The morning we are due to pick up the van we are very unprepared. It pick up point is in the north west of BA so we use one of Tomas´ parents cars to get there but this means Nikki has to drive one of them back - no sweat! The suburb we are collecting the van from wasn't what you would call a nice area. It was on a dirt road and with a few non friendly looking characters on the street and a whole bunch of street dogs fighting. We were carrying a lotttt of cash to pay the 42 days rent of the minivan in advance so we were feeling a little uneasy. "What if it´s an ambush?" Nikki asks......

In the end it was alright, it was a family owned 'company' (basically a family who owned 2 minivans and couple of larger motorhomes) so we paid and left with the minivan driven by Nikki and Tomas driving his parents' 4wd. Apparently, the minivan was only one year old and had done just 24,000 kms so it shouldn't offer any difficulties. We were both very sceptical of this as the inside of the van looked very old and something from a much older van.

After dropping the van off to Tomas´parents we headed to the city to meet Edu, Piru and Santi for a beer before we headed off the following morning. This is the first time Tomas´has seen Piru in many years and also Santi told us that he and Lucia had just got engaged! Really great news before we left.

We were thinking of leaving Buenos Aires at 7am on Friday morning because we were aiming to drive 890 kms the first day but of course, we knew we were kidding ourselves.. in the end we hit the road like at 11am cause we took an age to pack the van and then also stopped by a camping store to buy a torch and gas cartridges for the cooker..

The first day we drove like 700kms and at midday we had our fist lunch in the minivan.. we stopped on the road and cooked eggs and peas with pears as dessert.. Tomas was starving! He could have eaten three burgers after that minilunch but we were on a strict budget plus we´d been to the supermarket and stocked up on allot of can food to eat during our road trip which had to be eaten first before any restaurant stops.

As we drove south along the Pacific coast we stopped in a town called Trelew which has National Park, home to the largest penguin colony outside of antartica. Since Nikki´s nickname was Penguin, we had to make the stop and see her relatives...! It was baking hot and reallly hard to imagine penguins living here, in patagonia! But sure enough there were literally thousands there. All waddling around heading to the sea to fish or making their way back to their nests to feed their hungry, squarking fluffy grey babies. Really Really beautiful to see though. Penguins in a natual envirnment...

We were heading to El Calafate (3400 kms from Bs As), the little town in the very south of Argentina from where you do the excursion to Perito Moreno, the astonishing glacier at the end of the world... we could have taken another road which would have meant 2700 kms instead of 3400kms but that would have meant driving 350 kms approx on dirt road.. not even dirt its a rocks road and if anything happens to you, you are stuck.. no phone reception, nearby towns or tug vehicles to come and rescue you in the middle of the patagonian desert..too risky for us so we opted to drive the extra few hundred k´s.

It took us three nights and four days to get to the magnificent glacier - which looks like a massive piece of ice that comes from the mountains.. it's 36kms long so it looks like another planet really.. also, this is the best part, it was summer so it was melting.. this means that huge pieces of ice.. (some 50 mts long) were falling from the glacier causing a very loud noise and sending a massive wave to the lake on which the glacier.. definetely one of the highlights of the trip.. it is so big that it all seems to happen in slow motion. While you´re standing there you can hear it cracking and popping. The stress, pressure and tension of it must cause this magical sound. It really does look like the end of the earth.. like there could possibly be nothing beyond it.

On the way to Perito Moreno we stayed on petrol stations and on one camping site.. always sleeping in the minivan, of course.. the first time we slept in a petrol sation we were a little concerned in case it wasn't safe, or they kicked us out, or whatever.. in the end it was absolutely fine cause all we did was stayed in the big YPF's where truck drivers and other families and camper vans were staying - it´s very popular to do.. also the big petrol sations have 24 hs security and are open all night so it was safe.. most of them even had showers for 10 pesos (only 8 minutes though!) and a key advantage.. hot water for coffee in the morning!

Story of the flask:
We needed a flask to keep hot water for the coffee while driving (had to be awake while driving) but because we were into this low budget mode we waited until we found a cheap one.. but one day when making the coffee Tomas added boiling water and shook it like he was making a cocktail to dilute the coffee.. of course what happend, a few minutes later the flask exploded because of the pressure.. scared the s#*! out of us cause it sounded like a bomb.. anyway, we had to buy another (expensive) in a supermarket but because people nick the rubber pouring lids, stores display them without the lids which they give to you at the till.. it couldn't be any other way..., 200kms later we realised we forgot to ask for the lid and now we had an expensive flask with no lid.. what did we do in the next town? We went to the first supermarket we saw and stole a lid.. yes.. stole it.. bloddy flask..

All this time on the road.. literally 10 hrs per day made Nikki a pro at making sandwiches on her lap. We ate sandwiches, fruit with dule de leche (English poeple google it, Nikki says it´s the best thing to come out of Argentina) drank coffee and listened to Bob Dylan for 10 hrs....