An early start today to get the bus to El Chalten, a town in the mountains 3 hours away. Stunning bus trip through the barren landscape with a few vicuña and rhea sightings. Additional excitement provided at the region border crossing where a very keen police dog Candi spent a lot of time running up and down the bus looking for drugs with the promise of a tennis ball… all clear we moved on.

The first thing you see driving into El Chalten is the stunning  snow capped mountain range behind it, notably Fitz Roy. The second thing is appreciating that during the day everything is shut with everyone out on said mountains! It’s a tiny place with one main road with bars and restaurants catering to the hikers who flock here for the accessible walking. We found an excellent bakery for lunch – attracted by its advertising of sourdough. Definite indication of the development of the backpacker market – the town is full of impressive bakeries and craft ale bars. Although did feel like Stu and I brought the average age down by 20+ years… As we found in El Calafate lots of massive friendly dogs roaming the streets looking for someone to give them a pat, or just chasing the cars!

Dinner that evening was at the Oveja Negra (or black sheep – lots of sheep related pics decorating walls!) where we ate our body weight in lamb and beef from the parrilla, followed by the sweetest desert ever of cake and Dulce du leche….calorie count unknown…..

To work off said pudding we were up early the next day for our first walk to the Mirador los Condores,  a short sharp walk straight up a mountain which provided us with our first condor flight show. They were incredible, flying so low we could see all the details on their feathers, at one stage up to 10 at once. Quite a start to our day. After a lunch stop back in town it was time for walk number two, thankfully a tad flatter, but still very picturesque, along the river to the north of the town to see the Chorrillo del Salta waterfall which was surprisingly strong flowing given how dry everywhere else is.

Day 2 and a slower start (with a quick run through the town for Katie) before tackling a longer walk to the Laguna Capri. This was much steeper than expected but a lovely path winding up above the river from yesterday and through cooling woods – lots of dead wood lining the ground with the autumn colours above. We reached the lake and it was freezing so after a quick photo opp returned to the shelter of the woods for our picnic lunch. The return down, as ever, felt much quicker and the girls were very pleased to stop off for a waffle as a reward for their 8m walk.

Everyone had earned their pasta dinner at Maffia restaurant, a cute little place made of huge tree trunks serving huge pasta bowls, including chocolate ravioli for the girls! Back to the hotel for an early night before our return bus to El Calafate tomorrow.