The bus was big and luxurious with fully reclining seats, food and films in English. A good journey, through vast expanses of desert plain, llamas (guanacos), rheas, sheep, mountains in the distance etc. We fell asleep and woke up to a beautiful sunrise, shortly before arriving in El Calafate.

The town itself was very friendly and safe, although more tourists than we had seen for some time. They, like us had journeyed vast distances to see the Glaciers and we could not help wondering if anything was worth a 24 hour bus ride.

The next day armed with a substantial breakfast we made our way to Punta Bandera, 47 kms away to board a catamaran - Our first view of the glacier would be from the water, approaching through glacial channels and floating icebergs.

After an hour or so we saw our first glacier which was the Spegazzini , this was more impressive than any glacier we had ever seen, and was followed over the next two hours by the Seco and Upsala glaciers which were equally impressive. The last glacier on our cruise was to be Perito Moreno, the "Jewel in the Crown" and the main reason why Dan wanted to visit the area - Would he be disappointed?

Perito Moreno appeared on the horizon and even from a distance its blue-hued jagged frame dominated the vista. As we approached its sheer size was awe inspiring - It is 5 kilometres wide, 35 kilometres long and 60 metres high …… We almost dropped our wine glasses as our jaws dropped and our eyes widened to this magnificent sight. It was by far the most spectacular natural phenomena we had seen in our travels.

The fading light created an ethereal "other world" feeling and a strange silence prevailed, breaking at intervals with sounds resembling rifle shots as large shards of ice broke away and fell into the water below to float past as "icebergs" - Still awestruck we continued to watch and listen as the boat moved away from the glacier face and with our wine finished we had to resort to whiskey for the return trip - Still, there was no shortage of ice.

We returned to Perito Moreno the following day by road and in the bright sunshine explored from the multi-level network of walkways presenting to the medial face. Remarkably, the same glacier looked so different in the strong sunlight and the proximity of the viewing platforms gave an increased awareness of its magnificence - A truly magical and wondrous place.