Thursday, January 25th, 2018

Yesterday we did Laguna de los Tres, 29.97 kms, 1096 m Altidude, 41.313 steps.

Since we are training up, we decide to go shorter today, but altidude. It is again blue sky, weather forecast is fine. So we go up to have a good view to Pliegue Tumbado.

Before this we go to have breakfast in the Hostel (Rancho Grande Hostel). The breakfast is a mess. The waiter didnot speak any english and brought us old bagette from last day, toasted up to make it even harder, some sugar cornflakes (called cereals) and less than 1/8 l milk, and something like cocktail cherries (called fresh fruits). As I asked for a bowl to mix my serials up, i got something oily, red plastic, with food of the indigenous inhabitants from the time before colonization. 

The room and sleeping at the hostel itself was fine. It is very basic, but everything we need. 2 bedroom with toilet and shower ensuite.

I go to the next ATM. Three in town at the bus station on the other side of the town. All dead. This will be fun. The restaurants take only argentinian cash, no cash from the ATMs. We plunder with the rest of our cash the bakery close to the hostel. We still have USD.

Then we started walking. This time we cross the town and go up on the other side Routa F, 400 masl to 1490 masl:

As we come back to town, ATMs still donot work, we are running out of cash. They tell us, maybe at 5:00 pm someone will come from El Calafate. We ask at a bus company, he changes a 100 eur with a surprisingly good rate of 23.5 AR$. He has not got more cash. We ask at the other companies. They change between 19 and 21 AR$. A joke. 100 eur is enough for the moment. 

1.200 m altidue, 28,97 kms, 39.641 steps, goal achieved – we walked 1 km less, but 200 m more up. We earned our dinner at La Cava.

At this point I want to say a special thank you to Mario Draghi and Mr. Donald Trump for hitting the US$ hard and keeping the EUR strong. You made my holiday affordable. 

After dinner we come home. There is a power failure in El Chalten. Our Hostel has no power, no internet. Our laundry is not done, we want to but cannot pack our things. Showers donot work. No more toilet paper.

Somewhen late 10 pm power is back again. They bring the laundry (including some stuff which doesnot belong to us). We pack our stuff to be ready early tomorrow morning for a last walk in El Chalten.