Only a 3 hour bus ride this time with an unexpected stop at a little ranch house, Hotel de Campo Leona, where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once stayed for a month in 1905 following a robbery. Beautiful scenery on the ride to El Chalten but even better when we got there. I was lucky enough to be part of the group who got the 3 wooden cabins to stay in, whilst the remaining 6 people had bunks in what looked like a prison cell. They had open invites to use our showers and join us for dinner, so all was not lost for them. 6 of us in a cabin this time, Vanessa and I in the lounge/diner/kitchen, shooting daggers at Heather when she got up to make sandwiches for her trek at 5.30am. Finally, Kirsten got news that the truck had been released by customs after days of inactivity and it was on its way. The boys would arrive in time to collect us from El Chalten and take us onward. Hurrah! No phone signal here or wifi, unless you find one of the few cafe's which had it (I didn't).
ps for my nieces, we had a horse and a couple of foals in the field next to our cabins, but as they weren't locked in, they came and played with us a bit. Awwww. So did a skunk....not so awwww.
Presumably this sign wasn't here when Butch Cassidy was...
Home for a few days
Nayyyyy
Heather retrieving her boot from a log dog's jaws
Terry and Vanessa making friends
Much time was spent in the micro-brewery in this town. Not to overstate this though; it did one lager and one dark beer of its own. Pisco Sours or beer costing 30-40 peso for a litre bottle (£4-5). No more than a small bar, but again log-cabin design and very funky, we all came to use this as our local, hanging out in the evening. Trundled off to see a waterfall one day and got some nice pics after the pillock who hopped onto a rock in the fast moving river finally plucked up the courage for the return journey and got out of shot. We expected a gentle 8km hike but strong patagonian winds blowing the wrong way made it somewhat tougher. Luckily they helped us home for the return. This day, I learned that I dislike horse flies more than mosquitos.
Micro brewery
Dodgy crowd taking over the micro brewery
Me and Jeanne pausing on our saunter to the waterfall
scenery on walk to the waterfall
Our local surprisingly well stocked shop
On our last night here, as we sat down to chicken curry by Vanessa, the truck arrived. We were as excited as kids to see Pete and Graham, who had only had 8 hours sleep in the last 48 hours. We were impressed to see the purpose built truck, better (and brighter) than any other truck around and with lots of compartments and boxes attached, clearly for specific items. Big windows, reclining coach seats, 2 tables with chairs around for card playing etc, a sound system and a big fridge which would soon be filled with a food, beer and wine. People walking past came to have pictures taken with our truck! Craziness.
Lisa modelling the inside of 'Ithaca', aka The Truck
Me modelling the rear of Ithaca
Ithaca arrives!
Mikkel decides he needs to see what's on top
The only slight shame in getting the truck was that we had totally mastered the "taxi transfer with many bags" operation. We were smooo-ooth! Now we had to learn how to work around the truck. Everyone is allocated jobs for a sector (ie, a country or two - probably 50 days or so). This might be keeping the inside of the truck clean, setting up chairs and kitchen when we camp, getting tents out of the truck or being Kirsten's 'wallah' for general admin. I'm currently on cleaning the truck. We also then get allocated to a 'cook group' and these groups rotate whenever they have assisted with a dinner. Pete leads the cooking however and I have already eaten better food camping with Odyssey than I tend to cook for myself at home. This is a great differentiator from other overlanding companies. Pete and Kirsten plan the menus and do the shopping, although we can get involved with that too if we like. As an ex chef and great lover of food, Pete is an amazing cook and so far, in just a few days camping, we have had spicy pumpkin soup with croutons, chicken curry, pork stir fry and as I write this in Chile, we've just prepared for a bbq tonight and ghoulash for tomorrow. Whether it's taxi transfers, preparing meals or undertaking our truck duties, the teamwork aspect of overlanding is quite impressive to experience.
Pete and Kirsten happy to be reunited
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