Wednesday 21st November. An early start and off to the airport for our three hour flight south to El Calafate. All went smoothly and we arrived to bright sunshine and wonderful views over the steppes, bisected by a bright blue river of glacial meltwater. The landscape here was very striking, and so reminiscent of the coloured stripes used on the cover of the book ‘In Patagonia’ by Bruce Chatwin. Vast flat plains of pale green, yellow and silver scrub, dark...

Tuesday 20th November Luckily, despite our exhaustion last night, we remembered to set an alarm and awoke at 7 feeling refreshed after a well earned and much needed sleep. We had planned to go for a run, but a review of our aching feet and legs changed our minds! We enjoyed another sunny breakfast in the ornate dining room. Our food was served by a small and serious senora wearing what looked like theatre scrubs. She quietly delivered our coffee before returni...

Monday 19th November After flying from Birmingham to Amsterdam we had a brisk 30 minute yomp between gates before boarding the next plane for a further 13 hour flight. We arrived in Buenos Aires at 6.45 am. The flight had been fairly average with dreary food and good films, but sleep was hard to come by - mainly due to the fidgeting of the sprawling whale of a man sitting next to us in the window seat... We arrived and gritted our teeth as we waited while the e...