Headed out on the road again (with a few hungover folk!) and travelled to El Chalten which is the centre to hike Fitz Roy, a 3441m high mountain. And it's a proper mountain! Michelle and I decided we weren't in any fit (physical or mental) state to do another tough hike so soon after the W trek so we would do a smaller walk and take some wine and cheese with us for lunch - how very civilised! We went to the supermarket to get some supplies and discovered that they don't provide carrier bags so we ended up with a ginormous cardboard box to carry our few groceries home.

In the evening we had lambgate. Same people involved as in chickengate. Basically 13 people (from a group of 21) were invited to partake in a lamb casserole, being cooked by the Jews! Everyone thinks Michelle and I are the same person (and we're interchangeable!) so neither of us got invited, nor did Steve and a few others. So, sod the lot of them! We decided to cook our own group meal and have spag bol! I then attempted to make dessert which was kind of a chocolate blancmange type thing but actually looked like chocolate soup. Was good though! Fairly early night as was in bed by about 11pm.

On Tuesday we woke up pretty early as there were 6 of us in the room and some of them were leaving early. Michelle brought us tea in bed and we finally surfaced at around 9am as we had been promised pancakes by Gelati. After a bit of coaxing they arrived, followed by more tea and before we knew it, it was 10am which was when we were supposed to be setting off on our mini hike. Bill was there ready (we'd taken him under our wing for the day) but we kept him quiet with another cup of tea and finally hit the road just after 11am. We walked up to the Capri Lake which took us roughly 2 hours and settled down for our wine (chilled in the crystal clear glacial lake) and lunch. All very nice. Then 2 of the boys, Ian and Simon, turned up (they were on their way down from the top of the hike) and joined us for a couple of hours of talking rubbish before we all made our way back down to the hostel. Very nice! Michelle and I were singing songs from the Sound of Music all the way back! Not sure if it was the giddy heights, the joy of the mountains or the wine........

On Wednesday 7 of the group went on a 12 hour ice trek and climb - no thanks! Far too cold. I got up and made Michelle and I tea in bed then we eventually surfaced down in the hostel kitchen where we drank more tea and settled down in front of the telly. Gelati then emerged and asked if we wanted to go to the lake or not and if sol we needed to get lunch and be ready in an hour! Nobody else wanted to go so Michelle and I went in the truck with Michael and Gelati, armed with a picnic lunch. Ww got about 2 miles down the dirt track when we reached a tiny bridge that had a weight restriction of 6 tons. Teb truck weighs 16 tons! Michael got out and did the typical bloke thing of standing on the wooden slats. Clearly if they could take his weight then 6 tons would be no problem! We got across amidst whoops of joyful success (and relief!), only to find several more bridges in our path. All were fine until we reached one that was 3 times the length and had a huge dip in the middle. Hmmm. Gelati went to flag down a truck that had just crossed it. He yelled it was fine and kept speeding past as apparently he had no clutch so couldn't stop. This was clearly going to be one of those farcical days! We finally made it to the lake all in one piece, only to discover that the tyre had a flat tyre. Actually the lake wasn't that interesting and it started to rain so we gobbled up our lunch and found a flat area where the boys could change the wheel. While that was happening, Michelle and I sat down by a stream and stuffed our faces with 2 huge slices of lemon meringue pie. We only had 1 spork (combination of a knife/spoon/fork) so had to take alternate mouthfuls. Was yummy though! Got back to the hostel and Simon cooked us a delicious chicken risotto. This backpacker food is ok you know!!!