Hi Folks,

Apologises for the lateness of this postcard. We have been very busy uploading pics and having fun. South America doesn?t have the fastest connection and as we want to save our pics first that takes a long time. Plus we have to load them to the website and than save the originals to my brothers server (so we can bore you all with slide shows when we get back).

As I can?t be bothered to write three separate postcards for Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and Puerto Madryn I am going to cluster them together as they are all by definition in Patagonia. Also, I am doing this purely by memory and so I might not write it in order (sorry).

Patagonia is such a beautiful area, it stretches from mid way down Chile in Bariloche and just north of Puerto Madryn in Argentina down to Tierra del Fuego. It is quit a barren place where the land stretches as far as the eye can see with nothing but nature all around. When we were there we climbed an active volcano (sure you?ve seen the pics), seen the largest Glacier outside Antartic, seen numerous types of wildlife, seen the largest seals in the world, and missed Killer Whales as our driver went the wrong way! Although we are enjoying the trip for most part it is very badly organized and our tour leader is dreadful and should not be allowed to manage any number of people. When we went to see the Killer Whales we were told to go to a certain place at high tide and another place to see some ship wrecks at low tide. Needless to saw our driver decided to do it the other way around and we saw nothing. Truly inspired!

The Moreno Glacier was great. It moves 2 metres per day but also 2m per day fall off the end with the start always being replenished by falling snow. The noise of the bits breaking off is deafening. Unfortunately it doesn?t happen on cue and I wasn?t fast enough to catch it on film.

The name Patagonia is derived from a novel that Magellen read to his crew during their expedition down the coast of eastern South America. He read it to them (not as a bed time story) as they were becoming very restless not having found a passage from one ocean to the other. In the novel it describes a race of people from a fantasy land that we very tall and looked very mean called Patagonias. Needless to saw, when the crew landed just south of what is now Puerto Madryn they came across a people that looked very much like those described in the novel. Thus Patagonia was created. Although it is a vast almost empty place it is well worth a visit due to the natural aspect of the land and I really liked it.

When we went to Tierra del Fuego we stayed in Ushuaia. Everywhere you go there are signs telling you that it is the End of the World. Not the best way to promote tourism I thought!! Seriously though, it is the end of the land mass that is the Americas other than some small islands dotted around the place. It sounds like it is very close to Antartica as there are boats leaving for there all the time but in fact it is as close to the South Pole as Manchester is to the North Pole. When we were there we visited the Park National de TdF and trek all around it for the day and saw some(more) beautiful lakes and snow capped mountains. We also walked to the end of the Pan American Highway which starts in Alaska and runs for 17,848km south to Ushuaia. We also met quite a few people that were cycling the route, one guy from Japan had cycled over 30,000km to be there. We wanted to do a tour of the Beagle Channel (were Magellan finally found his route, just a little north of Cape Horn) but the coast guard closed the port due to bad weather and so we couldn?t go. Do ask Sharlene about the picture she did get of the Beagles Channel. It was funny to say it (being from the Northern Hemisphere) but when we left traveling North we were going to get hotter. From there we went traveled for four 14 hour days to get to Buenos Aires with a one day stop off in Puerto Madryn. I did warn you about the mixed up order!

Anyway, I have to write another couple of postcards so I?d best be off. I will finish by saying that so far (up to Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and Puerto Madryn) if I had to return to anyway in South America I would only visit Patagonia. Although we did bought say that we would return to Buenos Aires. But if I wrote this postcard when I was meant to we wouldn?t have known that.

Until nest time, Em & S.