“Just when you thought nationalism had nothing good to offer the world, along comes a wonder like El Chaltén. A town with no conceivable economic or geographic purpose other than sticking it to the nearby Chileans, El Chaltén (Spanish for The Chaltén) is an accidental hikers’ paradise in what used to be one of the most inaccessible parts of southern Patagonia.” Maciej Ceglowski describes the mountainous border region between Chile and Argentina with typical skillfulness.