I sleep in Today. Up at 9.30. There is a turnover of personnell in the dorm today. All the lads are leaving. Denni for Puerto Madryn to go whale watching on the Atlantic coast. The English lad to Puerto Montt in Chile and Kevin heads south to El Bolson. I´ll miss talking to Kevin. Some people might have got a bit freaked by all his talk of conspiracy theories but behind it all he´s very laid back with a very wry sense of humour. It was easy to have a laugh with him.
Hostels can bring together an odd mix of characters. It can be a very hit or miss experience in these dorms. You can be thrown in with any kind of character from the sound to the mildly eccentric to individuals you just stay away from. So far in this dorm its been grand but I´m glad I´m not sharing a room with some of the characters in the hostel. There´s an aussie and a couple of Kiwi girls whom you might describe as being up their own @#*e!!.
In the afternoon I head out of town to a smaller mountain, Cerro Otto, some 5km away. A local bus drops you off at a cable car station which goes up to a refugio at the summit. I hike up a rough dirt path which follows the line of ascending pylons. This hill is a lot lower than cerro Catedral but much steeper. Its difficult underfoot as the loose dirt and gravel prevents you getting a good grip. The path doesn´t zig zag up the slope it simply runs straight up. I have to stop regularly for a breather. Under a strong sun I begin to sweat heavily making me wish I was in a pair of shorts and not my trousers which begin to stick to me. After a long 90mins I reach the top. The refugio here has a restaurant with panoramic views. There is also a phone kiosk so I decide to call home, not having managed to get through to home so far. It turns out to be an expensive call but a memorable one. Talking to Marie I hear that she has terrible cravings for chocolate. I then get the news that we have another wee baby on the way. Marie ther´s plenty of chocolate in Bariloche for those kind of cravings. Two girls in the dorm made themselves sick gorging on chocolate today!!. Its exciting news and in years to come I´ll be able to tell exactly where I was the day I heard the news. With all the excitement I felt too tired to hike back down the mountain and instead took a cable car. After a day where Içd spent very little I blew three quarters of the daily budget in a matter of moments. But it was worth it. Today will live long in the memory, not so much for what I did but for the news I recieved. Its not often you here you are going to be an uncle but to hear it on the top of a mountain in Argentina certainly adds to the experience.
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