Little delayed in writing this post- photos and trip details are from our trip to Southern Patagonia in Argentina that we visited in November 2015. 

Airport we landed to was Buenos Aires. We flew by LAN Airlines from San Francisco.

Day in Buenos Aires: After a brief nap, we headed to Cafe Tortoni– highly recommended by a friend, which to our surprise had a line outside the door. Our patience was well worth as we entered the cafe – all the delicacies, ambiance and atmosphere was just perfect to cheer us up. Hot chocolate with churros was to die for, coffee and dulce de leche pastry helped satisfy our caffeine and sugar cravings.

We then headed to historic San Telmo neighbourhood. City of Buenos Aires is pretty much walkable. After visiting The Nuestra Señora de Belén Church, Museum of Modern Art and window shopping for a couple of hours we were ready to eat dinner. We noticed number of shops and restaurants were closed for some reason. It was 6pm, it is then we realized that Argentinians don’t eat dinner until after 9:30 and shops and restaurants were closed to reopen later at night. Coffee shops and bars were open in the evening. We found an outdoor cafe, ordered sandwiches and a bottle of delicious Malbec.  This was perfect end of our day in Buenos Aires. We went back to our hotel to get ready for our active hiking trips around Southern Patagonia.

Day two was spent flying to El Calafate and transferring (driving) to El Chalten. We chose Walk Patagonia to help us plan all our outdoor excursions. Zoe is from UK, who speaks more than five languages and spends winter months in El Chalten. She coordinates almost all trips personally. Both her and our argentinian trekking guide Pablo were extremely knowledgeable for the region and passionate about what they did. I highly recommend you contact Zoe at Walk Patagonia if you plan to hike in El Chalten area.

El Chalten is a small village located within the Los Glaciares Nationl Park and is a gateway to all the trails leading to the peaks of Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy. We reached to Chalten in the afternoon. After checking in we walked to Walk Patagonia’s office to meet up with our guides for next few days. They also helped us with city maps and pointing out good restaurants and cafe (wi-fi spots) in town. Most trailheads starts from the town and within walking distance. El Chalten was very windy, after dinner we went back to hotel to start packing our backpacks for next few days.