J: We then continued our journey South towards a town El Bolson, we pulled off the main road and stopped in a random spot that looked like the start of an open quarry, it was quite there though so it was fine. It was an uncomfortable night for all of us in the car but at least we had sleeping bags to keep warm unlike the lads.

S: we had a quick breakfast and repacked the car and set off towards El Bolson. We had to go round a diversion and all of a sudden we have to pay 150 pesos each to continue down the road. After a couple of minutes we realised we had taken a wrong turn into a national park and thankfully the rangers refunded our money. We continued travelling down Route 40 checking out the scenery and we decided we should stop for petrol as the petrol stations were over 200km apart. I didn't fancy getting stuck out here, the only problem was that loads of cars had the same idea. We had to queue for over an hour to get petrol. The boy decided instead of starting the car every time, pushed it to the petrol station. We even had locals in a car in front do the same lol. Now it was my turn to drive and even though I was driving carefully I got a stone chip in the windscreen and we hadn't taken out insurance this time. James and I were dreading taking the car back to get the bill to mend it.

J: while driving down south, stopping at points for either food or scenery, by the evening we got to the next town to fill up and found a petrol station with a old American Dodge, it was from 1959 and in immaculate condition, only 26000km on the clock and a 9L engine, the bloke at the station was happy to try and tell us about it through the language barrier.
We kept driving till we wanted sleep which was just by the road side that was in the middle of the open plains, it was very windy that night, shaking the car!
The next morning we started the final leg down to El Calafate, and the road was horrendous! The worst "road", if you can call it that, that we have even seen, it was more like a bolder track, the car was shaking so much that occasionally the gear would get thrown out and the rear number plate broke off!
But we got to the destination and it was a lovely feeling town, all 4 of us checked into a hostel for the following night and all trying to save money decided to sleep in the car for one more night, well we had paid for the car so we might as well get the best value from it. I found the smallest road on my map along the lake and we found a perfect spot, so I made a camp fire, Sam cooked dinner and we all had some beers and whisky while watching the sunset then the bright moon light reflect off the lakes surface, it was the best night with Renee so far.

S: we got up early and set off towards the Glaciers of Puerto Monroe. The lads decided to hang out of the car whilst driving to film their journey and I must admit I wasn't impressed. We arrived at the entrance and paid to get into the national park and we parked up at the first look out over the Glacier - wow it was amazing and so big. The boys all had breakfast whilst looking at its awe. Afterwards we headed towards the dock where we could take a boat out to within 50 meters of the Glacier. It was the best boat ride in South America lol. The glaciers actually looked blue. We drove on a bit further to the balconies that overlooked the glaciers.

J: the walk way took your the centre point of the glacier, you started above them, the view over the top gave us the perspective of the sheer size of it. It was so jagged on top and so vast it disappeared up into the mountains. It was a true natural beauty and we stopped there for 5 hours, as it moved and cracked in the sun it sounded like thunder, then every few minutes pieces of ice ranging in size up to a hotel would fall from the face into the lake. It really was a great place, and Sam's camera skills have got really good over the last 11 months and she even managed to guess what piece was falling next and got it on camera.

S: After a few hours I was freezing so we treated ourselves to the best hot chocolate ever (it cost a fortune so we shared one). After that we headed to the hostel and had a shower for the first time in about 3 days. It was an amazing feeling to be clean again. We decided to go out for a meal as we had eaten very basic the last few days. Argentina is renowned for its meat so I had a veal steak which was perfectly cooked and James had lamb. It was a very expensive meal as we have found out that Argentina is very expensive due to the ever increasing inflation rates. But it was worth while and it was even nicer to sleep in a bed for the night lol. The next morning we left the boys as we had to drive the car back to Barloiche but we first we wanted to go to the Glacuruim, a museum all about the Glaciers. We learnt that the Glaciers looking blue was due the how far the sun penetrates the ice, the deeper it goes the bluer it looked - lots of cool stuff like that, and the history of the glaciers and how they are shrinking in size. The museum was a great palace to visit, it educated us both.