The furthest south we´ve ever been

From Trelew we hopped on to a very late night bus south. As this is not a major tourist route we were not able to take a luxurious bus so we settled in for 22 hours on a cramped bus with the tantalising aroma of cheese and sweat. They did show movies but they were Chinese martial arts movies dubbed into Spanish and did little to help the hours pass. But pass they eventually did and we found ourselves the following afternoon in El Calafate.

The only reason, so the guide books say, that anyone comes to El Calafate is to see it´s biggest draw, the immense and beautiful Perito Moreno Glacier, but that is not doing the surrounding landscape justice. Rolling hills covered in low brown scrub stetch out into infinity and the glacial lakes - a milky turquoise - reflect the rolling clouds overhead. It is stunning.

Still, true to form, we headed off with half the population of Japan on a tour bus to see the glacier. We were not blessed with good weather. The clouds hung thick overhead and a slight drizzle hampered our sightseeing all morning, but this could not detract from the beauty of the enormous blue glacier creaking and groaning its way towards us. Wrapped up warm we took a boat trip up to the face of the glacier and then spent three hours staring, mesmerised, at its face from one of the many balconies on the facing slope. We were incredibly lucky - with an almighty roar a 60m-high spire carved off right in front of us, sending huge ripples of energy through the lake. At the final hour, as we reluctantly tore ourselves away, the sun broke through the clouds and we were able to see the ice glowing like Superman´s cryptonite in the afternoon light.