A bike friendly bus.
Caught the 'Chalten Travel' bus to El Chalten. The bus driver was fantastic. No charge for the bikes and he offered a low entry compartment at the back for our bikes and all our separate panniers. Fed up of squeezing the panniers and rolls into our lightweight holdalls we thought pack them as separate bags and today was our lucky day. The journey was meant to take 3 hours but with a strong headwind and the usual stop all buses seem to do (no matter how short the journey) at a restaurant and gift shop in the middle of nowhere, it took nearly 4 hours. The weather when we arrived was like a wild wet day in Glencoe….the usual strong winds whipping the rain horizontally past stunted vegetation…..water was even being blown out of the puddles! Unfortunately, the rear of the bus stopped in a puddle which required a leap into our private compartment headfirst. Once inside I took advantage of the shelter and changed into a full set of waterproofs and emerged feeling quite clever until the wind immediately filled my hood and drove rain straight in! For some reason I couldn’t tighten my hood and it acted like a sail flicking my head back whenever I turned in the wrong direction. The storm alarm (on my little weather gizmo) was constantly beeping so we headed to a Hosteria (Posada Altus Cumbres) for the night. The room we had was among the best so far and definitely the most spacious and clean. The wind tore at the corrugated tin roof above the timber rafters and moaned through any tiny gaps sounding like a child making ghosty noises. With the rain hammering it actually felt quite cosy as we knew (hopefully) that we were safe and dry. Apparently the views from the windows here are quite spectacular but today it was a view of people either being bundled along by the wind (whether they wanted to go in that direction or not) or people walking at 45 degrees into the wind holding onto their billowing hoods. We had a beautiful dinner in a small restaurant up the same road (Ruca Mahuida) with a barrel stove, local art on the walls and views to distant mountains and glacier Viedma. Despite the glacier it felt a bit west coast of Scotland at this level, maybe it was the weather? When we arrived at the Hosteria I made the big mistake of nodding in apparent understanding and even laughing with the lady at reception as she chatted away at top speed, pointing in various directions and at one point gesticulating to her chest. I had no idea what she was saying but managed to leave without any awkward silences or inappropriate expressions at the wrong time. When we returned to the Hosteria I knew that we would talk again at some point and she would discover that all her chat about her pets and recent romances had fallen on deaf ears! I almost ran through reception avoiding her gaze until I realized she had the key to our room. Thankfully, the number 9 was not a problem and I got away with it for tonight. I wonder what we’ll talk about tomorrow? It’s now nearly midnight and the rain is still hammering down…..hopefully we might get a few bright interludes tomorrow.
Our Butch Cassidy stop.
