Argentina Day 4

Hey,
we have been in a small town hiking that had horrible internet access.  I could barely get it to work and the computer had a twenty minute time limit.  Thanks for the emails.  I miss you too and am ready to be home.  I can´t wait to see you and the kids!!

Well, here is what has been happening.

Day 3.5
We ended Tuesday night by coming back to the hostel and packing our backpacks for the trip to Chalten, a small town about three hours away.  It took along time to pack and we went to bed really late, around two a.m.  We had been asleep for about an hour when I awoke with a startle.  Jimmy and Cory were in ambien induced comas and were out.  I saw an arm sticking through our window trying to take things out of my backpack.  There is no AC here, so we had to sleep with the windows open and had stacked our backpacks under the window.  I was on the bottom bunk and rolled/fell out of bed and jumped to the window and no one was there.  Both Cory and Jimmy woke up and were asking what happened.  I told them and they were freaking out.  I looked out the window for a few minutes and saw two guys emerge from the side of the building, jump in their car and take off.  Weird.  Anyway, we could not sleep the rest of the night, and had to get up at six anyway...short night.

Day 4
We caught the bus early and headed to Chalten, which is right in the mountains and is perfect for hiking.  Everything was uneventful getting to Chalten.  It is a small town and we stayed at a hostel there the first night.  When we arrived we had to check in at the ranger station (the whole town is in a national park) and they told us about the trails.  We had the day to ourselves and decided to trek up a local trail.  Seven miles up and seven back, but the day was beautiful, so we headed off.  It was beautiful to see the glaciers, lakes and the terrain.  We were at about 5,000 feet, so pretty high.  Just as we started, Dave Thomas blew out his boot (which he had had for 15 years) and turned back to town with one of his sons to buy new boots.  The rest of us headed out and hiked like crazy.  We returned just before seven to meet with our guides for the next day.

We had a nice dinner at a tapas bar, meat, cheese, empanadas, flan, lots of little things.  We then headed back to the hostel for sleep.  We had six to a room at this place, but only had eleven people, so one room had another guest, an Israeli girl!!  Funny, glad she was not in my room.  They are small rooms, with three bunk beads, a shower and toilet - pretty spartan.