After a couple of days in the south of Los Glaciares National Park, we to headed up to El Chalten in the north of the park, driving around Lake Viedma to get there.

On the way we stopped at Hotel La Leona (www.hoteldecampolaleona.com.ar). There has been a roadhouse here since the 1890’s next to the raft service that allowed early settlers to cross the river on the way back from the Atlantic coast. Its main claim to fame is that Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid and his wife Ethel Place stayed here after robbing a bank in Rio Gallegos.

El Chalten was built in 1985 to help secure the disputed border with Chile and support the growing tourist market. Today, its sole reason for existence is tourism.

It is known as the trekking capital of Argentina. One of the main attractions is Mount Fitzroy, one of the most challenging mountains to climb.

Like other towns that we visited in Patagonia, it has a lot of very small houses.

Most of our group set off on another challenging hike up to the base of Mount Fitz Roy. Having developed a bit of a knee problem after my trek in Torres del Paine, I opted to spend the day in the town.

It didn’t take long to look around the whole town and I spent most of the day in a lovely coffee shop called Mathilda (www.facebook.com/mathilda.elchalten). I used the time plan ahead for the next part of my South America trip.

In the evening the group had our last meal together.

The next day (26th October) we flew back to Buenos Aires where some of the group set off home and the rest of us headed off for an extension to the Explore trip in Iguazu Falls.