We had one last breakfast at our wonderful place in El Calafate before starting to pack the bikes when it started to rain – we left El Calafate in our full wet weather gear – for the first time on our trip, we had to put our rain pants on (almost 2 months of travelling – can’t complain).

We rode on Ruta 11 along Lago Argentino under the rain clouds stuck behind a grader who was pulling a large trailer which was swaying all over the road (the tail wagging the dog) and it made it difficult to overtake. Once we managed to pass it and as soon as we turned onto Ruta 40 the rain cleared and we rode along the Rio La Leóna and its valley. The colour of the river was azure blue and turquoise greenish which was contrasted by the surrounding hills and mountains of shale, sandstone and the most spectacular colours of brown, orange, red and even greenish hues.

We stopped at Hotel La Leona right at the river and had a wonderful lunch with empanadas, fried bread and a huge piece of lemon merengue pie. There was a small museum with some of the fossils found in the area and interesting information about the geology as well as facts about the famous Ruta 40.

The sun was out and the wet weather gear came off before we continued on Ruta 40 along Lago Viedma which was another stunning shade of turquoise green. We stopped at Mirador Lago Viedma trying to capture the colour display and the snow covered mountains in the distance. Shortly after the mirador, we turned off Ruta 40 onto the road to El Chaltén and we faced mostly headwind which got stronger as the day progressed reaching gusts into the high 50 km/hr. The view of the snow covered mountains got more and more impressive as we rode towards and into El Chaltén.

We were glad to arrive in El Chaltén in the afternoon, checked into our accommodation, had a short rest and then walked around town. Although I had completely recovered from that terrible upper respiratory infection, I now had developed a new health issue 😂 – I had this tiny little bump that initially looked like a pimple but as it turned out was a spider bite from a brown recluse spider which happened on February 3 in Tolhuin and it just got bigger, red, opened up and started oozing and not healing – typical for bites from these spiders that result in necrotic wounds – it is on my left index finger right on the knuckle and has been sore and annoying for weeks and I just about was out of bandaids. We went to the local pharmacy and got some more bandaids and I was determined to continue treating it with hot salty water bath, iodine and other antiseptic creams.

We decided not to go ahead with the hike up to another mirador de los Cóndores due to the high winds (and the cost of the National Park entry) and also not to camp or stay longer in El Chaltėn as there was rain and high winds forecast and there was a 70 km stretch of “ripio” (gravel road) ahead of us that becomes impassable in the rain and the road gets closed and we did not want to be stuck for several days.

We went for dinner at an upmarket restaurant/distillery where we ate pricy food – I had trout filled ravioli and Andrew had a lasagne. Our impression of El Chaltén in general was that everything was overpriced (accommodation and food) and we liked El Calafate a lot more even though the surrounding mountains in El Chaltén with the iconic Mount Fitz Roy are impressive when they are not shrouded in cloud.