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12/1/2018 from El Calafate to El Chalten

Early wake up, 6am, packing last bits we left out from the evening and we are ready at 6:45. Going to get our food from the fridge and the door to the kitchen are locked. They are supposed to be open from 7am. What a pity! No breakfast, no lunch. Okay. Maybe the pickup will be late, so we can still get it. And yes! Pickup is not coming. 7:10am and I’m nervous. Did they forgot about us? So I dialled the bus company office and asked if they are coming. Yes, they are, I was told. 7:20, bus arrived, but the kitchen is still locked! With our food in the fridge. In a meantime another two people tried to get into the kitchen. 

The bus tickets we bought: Marga Taqsa, 480 pesos each, pickup at our hostel. The bus left the terminal nearly at 8am. It’s really cold on the bus, air con blowing freezing cold by the window seat. Views from the bus are nice and we reached El Chalten at 10:10 - first stop in a national park centre, got information about trails and the weather and then the bus continued to the bus terminal - reached at 10:40. 

We checked-in in our hotel Los Ñires. Really nice room and it was already ready, so we don’t need to wait. Then we had hot chocolate in La Chocolatería across the road (2x 55 pesos) and then we went to buy bus tickets to Los Antiguos (bought inside of the bus terminal from Cal Tur company for 800 pesos each). After that we withdrew pesos from Banco de Santa Cruz atm at the bus terminal and bought some bread (30 pesos) for tomorrow. Supermarkets are closed now (2pm), so we bought empanadas (4x 25 pesos) and came back to the hotel. 

Later today, we plan to go to B&B burger place, so we will stop at some supermarket on the way. 

As I was messing with my blog, I though I can message to Rainer (Austrian travel friend) if they want to join us for burgers and beer today. In s meantime, it got really sunny outside, so I have this idea to get quick dinner and then go to the nearest viewpoint and take some photos while the sun is setting for the night. 

Rainer and Nadja were up for dinner and we were a bit slow, so agreed to meet up at 7pm at B & B Burgers. When we arrived there, it was busy and full (happy hour from 5pm till 8pm) and we tried La Cervezeria across the road. Really nice beer and we noticed Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell empty bottles behind the bar. The place was fully booked, so we drunk one expensive small beer at the bar for 100 pesos each. 

Then we went back to B&B to try our luck and lucky Luke had a luck and we are eating good burgers. Classic burger for 130 pesos, beer during happy hours 50 pesos half a litre. The place is noisy and busy, so we left to  and had another beers in Yenu. 


Enjoyable evening, got back to our hotel at 23:00 or something like that. 

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