Our direct flight of an hour and 45mins from Calafate to Bariloche was cancelled shortly before our trip so instead, after a 2 hour drive back to Calafate from El Chaltén we fly 3 hours north to Buenos Aires and then over 2 hours south to Bariloche, a total of 10 and a half hours of travel to end up 1300km north of where we had started.

To pick up our hire car forms are filled in duplicate by hand and the sole employee spends 10 minutes going over the car showing us all the scrapes, dents, cracks in the dislodged bumper etc. We are glad to have been first in the queue as those at the back will have quite a wait. We agree to negotiate the drop-off charge at the other end as he thinks it should be US$50 more than on our paperwork and we leave him with 2 blank credit card slips, which he makes by rubbing a biro over the card and carbons because his machine has broken, trusting to inherent Argentine honesty.

The ancient Chevy has hand-cranked windows, no central locking, a skewed boot which closes after a few attempts and strange distorting smears over the windscreen which makes the 30 minute drive in the dark to the hotel psychedelic in the face of oncoming headlights.