Day 44 - 18 Jan.2012 - El Chaltén

We left our beautiful spot and headed back to civilisation of El Calafate. Actually the city has its name after a fruit, which looks a bit like a blueberry.
We filled our stock of food and filled the tank with diesel and left for El Chaltén. We heard from several people that from now on we are entering an area notoriously known for its petrol/diesel shortages.
After some 285 km we arrived in El Chaltén at the foot of the mountain of Fitz Roy. It seems that this small town solely survives on tourism. The town boosts of hostels and pizza places as well as trekking agencies, laundry services and other things the trekker needs. The weather today was unfortunately not at its best with low clouds covering the view to the majestic mountains. We decided to have first a bite in town and if the weather clears up to go for a small hike later on before driving further north to our camping ground.
The pizza place we choose was particularly slow – in fact they forgot about our order. We left the place almost 2 hrs later but the weather was still the same. We therefore went straight up to the campsite. We put up our tent but the campsite was not as nice as we have imagined, especially as it came recommended.
Once the tent was up, we drove a bit further into the valley towards Lago del Desierto. The road there, all gravel went trough some stretches of wild forest before it ends at the lake. We had a small walk in the drizzling rain, called it a day and drove back to the campsite.
Let’s hope the weather is going to be better tomorrow.