La Chocolateria de Chalten

In Chalten there is a chocolate shop where magic is crafted into obscenely delicious delicacies voraciously consumed by wind-weary travelers and climbers revolving around Fitz Roy or Cerro Torre. Like Water for Chocolate could be a good book or movie as a starting point for understanding this place, the romance of Patagonia and the desires of all Patagonian adventurers mixed into the uniquely Native American and ubiquitously sensuous smack of cocoa, the food of the Gods. Sure, chocolate is a far cry from the Xocolatl of Mesoamerica, a far cry from the food that “Mr. Chocolate,” one of Mayan Tikal’s great kings ceremoniously consumed, but the way the bean moves into our hidden passion-pipes has been the same for millennia. These days you can buy chocolate advertised not only as a giving elevation to your libido, but also packs antioxidants and other goodies with a force that muscles away pomegranates and spinach – chocolate as a dietary supplement. Fine by me.

And here at the Chocolateria of Chalten, in one of the original log cabins of this frontier town, they know how to make chocolate with a rustic, rugged, Patagonian twist. Cakes and crumbles, bars, stacked cookies and liqueur: what is most impressive about the place is not necessarily the sweetness of the treats or the view the mountains from the log-loft, or the fact that it is the most ambient place in the end of the world, but the fact that the food moves you and is moved by those that make it here. When thinking of Patagonia, some would think of leather and big skies, some of jagged mountains and maté, dirt and longing, contrast and culmination, condors and sheep, wind and water – I still think of those things as well as La Chocolateria here in Chalten. It’s magical.