Nobody Can Eat Fifty Eggs.

Arriving in El Chalten, the hiking capital of Argentina, the bus dropped us at our Hostel, The Ranco Grande. El Chalten is a village inside The Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and a  virtual ghost town at this time of year. Businesses were boarded up for the winter. The much grander Rancho Grande was in this condition so we were ushered to what seemed like the manager’s quarters. This cosy little place would be our abode for the night. To complete the scene the cabin came with a friendly St. Bernard  dog for company.

Donned the necessary clothing for the occasion and set of for Chorrillo del Salto, a cascade fed by Glacial run off. The gradient was easy but the conditions underfoot were mushy. The rangers had told us that two days of ‘hot’ weather had made the tracks at lower altitudes muddy.

Chorrillo del Salto

The cascade was two hours return to El Chalten. I had eased my way into it so after gauging there would be enough daylight remaining to make the trek to Lago Capri and return to the Hostel, that is where I set off for.

This track was a little more challenging but the effort was worth it. Half an hour into this walk, an opening in the escarpment, about ten meters wide, affords a view to the valley from which I had come.

I was admiring the view and fishing in my pocket for my camera when a condor glided from right to left about five meters from me. These birds are big. A three metre wing span flashing along a ten metre opening in the cliff is a spectacular and intimidating sight. I was very close to soiling my pants both on the outside and the inside as I stumbled backwards. It was only a speak when I looked through the camera’s viewfinder after regaining my composure.

The upper sections of the track had iced over so it was slow going closer to Lago Capri. Logo Capri lies in the imposing shadow of Mount Fitzroy. When I reached it I felt the sense of stillness that only solitude in nature can produce.

Mount Fitz Roy.

Frozen Lago Capri.

Returned to the village of El Chalten calm and content seeing a woodpecker pair, pecking wood. Wonderful.

Woodpecker pecking wood.

I searched the village in the evening for food but to no avail. I was resigned to the prospect of going to bed hungry when I opened the door of the hostel to see, Pierre and Vincent, French guys I had shared a room with in El Calafate, tucking into a steaming hot ham and cheese omelette, fresh bread in a basket close by and even closer, a drooling St. Bernard.

El Chalten.

Wiping my own drool, I asked, could I have what they were having? Paul Newman, playing the character of Lucas Jackson in ‘Cool Hand Luke’, ate fifty hard boiled eggs. I may have been hungry enough to eat fifty eggs but it would be hard to match the taste of just a couple of those eggs beaten and fried and eaten as if it were the last supper.