After the big hike of day 13, we decided that we deserved another lazy day, because we are lazy bums. However, the one thing I was determined to do while still in El Chalten was to see an armadillo. After reports from a couple of other people staying at the hostel that there were some near the ranger station, we headed off on a short stroll in the early evening. We managed to spot an armadillo with surprising ease. It was just casually chilling out on the side of the trail about 5 minutes out of town.
Wee (big hairy) armadillo chilling out by the trail
Look at it's cute little (half-hidden) face
This is a “big hairy armadillo”. I kid you not, this is the actual common name for the C. villosus. Armadillo names are great, and I hope I get to meet the relatives of the big hairy during this trip, including the screaming hairy, pink fairy, and hairy long-nosed (seriously, these are real armadillo types)
Day 15 saw us off on a 3 hour long drive to the town of El Calafate, where we were to spend our last 2 nights in Patagonia. Our hostel was situated right at the edge of Lago Argentino, the biggest freshwater lake in the country. Although this meant we were a little bit out of town (although a 15 minute walk isn’t bad at all), it also meant FLAMINGOES! Being an utter cheapskate, I didn’t want to pay the entrance fee to the nature reserve that supposedly housed an abundance of bird life, electing to stand outside with a pair of binoculars instead. After a minute of sneaky viewing, we noticed that outside the reserve, in the lake itself, flamingoes were actually dotted near the shore everywhere, along with many other types of birds and horses grazing in the shallows. Why the heck people pay for the reserve is beyond me when it’s not like birds respect park boundaries and choose to only hang out in the reserve rather than the rest of the wetlands area separated only by a low fence...
So pink!
So fabulous!
So horsey!
Bonus Jesus for extra XP: Ok so this isn’t actually Jesus, but I'm including it because it has more than a whiff of the religious about it. I kept spotting these little red shrines throughout our drive between El Chalten and El Calafate. Here is one from the entrance into the town of El Chalten. Almighty google tells me that these are shrines for “Gauchito Gil”, a legendary character in Argentina akin to Robin Hood who although not canonised by the Catholic Church, is regarded as a saint by locals. He seems also to have a penchant for cheap alcohol, judging by the bottles in the shrines.
Hooray for alcoholic semi-saints!
Not a bad place to chill with a bunch of alcohol
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