Los Glaciares National Park (North).

Because the southern part of Los Glaciares National Park has the impressive Moreno glacier and because the northern part of the park is apparently only reached by ninety kilometres of dirt road, it is easy to skip. Don't!

In spite of what the books and maps say, the first seventy kilometres of the ninety kilometres is now (Jan 2007) smooth tarmac.

The park is dominated by the spectacular 3400 metre high, snow-capped Mount Fitzroy. (Named in honour of the captain of the Beagle, of Darwin fame.).

Just before you enter the small town of El Chalten there is a free parking area on the right hand side of the road, with rubbish bins and a toilet, but no water (the river is OK to drink the sign says).

All the overland vehicles seem to park here with the blessing of the park rangers. (S49.336253 W72.879908). At the moment there are three German and two Dutch overlanders here, one of them in an interesting MAN vehicle built by Woelcke. That strange cut-out at the rear is where one of his three spare wheels is stored!

By comparison with the southern part of the park, El Chalten is far more friendly and laid-back. There are very few package tour busses here. The town has a fine relaxed atmosphere, with many restaurants, hostels, Internet cafes and bars. Well worth a visit for a day or two before it is over commercialized.

We had expected to meet K-Nine here but so far no sign of them and no phone signal for text messages.

Comet Update.

On the morning we left El Chalten we were told of the existence of a spectacular comet by our German neighbors; Michael and Sabine.

On subsequent nights we saw the comet (McNaught) but were unable to get a good photograph of it.

The splendid photograph to the right was taken at the El Chalten campsite on 2007-01-23 by Michael and e-mailed to us . Many thanks.

To read about Michael and Sabine's adventures see www.auf-abwegen.de.