35.16: El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina. Laguna de Los Tres...wow!
Haunting and beautiful...and freezing and raining and a long way from our current, local home. We organized a shuttle to take us to a lone hotel in the 'middle of nowhere', some 20kms away so that we could walk back to our apartment. Sounds smart, doesn't it? There was a time we would have wondered about that, too. These days, it sounds just right. The weather was dull to poor which did not augur well for a dry and good visuals kind of day. However, we find generally, and particularly in regions such as Patagonia, that should you act rationally with regard to the natural elements, a person will spend an awful amount of time indoors. Suffice to say, we experienced rain, cold, high-winds, some steep and slippery sections, long and fairly level paths through the forest and overall, a remarkable day in an amazing region that proved to be challenging, colorful and most attractive. While it takes only a few hours to recover physically from a 23km hike, the experience bec...