Hola amigos!

At the moment I am a bit ill en ik baal (sorry but do not know the English translation at the moment) because I was planning to do a very cool tour today: a boat trip through the channels full of glaciers and ice walls (looks like Antartica on the pictures) but last night I got ill. A bit like food poisoning: I hardly slept and had to throw up. We had to wake up at 615 for the tour, but since I felt ill and had no energy at all I decided to stay at all. Paid 80 euros for nothing.... Nair, Noemi and Mariluz did go but are not bck yet. Since nice things (a visit to the Perito Moreno Glacier and ice walking and a visit to El Chalten and a 7 hour hike) are planned too for the following days I better rest.

I guess I have to go another time or maybe just go to Antartica for real (anyone wants to join?). I slept most of the morning and feel a bit better now, still a bit weak though, but I hardly eat. I guess they put some meat stock in the food yesterday because it looked and tasted normal.

At the moment we are back in Argentina, in a nice place called El Calafate, famous because it is close to Parque Nacional the Glaciares. It is a nice little town and we stay in a very nice hostel on top of a hill. We arrived yesterday early afternoon (it is one hour later here then in Chile) after a 5 hours sauna like busdrive (they like to put the central heating on dessert temperature). After a nice lunch in a crepe restauraNT and finally trying the famous mate tea (very bitter but nice) the rest of the day was arranging and planning: we booked our airplane ticket to Bariloche for sunday, went to the banks (which ran out of cash quickly here and one cashier machine indeed was empty),

arranged to tour for today and the one for Friday and Saturday to El Chalten, were I will only go with Nair and to the supermarktet to buy food for the tour of day. After all of this we had dinner and then it was still shower time, we were in bed around 1 (and woke up at 6 the other day), very tired and then the nausea begun...

The hike in Torres del Paine (Chile) some days ago was heavy but great. Our driver/guide Carlos went with us and that was good since he is an experienced walker. The hike was pretty tpough and he told us exactly what we could expect. Some parts we were walking in our t shirts (the dry fir shirt was a very good idea Syl!) since we were sweating so much. Very lucky we were with the weather: sunshine an blue skies, amazing, so amazing views over the lakes, snowy mountains and woods. The last part to the top at the food of the Torres del Paine (3 peaks to which the parks owns its name) was vey heavy, almost vertival and very sandy and rocky. We were almost dead when we reached the top but it was worth it. Nair and I went to the lake of the glacier and drunk some fresh water there. On our way we saw condors, other birds and a skunk. Since it is low season it was also tranquil and you hardly saw people. Really beautiful. The wqay down was also difficult, especially the first vertical part,but I only felt once . Anyway we made it in 8 hours, pretty good for inexperienced hikers. Lets see how the next one goes. I will try to post some pics later today, since the views were amazing (although they probably are not so good on the pics). Oh and we went to an African Chilean restaurant that night. They even had swahili names (so I could practice a little bit= on the menu and I even ate ugale.

So thats it for now. I will try to put some pics and then will go for a walk to the centre. Need some fresh air after staying in bed till now (almost 16 o clock). Hope I am completely fit for the ice hike tomorrow.

Thanks for all your mails and reactions.

Chau!