El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina

Our first sighting of Mount Fitzroy - El Chalten

From the beautiful El Calafate, we get the bus to nearby El Chalten. Having developed, after just two days, a very strong friendship with a Canadian girl named Angela, and another, not so strong friendship with a (potentially) french guy, the four of us decide to do the Mount Fitzroy hike together. As we come close to the town, the bus driver stops to let us out to take photos, the view was not immediately visible, but when it appeared in front of me the whole experience was breathtaking. The cool clean air coupled with the pristine white peak of Mount Fitzroy made me feel like I was inhaling the purest oxygen via sight and sound simultaneously. The village of El Chalten is a miniscule map of tiny wooden chalets at the mountains base and I cannot think of a more beautiful place to live on this planet.

One of the lakes where we stopped to have lunch & little cakies!

Always time for a pose!

Models I tell you!

 The water at the base of the mountain comes from the glacier just beneath its peak in this photo. The water is so clean, cold and pure coming directly from the glacier that it can be drank straight from the river. Delicious and incredibly refreshing mid-hike!

Angela and our French friend complete a large part of the hike with us, but turn back before reaching the peak itself. Donal and I continue on, determined not to miss out on this stunning jagged tooth up close! So we march onwards, the hardest part yet to come. It is one and a half hours steep uphill climb across jagged rocky terrain. We sweat, endure and like moan-y non-hikers we repeatedly ask other hikers on the way down how long we have left until the top.

We arrive. It is spectacular. As it is late in the day, maybe 6pm, many hikers are already on the return journey and the peak is ours to enjoy in silence.

It was such an amazing feeling to reach the top!

The lake at the base of the peak - this is as close as we can get to the tooth without rock climbing equipment

The view behind us as we climb the last hour of steep ascent

The glacier up close

The day draws to a close as we descend the mountain..

 This was the last sighting of my amazing camera! This camera slept with me under my pillow on every bus journey and every hostel, until after all my careful-ness I put down the camera on a mountain whilst tying my shoelace! We didn't realise until we got back to the hostel...and Donal, being the amazing boyfriend/person that he is, climbed the mountain again the next day in a last ditch attempt to find it. Although the camera was never retrieved after an extensive ground search/visit to police station/putting up signs all over town & chatting to every single person to come down off the mountain, it did occur to me that I am very lucky. All of these photos are courtesy of Donal & our amazing friend Angela! Thanks guys!

We stayed at this place for one night, when we first arrived. The lady of the manor was freaking out as she was experiencing a 'fly infestation'. 'It ees not becosss I have a derrty home! There are cows everywhere in deeess town and they make deeess flies!'. I don't mind flies, but she was batshit. The El Chalten Fly massacre ensued and we managed to get out of there without catching crazy.

Hey Yo Angelawww!

French guy, Angela, Me agus Donal