Los Glaciares Day 3 and 4

Day 3 and 4 Camp Poincenot to Laguna Piedro Blanca, Laguna Capri
and return to El Chalten and El Calafate


Up at the crack of 9:30, and another sunny day, well maybe a few whisps of clouds, but they soon cleared...a rerun of breakfast and off on a day trip to visit Laguna Piedros Blancos. Its about a 3.5 km walk down the valley. The trail follows the Rio Blanco downstream to the Piedro Blancos valley.... the last km up valley is slow going following well placed cairns through granite boulder fields (many thank to parks for the markers). 
It is well worth the effort, Glaciar Piedras Blancas spills down from the icefield above terminating at Laguna Piedro Blancos. Numerous bergie bits are stranded in the Laguna, they make their way to the outlet where the are trapped and slowly melt in the summer sun......
 We enjoy some time on the rocks here, crowds are much smaller than Laguna de Los Tres, maybe 10 other folks here, maybe 100+ (probably a lot more) at Los 3.


Back to Camp Poincenot and pack up our stuff to head down valley and reduce the extent of our morning walk to El Chalten. Its a pleasant 1 hourish flay stroll to Laguna Capri. A delightful spot whers folks are swimming in the lake and enjoying the sunny day, we spend a couple hours on teh shore soaking up the sun....
A young lady standing knee deep in the water for a longish time (thong and bikinin top) seems to indicate the water is good.... we go in for a refreshing if brisk 1/2 dip....

Back to campo and reprise dinner substituting genuine Argintine corned beef for the tuna.... delicious...


The Laguna Capri Camp is smaller than the previous ones, maybe 20 tents. But the inhabitants make up for the
lack of mass with impressive stamina. I was woken up by boisterous converstaion on and off until 3:00 AM, but sadly slept through the conjugal event thereafter....

We have to catch the bus by one, so an earier start required... I think we were up by 8:30, Elaine stil a bit miffed that she was awake until 5... but hey, she heard all the entertainment... A quick ditto of breakfast, most importantly the delicious instant coffee (am I really saying this?), break camp and head to El Chalten.

Its about an 1:15 walk from Laguna Capri, a 350 m elevation drop so pretty much downhill. Many folks coming up, maybe passed at least a hundred? A justifiably poular spot. Once down to El Chalten, its back to a tourist town, more like Waterton than Banff, decent accomodation and coffee/Abuela/Cerveza places, but pretty quiet... many unfiinshed construction projects are seen, the rebar sticking out of the ground floor of someprojects paints a picture of dreams still to be realized.

The merchants are well stocked with high end items. sunglasses, clothing, campimg gear etc amd of course craft work from local (or chinese artisians). I even found some (yet to be tested) White Gas/Naptha... I thought I had previously purcased Naptha, but what the gentleman called Benzene Blanco and assured me was ¨white gas¨ but seems to be some form of Kerosene, but clogged both K and G jets of MSR whisperlight, I repalced the jetes, cleaned the stove fully 5 times so far it would work until shut down then not restart...  Hopefully this version of fuel works better.... I should have brought the jetboil, canisters are available every where...

At 1:00 PM we are on the bus back to El Calafate,. The views of the mountains to the west are spectacular, but clouds are seen to the southwest... for shadow, will find out in a day or 2...?

Choique - Shamelessly clipped from Wikipedia

From the window, I saw a group of 2 legged crature that looked something like Ostriches, do they ranch them here? Didnt look like a domestic farm? I  decided I must have been mistaken, but then I saw anote rone close to the highway.... I looked in a book in a bookstore in El Calafate and see that indeed thes creatres exist, called a Choique, can be close to 5 feet tall and weigh almost 90 pounds.... who knew... getting back to the  internet decade I found out enoug and maybe even more that I wanted to know about Rheas....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_%28bird%29


Back in town we ´got a room´ again at Puerto San Julian (decent place, friendly folks, beer in the fridge, breakfast included... did I mention they speak english?) and clean up from 4 days on the trail.... sometimes showers are really wonderful.... A couple of beers at a sidewalk cafe dulled the aches of the walk, we decided to try the ´Pizza Free´place, turns out it serves Pizza too... just unlimited quantities as long as ypu drink unlimited quantities... novel idea in atourist town... we opted for the pay as you play pizza, ham. cheese, olives. MAYO??? wtf.... Mayo was artisticaly squeezed as if from a cake decoration device liberally over the Pizza.... actually wasn´t too bad.. but weird...

Pack up our crap in the morning and the the bus to Puerto Natales..... Will see how the politics of wildfire are burning in Chile...Not clear yet what is open at Torres del Paine...