el chaltén, cowboys, break-ya-heart sunrises

hola chicos!

so we are en... crap this is english... we are in El Chaltén now, and it is basically a collection of hostels, hotels, small supermercados, panaderías and tourist cafes/restaurants in a small valley surrounded by mountains in a national park. there is no bank or atm so I am carrying enough cash to last me until saturday and a bit more for emergencies, which makes me quite nervous, but there are also occasionally guachos (cowboys) to be seen cantering along the streets just out of town, which makes me happy.

it is a beautiful place, but I am frustrated because my knee, while not really a big deal, is still not back to normal after the hike and so I can´t really go on any of the 10-hour hikes or whatever. there are some great short hikes around the town, but even on those I have to be careful and I don´t like it much!!! we might go for an hour or so walk to see a waterfall this afternoon and then i´ll ice my knee for the rest of the day to compensate, argh.

to amuse myself I bought a copy of ¨Soy Rock¨ (Literally, ¨I am (intrinsically) Rock¨ but I think they mean ¨I Rock¨ in the english context, although either translation is pretty funny) and I translated articles about Bruce Springsteen and Amy Winehouse yesterday to ¨improve my spanish¨. it may have had some positive effect...?

I just realised we haven´t written that much about the people we have met so that will have to be my aim from now on.

we are staying in a four-person dorm with two guys from Belgium at the moment, and they´ve been our best buddies this week. yesterday the four of us undertook an ill-fated attempt to climb to a mirador out of town and see the sunrise... the theory is that you get a stunning view of mount fitzroy and other such striking rocky mountains, as they reflect the vivid red colours of the ¨unique patagonian sunrise¨. um yeah to be honest our experience was a bit more ¨very very cold wind¨, ¨very very early¨, ¨so cloudy we can´t actually see mount fitzroy at all¨ and ¨whoops turns out you don´t have to get up at 5am because the sun doesn´t get over the mountains in the east until 8am¨. hahaha oh well.

I took our camping stove and we had coffee at the top, and when we eventually came back to town we had hot media lunas (sweet croissants) from the bakery, porridge and more coffee. then we went back to bed and did very little else that day. I was proud of us for trying.

I was going to write about Leon as well, who is a classic character we met while we were watching the glacier francés drop avalanches into the valley below (he was running the five-day W hike and completed it in two days) and whom has been one of those people you´ll never forget in years to come, and stories about him will probably esclate in the ¨it was THIS BIG¨ kind of fashion, but Caro is waiting for me to finish so you´ll just have to use your imagination.

I found the BEST opportunity yesterday to take a photograph to send to Rory with the caption, ¨Surprise, Rory... I bought you a house!¨ (the chances of him ever reading this are slim to none but oh well)

okay that´s it for you all. I´m heading back out into the cold streets of laredo...