Hi again,

We travelled from Puerto Natales to El Calafate in Argentina so we could see the Perito Moreno glacier. The bus was a short trip (only 5 hours) and involved crossing the border, with more spectacular views over the Andes. It was fairly quick as we were leaving Chile, though Olly got into a bit of trouble for not having a customs form-oops! After some huffing and puffing from the customs official he was allowed to fill in a new one and we could leave the country! Arriving in El Calafate, we were bombarded with leaflets for hostels, all extremely expensive. El Calafate is solely a tourist town and they know how to milk it! We decided to go for the cheapest one on the first night-how bad could it be? Very bad it turns out... hehe, we certainly got what we paid for! None of the doors closed (I got stuck in the bathroom for a while), extremely noisy, funny smell, horrible bed. Not surprisingly, we only stayed the one night.

The following day we visited the Perito Moreno glacier. The bus drove us to the National Park where we took an hour long boat trip to the snout of the glacier. From a distance, the glacier looked enormous, but this didn´t prepare us for just how huge it was up close. From our large boat, the glacier towered above us. Part of the reason it is such a famous glacier is that the front is pristine white and blue, where most other glaciers are very dirty. The colours were spectacular-every shade of blue imaginable, with patches of slate grey and white, all glittering in the sun. After the boat ride, we were dropped off at a series of walkways which took us even closer to the beast. So huge!! We had 3 hours there, most of which we spent simply gazing at it while it creaked and groaned and whined. Occassionally there would be an enormous crack and a chunk would fall off, hitting the water with a canon-like boom and sending ripples out across the lake. The glacier stretched out as far as we could see behind the mountains, like a giant motorway. And the wind that came off it really was glacial! It is impossible to describe how magnificent it was, but hopefully the pictures give some idea.

The other exciting activity of our trip to El Calafate was horse-riding. Olly´s first experience on a horse! We went to a nearby estancia, where we were given brief instructions on how to ride ´Argetina style´ and heaved onto our trusty steeds. The horses were lovely, very gentle and calm. We had a guide who took us on a sedate amble across the hills to a viewing point of Lago Argentina. We were accompanied for the whole trip by the farm´s dog, Yuca, a gorgeous poochie who tirelessly chased hares and birds, much to our amusement. After our ride, we had an AMAZING lunch of endless quantities of steak, chicken and roasted vegetables. Yum yum yum. Ol managed a little chicken and lots of ve while I ate his share of beef. It was a really fantastic day. Hopefully we´ll manage another horse-riding trip in Chile.

We left El Calafate on Tuesday, starting a 3 day journey of bus + bus + plane + bus + bus to get to the Chilean lake district. Phew! The border crossing into Chile was long and fairly annoying, involving getting all the bags off for a cursory glance by the customs men again. It wouldn´t have been as bad if we hadn´t had to wait outside in the freezing winds for half of it! Brrrr. But we´ve made it to Pucón. Hurrah!