Merry Christmas from El Calafate!

After our trek through Torres del Paine, we headed back to El Calafate, Argentina, where we’ve spent the last four days in complete relaxtion mode. Reading, eating, buying chocolates, watching I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown on YouTube — it’s like our own holidays away from home.

Last night, our hostel, I Keu Ken, hosted a lamb BBQ with drinks, music, a raging bonfire and tons of Argentinian merriment. Apparently, Christmas Eve is a big night for partying here, so it was a long night capped with a ride in the rear bed of a pick-up truck to a bar in the “city.” Good times, sketchy townies.

Everyone’s dinner:

My dinner (because I don’t like lamb and wanted to save some money):

Applauding the chef:

After bouts of homesickness the past few days, last night was the perfect way to recalibrate. Just gazing at the stars on the clear night, looking around at all the people who’ve come from across the globe and seeing fireworks burst in almost every direction reminded me how exciting this year of travel is and will be. These are the moments that will last a lifetime, as a jolly (drunk) old Brit told me by the fire.

Poppin’ champagne at midnight:

Tomorrow we leave El Calafate and hop on a 24-hour bus (meh) to Esquel, Argentina where we’ll road trip for a week, celebrate New Year’s in Bariloche and then begin our two-week WWOOF farming gig January 8.

Until then… cheers and Merry Christmas!

P.S. When we were in El Calafate two weeks ago, we did a four-hour trek on the giant Perito Moreno glacier. I look back with a little regret because it turned out to be more expensive than its actual worth, but it’s hard to dwell on those details when looking back at the pictures… except for the fact that I slipped and one of my legs dove straight down into an icy cold hole on the glacier, which ended up cutting my hand, and not long after, I tripped up on my cramp-ons (spiky shoes strapped to your boots to facilitate hiking on ice) and ripped my pants.

Batman Band-Aids were all we could find back in Buenos Aires:

Glass of whiskey with ice from the glacier. We were a bit mad about the overcharging for the whole trek, so when they also offered some free mini alforojes, we took four…each.