He was pretty cool, told us a lot about plants along the way and other interesting facts about Argentina.

A story I found particularly interesting was about these obnoxious flys that buzz around your head when you hike here. They are called Tábanos and César says that the water here (rivers and lakes) is so pure that it doesn't even contain salt, so these flys want to land on you and have some of your salt. That is easier said than done though as they are quite scary looking and you instinct is to swat them away. If you let them have your salt they won't bite but if you hit them you better make sure they're dead César says or they'll come back to bite you! About 15 years ago the Argentine government introduced yellow jacket (bees), which are carnivorous, in an attempt to get rid of Tábanos. The Tábanos are still here and now the yellow jackets are also around as pests who attack families during their weekly barbeque parties because they too want a share of the meat! (:

Our trek started with a crossing of this rickety suspension bridge over the Río Azul. It is such a decrepit bridge that only one person can go at a time and you feel that the boards might snap under your feet! Throughout the 3 days we crossed over several more of these. One safely across, the hike was mostly steep up hill and a bit unpleasant because we wasted about an hour being lost climbing up over and around fallen trees, which was exhausting. We made our way back to the bridge having no idea how we missed the big red and yellow arrow stating Refugio this way! From there the trail was easily followed by the red and yellow painted lids from canned foods! We had expected the hike to take 7 hour but were most pleasantly surprised when we arrived after only 5 hours. The closer we got to the refugio, the prettier the forest got, it mostly consisted of lenga, and type of beech and was draped in lichen. The lenga trees have the most perfect arrangement of leaves for creating shade, each branch makes a perfect fan of leaves. The whole day had been cloudy and a tiny bit sprinkly which made the hike more bearable because it wasn't too hot.

The Refugio is called Hielo Azul (Blue Ice) and was built by the Andean Mountain club. It's a little log cabin in a pretty forested valley next to a clear glacier stream and it sits at the base of a horseshoe of rocky cliff like mountains, which still have snow on them. A short but steep hike from the Refugio is a glacier. We waited until day two to see it. The sleeping area in the Refugio is very basic, on the second story of the cabin is a big room with thin foam mats, you bring your own sleeping bag. There must have been at least 40 or more people in there, since it is a refuge the policy is they don't turn anyone away. Many people camp in the yard. They also have hot showers and flush toilets, homemade beer, bread, pizzas and meals. The showers and the cabin are both heated by wood stove. The food and beer was very good. All of it is brought up by horses or on foot by the people that work there! We were pretty amazed by this place, as we have never seen anything like it in the US!

On the second day we did the extremely steep rocky hike up to the glacier. The trail follows closely to the meltwater stream, with many falls along the way. It took us an hour to get up, we spent an hour up there (exploring the area where the water falls over the cliff) and an hour getting down. It wasn't a very big glacier and was very different than any I've ever seen, I suppose because it looked white instead of blue even though it was cloudy. (Glaciers appear more blue on cloudy days). It was surrounded by rocky peaks and and a lovely blue green lagoon, as well as many rocks of interesting color, yellow, purple, brown and rusty red orange. It was a rather taxing hike, but we continued on to the next refuge afterward.

The hike from the Refugio Hielo Azul to the next destination (Refugio Cajón del Azul) was about 5 hours. We had 30 minutes of flat and then a steep uphill for 30 minutes to another refuge that we didn't even know was there, Refugio Laguna Natación)! It was located in a wide flat meadow and surrounded by more of the rocky snow capped mountains that seem to be so common in this area and right on a calm glassy lake. We briefly considered stopping there, but it was so early in the day still and the lady at that refuge told us it was all downhill to Cajón del Azul. So we kept going. We didn't really believe it could be down hill the whole way, but it was! For the first hour or two we had a nice time walking through the forest, but then we came out onto an exposed cliff with excellent views of the Río Azul valley. The clouds were beginning to clear and it was a little hot out and the plant life quickly changed to prickly desert plants, and the downhill was horrendous! So steep and narrow and rocky that there shouldn't have been a trail there. It killed my knees and we were quite exhausted when we finally arrived to the Refugio! Cajón del Azul refers to a narrow canyon which the water from the Río Azul (Blue River) must pass through. At the narrowest it's only about three feet wide and probably 100 ft deep. At this point the trail crosses over it via a rickety log bridge. The Refugio was just on the other side of the river. And as the name suggests the water of the river is a pretty turquoise blue. This Refugio blue te other one out of the water! It was way cool. The guy that built it has lived out in the forest there since 1980. He has fruit trees, including apple and cherry, he grows vegetables, including lettuce and tomatoes and also has sheep for weekend barbeques! It is a big log cabin, much larger than the Refugio Hielo Azul, with a huge dining area. The food was amazing, we had homemade beer, t bone steaks with rice and homemade bread and salad from the garden as wells as salsa and tomato relish from the garden. The sleeping area had real mattresses still shoved into one big room but far more comfortable than the thin foam mats at the first place. Sadly though the bed bugs had a feast on my arm while I slept. I had at least 40 bites when I woke up. It was pretty hot in the place so I slept with my arms exposed and outside of my sleeping bag. :( I have determined that it's been bed bugs biting me all along, it was never a rash. Now I am paranoid that we may be carrying some with us in our backpacks! Jeff is lucky and either doesn't get bit or has no reaction to the bites, some people don't get a reaction, while others like me are allergic!

Despite the bugs we slept very well. Jeff was unfortunately sick with sore throat, cough and fever through out our trek. The clouds really helped us by keeping us cool the first two days. But on the last day hiking back out to the road it was very hot and we were void of energy from that super steep downhill hike the day before. Every muscle in my legs hurt! We passed by many more Refugios, there must have been at least 5 of them along the trail. We had nice shade for awhile but soon we were on a exposed dusty dirt road, which they use to take supplies to the Refugio's along the Río Azul valley. It was three hours out, and towards the end we practically ran trying to catch the bus, which somehow came early and we ended up missing it and taking an expensive taxi back to our hostel. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging.

I have probably made this trek seem awful but it really was an interesting enjoyable experience, just rather physically taxing, especially with Jeff sick.

The day after we got back we decided to visit the craft market in town. The town is full of hippies, it's where they all escaped to in the 60s and 70s when Argentina was under military rule. At the time Patagonia was sparsely populated and the military didn't care to bother people so far outside of Buenos Aires. Three times a week they have a market here, which is an interesting sight to see. All kinds of handmade crafts items and foods from local farms for sale. There were tons of people lounging in the grass, bands playing and even a trapeze circus show going on. And all the craft stuff was so cool, I wanted everything! They had handmade wool elf shoes, tie died hippie pants, jewelry boxes made out of leaves, and all kinds of cool things carved from wood!

Yesterday we had big plans to see more of the outdoor offerings in El Bolsón. We wanted to visit Lago Puelo National Park and also climb Cerro Piltriquitrón, the tallest mountain in the valley. The mountain is home to an area that was burned by wild fire and local artists came in and carved up all the dead trees into cool statues, bringing new life to the forest. Sadly we saw neither of these as Jeff's illness has now been passed to me and we were just too tired to do anything. It was also over 90 degrees out, so we laid in the hammocks by the river all day. The bright side is now we have in more of a reason to come back. And in the fall the temperatures should be much more enjoyable!

We are now on a bus to Esquel, 2 1/2 hours South of El Bolsón. We may take another rest day and then visit Los Alerces National Park, which is full of very rate and old Alerce trees.

Bariloche

Bariloche is by far the largest town in the lakes district, and for this reason we didn't love it like we did San Martín de Los Andes or Villa La Angostura. Both of those towns are small because there isn't room for them to expand since they are squished between mountains and lakes. This area is surrounded by a lot of flat land with lots of room to expand into, so as a result its quite large and when you are in town it's easy to lose site of the nature around, you can't see the mountains or the lake. In Bariloche there are even more chocolate shops than San Martín and Villa La Angostura combined! There must be 20 of them in a 3 block radius! We bought a few pieces and it's certainly delicious, but expensive! Ooh another neat thing is that all the towns in the lakes district have implemented a plastic bag ban, so all the locals have reusable bags or carry backpacks or duffle bags to the grocery store! I find this so exciting!

Bariloche is extremely popular with both Argentinians and foreigners, so we could only get a reservation at a hostel for 2 nights. This was ok with us as we are ready to move on to some different scenery. We chose to stay at Hostel Pudu which is supposedly run by an Irish couple. They were nowhere to be found. What ultimately sold me on the hostel was the promise (on the website) of homemade scones for breakfast, those were MIA as well! They were replaced with toast and dulce de leche (caramel spread). But we at least had a lake view from our room. The town is also overrun with huge rowdy high school groups on what we presume is their senior trip. So being in town was a little annoying.

The day we arrived we took a bus out to the nearby ski mountain, Cerro Catedral. It's one of the largest ski resorts in South America and was about a half hour away by bus. We gave our legs a rest by buying combination gondola chair lift tickets. It didn't take us all the way to the top, but close. All the silly Argentinians were playing in the dirty old snow pile at the top of the chair lift, but not us! It was only about another 500 ft elevation gain to the summit of almost 7,000 ft. The ride up was cool cause we rode through what looked like jungle up above the tree line to jagged rocks of yellow, orange, black and shades of brown. Cerro Catedral means Cathedral Hill and got the name from one of the rock formations looks like a cathedral spire. We spent a couple of hours at the top marveling at the glorious views of the lakes and the Andes mountain range along the Chilean Border. The most prominent mountain was the dormant volcano Tronador, the same mountain we saw on our hike in Villa La Angostura. It rises to about 12,000 ft (I give estimates since everything is in meters here) and is covered in snow and ice year round. There were tiny succulent plants growing out of the rocks, some with flowers and we spent much time admiring them. I love succulents, especially ones that can grow out of rocks and come back after snow!

I wore shorts because all the rest of my clothes are dirty and ended up getting burned on my legs and a mild case of sun poisoning. I have felt kinda dizzy and nauseated since then. We are very careful with our sun exposure here because it is very strong here, since we are under the hole in the ozone layer. Luckily it's never really hot here and pants and long sleeves don't give me a heat stroke. I also get to look like a real dork and stand out as a tourist in my omni shade hat, which includes a wide brim and back panel for covering the neck. Jeff has a similar hat and sun shirt, we look quite silly! But at least we will remain youthful looking in our old age!

On the ride back from the mountain we missed the bus stop for downtown, because it was not in the same spot we were picked up from. So we ended up at the bus terminal, which is about 5km outside of town. The driver refused to take us back even though he was going that way. So we attempted to take an urban bus back, but it turns out these buses only accept these special bus cards as payment. The line to buy a card was really long so we just walked. It ended up being a pleasant walk and we were happy because it took us past the cool stone cathedral in town and past a lovely German restaurant that we ended up going inside of called Familia De Weiss. It was in a cool log building. They had really good homemade beer, and I got to try venison, which I had never had and its a regional specialty. Jeff got goulash. Both meals came with the best Spätzle I've ever had. We left the restaurant feeling very pleased.

Yesterday we went on a tour taking us closer to Mount Tronador and into Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. We paid extra to have an English speaking guide. He did the tour in English and Spanish and was very good. (I could understand him in Spanish! He was from Buenos Aires, maybe they talk more clearly than the Patagonian people that are so hard for me to understand.) We saw some lakes along the way (Lago Mascardi and Lago Guiterriéz) as well as rivers and amazing views of the mountain the closer we got. We went all the way up to the base and got to see this strange jagged black glacier that is colored like so from rock slides falling on it and debris in the air, below it was a murky pool of melt water and above it were even more glaciers, and a wall of ice 300 ft tall. Tronador means thunder mountain, and we could hear the thundering of the ice cracking. We got free time for a short hike to a crescent shaped cliff face called Garganta del Diablo (throat of the devil!) a little higher up on the mountain and got to see probably 10+ water falls coming down the vertical drop offs. The water was coming directly from the glaciers up above and into a crystal clear river filled with boulders. We put our feet in the river for fun and it was so cold we couldn't keep them in more than a few seconds! The forest here was really neat, the guide called it a cold jungle or valdivian forest, which means there is jungle like foliage that can survive the snow in winter. That explains all the bamboo (caña colihue) we've been seeing! He said here China and Japan are the only places where you can find this kind of forest!

We would rather not have to do tours but there is generally no public transportation to the remote places we wish it visit. We really wish we had our own transportation! Argentina is as long as the US is wide and there is so much to see! We ended up buying another guide book, this one is a Footprint Guide for Patagonia and is more detailed than the general South America book I brought with us. The new book sums it up perfectly when it says that unless you have endless time and money, you must accept at the beginning of the trip that you can't see everything. I want to see everything! That's hard to accept! It stays light out until almost 10 and we are up and moving all day long, there aren't enough hours in the day!

We are now on the bus South again, this time to El Bolsón, a hippie settlement in a valley surrounded by mountains, rivers, lakes and lots of recreation. It's about a 2 1/2 hour ride and the bus is full of drunk, rowdy and annoying hippies! We can't wait to get of the bus and away from them and hope they aren't in our hostel. Our home for the next two days is La Casona de Odile, located a few km outside of town. And it should be a relaxing little piece of paradise! (: We had meant to leave earlier today, but buses were sold out until 5pm. So we put our backpacks in the bag check at the bus terminal and went back to the Familia de Weiss restaurant and spent some time lounging in the park. (:

**The app I use to post this blog with my phone doesn't allow me to put captions on the pictures or put them anywhere but at the end of the post. So you'll have to use your imagination and my descriptions to figure out what the pictures are of! Also the glaciers from the second days tour are hard to see in the photos since it was so bright out. Thanks for reading! (: