Around the World in 180 Days: 49.33 Degrees South Latitude

The last post I made was when we were still in Bariloche... but I have excuses.
1. Two twelve-hour days on the bus
2. Death of the iPad
Well, it was dropped and then died but it came back three days later, drained of battery.
3. Even though it was alive again, the power was out and we couldn't charge it
4. And once the power came back on there still wasn't any internet
So now at last we have reached El Calafete, town of more than one street, and have good wifi (though not in our room) and I can make up for all that by righting a novella here and including a zillion pictures.
The day we got on the bus for the first time we waited outside in the rainy weather, shivering and marveling at the barefoot Austeralian man who only served to exacerbate the chilliness. It was about exactly a 12-hour ride to the one-horse town of Purito Moreno, where we spent the night in a slightly dingy hotel room. Had a couple of stops on the way at gas station parked in the desert and at a pizza restaurant for lunch though we had packed sandwiches. Surprisingly half the (two) tiny grocery stores were closed, though it would seem that since the only travelers coming through come late they would stay open longer. Bought some mayonnaise for the next day's sandwiches, some bread at a bakery, and went to the nearest of the two restaurant/hotels. The food was pricey but foul and it was with relief that we remembered the unfinished chocolates from Bariloche.
That evening the iPad slid of the bed and failed to be resuscitated. Trying everything short of dropping it again the screen remained resolutely black--a particularly awful calamity when considering that it is my mother's book and she had another long busride to look forward to.
We woke up an hour or so before we needed to the next morning because the device, useless in every respect except as a paperweight, still had a working alarm set for five in the morning.
With some friends from New York we met on the bus from Bariloche and a group of others we took a morning detour to the Cueva de las Manos, a long cliff covered with 9,000-10,000 year old paintings. I'll try to limit myself to two photographs of these--huge parts were perfectly and vividly preserved, and each angle unearthed new art. Mostly there were left hands in negative on the rock, but there were also paintings of guanacos (the camelid I couldn't remember the name of a few weeks ago, see 'Incan Express'), abstract shapes, 'evil spirits', and a hunting scene. For some reason the people here had to number the sites in paint directly on the rock face where the paintings were and paint the fence once it was in place, but it looks like they didn't really damage anything.
Met up with the bus around 11. It was a lot more crowded now, because while we were at the cave it had gone to Chile to pick up passengers.
Since my mom didn't have a book we spent a lot of the ride playing '20 questions'.
El Chalten is a tiny town that sprung into existence to attract tourists, but they had amazing pizza and the hostal, though spartan, was very convivial. We went out to eat late, around 10.30, but still had to wait a while for seats.
The next morning I slept in really late by waking-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn standards. We tried to get breakfast at the nearby wafleria but it was closed until 11, so we got the hostel's breakfast instead. Apparently the coffee is really bad in Patagonia, maybe it's bad, maybe the milk's bad, or maybe it's burnt. If my parents reached a decision they didn't inform me.
At noon we went to get lunch at a place called La Lucinda and, once we realized that they hadn't translated the meat part of the sandwich I ordered and I got a replacement we enjoyed it a lot.
It was hard to find the trailhead and we doubled back a few times along the road. Glad we found it when we did because some suspicious llamas were giving us the evil eye. The first half mile went very steeply up the side of the mountain and gave us gorgeous views of the town and the surrounding towering peaks. It was about three hours up and down to the glacial lake, walking through a huge variety of landscapes (meadows, forests, riverside, dry and scrubby). Though we started out in the midday sun clouds soon rolled in and we were drenched. The clouds rolled out soon enough, then back in, then out, then when we reached the glacier it had its own mini weather system that's most definitive characteristic was cold. There was a cara-cara perched a few feet away from us very fearlessly. It was the first time that I had ever seen one not flying at a distance.
The lake around the glacier was the tropical-blue color of shallow waters, but milky and cloudy from the ground dust of the rocks beneath the ice mass. There were a couple of tiny icebergs at the edge of the lake. Because of the cold and the lateness we didn't stay long at the glacier but turned to retrace our way back to town. Stopped once to fill water-bottle at a glacial stream, but despite plentiful pleading I wasn't allowed to sample any until we had ample reassurance that there wasn't any giaradia lurking in it.
Motivated by the onset of sheeting rain, we made the way back in about half the time.
That night the pizza place was closed so we made pasta in the hostel. The kitchen was crowded, as was the dining room, but filled with camaraderie. A table full of Israelis sang and clapped loudly for some time and another group of people made (and shared) a red-sauce dip with eggs broken into it while on the stove.
Since it's 10.30 here and food is coming in a minute, I will call it a night and try to finish tomorrow.
About the title, I wanted to point out that we are very close to the latitude of Olympia (about 46), only south)