Argentina trip 3: Route 40 and el Chalten

At first, Chalten was not in our original plan, well, even Route 40.  We chose Route 40 from Bariloche to el Calafate, for this, we will need to stop for 2 different cities for 2 nights, then, we decided to stay in el Chalten for one more night.

Route 40 is opened in summer and autumn only, besides this way, u have another alternative but I guess it takes longer time. On the way to south, what you can see is only the sands, dirts, and random animals show up. Here we met people from different places, but we didn't talk too much on the bus, even me and Luisa. As usual, I slept while stay on transportation, or sometimes I looked the view outside. The road situation was really bad, and sometimes the maximum of the limit is 20km/hr only, so u can imagine why it takes so long and nobody really wanna stay on the bus...

When we were in Bariloche, kept hearing from other backpackers describe how wonderful el Chalten is, when our bus got close to the little town, it really looks amazing, if you arrive a little town of Finland. It was in the night, we couldn't see very clear, but u can see all the lights turn on, and the town is surrounded by mountains.

The next morning, we walked around the small town, to know what we can do, it's a small and charming town. The man in the information center told us, we can go trekking, and there are 2 routes we can choose from, one is 6 hours and another is 8 hours go and back. For we 2 girls from modern city who never ever climb mountain, of course we chose the one 6 hours.

Wow, until now, I still feel proud of myself that I finished the tough super trekking. For normal people, maybe they don't feel anything, but for me, who doesn't like exercise at all, it's really tough and I even tried to give up, and just because I couldn't since everyone really needs to WALK back by yourself.  But there is one thing I was so impressive is the view during we were walking, it reminds me an ancient Chinese poetry: 松下問童子 何處採藥去 只在此山中 雲深不知處

Although the process was difficult, the result was great!! We saw the amazing glacier lake and beautiful birds flying around, once in a while, i felt it was snowing on the road!! Anyway, I love the small town and the trail, I do recommend the trekking since Chalten is the capital of trekking in Argentina, but i will never do the trekking again, hahaha. So....I don't know when I will write my next destination after Chalten, it's another beautiful city as well, Calafate!! oh, I hope I can finish all these before my next time to Argentina!!!!