An early start to catch the bus for a trip to Upsala Glacier. The weather was good but the mountains as always were under cloud. The sunny weather held until we got to the lake and the start of the boat second leg. Glacial lakes are normally a lovely milky turquoise colour, like on tropical beaches the sun plays a key role in creating the colour. It is not just the lake I wanted to see in sunshine, the lake also contains large iceburgs. They had an amazing deep blue colour unlike all the other glaciers I have seen in Europe and New Zealand. What they look like with the sun hitting them I can only guess.

After a couple of hours of looking at iceburgs and mountains we ran out of lake. The boat however kept going until you heard the scrunching of the shingle beach on the hull. There was no getting your feet wet here, the passengers staying at the expensive hotel here wouldn't have that instead we had a gangplank.

The next stage on this slick operation was to meet the guide, I shall call him Borat due to his accent and use of words. He led us to a 4x4 that would take us further into the mountains. We were dropped off near a mountain refuge that was used in the 60's by the scientists then just 10 minutes walk from the glacier. However this glacier has retreated at an alarming rate, it was now a 4 hour walk.

Only 12 people are allowed to do this walk each day to protect the park. When I say protect I mean protect, you are told off if you even step a yard off the path. Ten minutes was the time it took to get to a view point of Upsala and the other glaciers. Rivers of brilliant white ice pierced by mountains which inturn pierced the clouds. The glaciers converged into the largest glacier in South America and then branched off again to form Upsala Glacier beneath us. The vivid blue of this glacier even on a dull day was very striking and beautiful. The mountains not under snow were in stark contrast, their jet black colour was made even more forboding by the moody weather. Not much grows here, most of the year it is under snow and for the remainder under cloud and rain whilst being blasted by the drying Patagonian wind. This calls for small specialist plants which happen to be very beautiful.

Not all the mountains were black, our 4 hour walking route took us away from the glacier through a valley consisting of red rock. This rock is not native, it was carried here by an ancient glacier. It is strange seeing this contrast especially with red rounded boulders perched on black bed rock.

The fossils found in this valley however is the main focus for trip advertisements. To get to the fossils, we first had to get through a section littered with large boulders that had fallen down from the vertical cliffs. Borat wanted everyone to walk through one at a time due to the danger, he proudly recited his one and only pun "or else you all might become fossils". Borat went first so was well out of sight when we went for it. I decided to go with Liz, as life wouldn't be worth living if she was squished and I wasn't. I thought that they didn't tell us about this bit when they were telling us about the trip.

Half way across, six Condors chose that moment to make an appearance. These have the largest wing span of any bird, a massive 3 meters. They were circling just over head, pretty dam close for Condors. With a mental 'sod it' out came the camera. It isn't everyday that you see Condors, and besides the rock falls didn't appear to be that frequent. With Condor photos in the bag I thanked my lucky stars - this trip was well worth it just for that.

On the other side of the 'clashing rocks' were the fossils. These were mostly sea life fossils but I was told by Borat that dinosaur fossils have also been found. We didn't see any dinosaur remains but the fossils were that numerous they created band patterns in the solid rock. There were suddenly a lot of fossil hunters, Liz fell back from the frount of the group to second from last. We were only just moving, the elderly woman had to be helped down every slope but she wasn't the slowest. That accolade went to the French woman who was always at the back taking ages over numerous photos. Adding fossil collector to the list meant she was almost stationary. Always at the frount and only just in sight was a strapping German that was pulling his hair out regarding the pace. Between the German and the French woman was Borat, he was constantly walking up and down the group telling the German off for going too far ahead and the French woman for being too slow. Either payed much attention, when things got too much he said in his Borat sounding voice "please wait" to all the leaders apart from the German who by now was completely out of sight. The Chinese contingent would then go into foraging mode, not from their lunch packs but from berries and gods knows what else that was lying around. When you saw the French womans husband you knew that the French woman would be 300 yards behind him. He was always well ahead of her on a vantage point mentally trying to pull her along, I got the impression that negociations were of little use.

This was the pattern for more than the expected 4 hours. By this time Borat tried another tactic to get people moving, namely the prospect of missing the boat. This worked for 10 minutes but the pace was still very slow and the French woman still couldn't resist the odd shot. The guide who was a stickler for the rules decided to break the 'keep to the path' rule. We went cross country in the direction of the 'hotel' where the 4x4 was waiting for us.

The German appeared but there was no room for him on this run. This was fortunate as the group hated him for breaking Borat's rules. Despite the German being taken to the boat after us he seemed to beat me to a seat, his jacket was covering two seats on a prime part of the boat. He must have done the normal German trick of getting there early putting his 'towel' down before walking to the 4x4 to get a lift back again.

Me and Liz and a few others had to sit outside in a biting wind blowing off the glaciers. There were empty seats but people had put their bags down and then spent most of the trip outside taking photos. Liz was frozen so I suggested sitting there anyway. This worked until it started raining when one person out of the three seats taken came back. Liz managed to stay whilst I was back in the cold. When the boat started to dock I was not allowed to stand, I went up to the German that had nicked two seats and told him to remove his bag. He reluctantly did it when I said there are no other seats and I had to sit.

The weather coming back on the boat was better. The sun poked is head through making it possible to figure out how beautiful the colours around here could be. As the iceburgs approached it disappeared again - typical. They say that the weather here can completely change in a minute - it is true. Sunshine then rain then sunshine with rainbow then a gail with big waves in the space of 5 minutes.

The usual thing in the evening here, we are forced to eat out for one meal a day as we havn't got a kitchen. Unfortunetely there is not that much choice, it's expensive and pretty poor. The excellent wine however is dirt cheap and most places we stay nowadays has a TV in the room - who needs to socialise?