So our 30hour bus ride from Bariloche to El Calafate was not as bad as we had expected....for the first time all the movies on the bus were in English...they might not have been the greatest or most recent selection but they certainly helped pass the time.

We thought the bus would be heading straight down south, but it would appear the chosen route was to crisscross the country!! On the plus side of this we got to see a couple of places that we won't make it to. We even made it further south then El Calafate we stopped at Rio Gallegos...and there was also a good few stops to stretch the legs...

So we arrived into El Calafate feeling fairly fresh and set about finding Shane some fishing....we had the best intentions to get it sorted straight away but somehow we had timed our arrival during siesta time....so we had to go to an artisan brewery and have a beer and a bite to eat before we could go to the fish shop.....you can imagine Shanes disappointment and reluctance about this!!! Luckily once we were fed and hydrated we got into the shop and Shane got some fly fishing booked!!

After that the next priority was to get out to the Perito Moreno Glacier...so we booked that for the following morning. We arrived out to the glacier at about 9am, it is one of the 12 glaciers in the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. It is massive: 35km long, 5km wide and 60meters high. What makes it so appealing is that it is an advancing glacier going forward 2 meters a day, what makes this exciting is that this involves chunks of ice falling off the front during the day!!! When we first arrived what hits you first is the size of it, and then the noise. Each bit of ice falling is really loud (a bit like gun shots), and you can hear the rocks cracking and creaking...the challenge is trying to figure out where the noise is coming from and catch the fall when it happens!!! We spent a good bit of time wandering around the walkways only to go back to a spot that we decided would be best for catching the action!!! And we were so lucky, after about 45mins a lot of small pieces were falling off so we sensed something big might happen...and as you can see from the video it did!!! The noise and the amount of ice that fell was crazy....and the tidal wave of water was mad....you could easily spend days there watching it as you just don't know what's going to happen next!

That really was the true highlight of Patagonia for us!

There isn't a huge amount else to do in El Calafate, so we spent the next few days mainly relaxing, walking about town, booking our campervan for NZ, and taking a stroll to Laguna Nimez, where we saw some more flamingos. Shane managed to head off fishing for a day to a beautiful little glacier fed river called the Rio Rico. The water was clear and cold and the trout and perch seemed to love it (and my flies) Shane caught 4 rainbow trout and 6 perch all between 1-2 pounds and they gave a good fight the trout jumping into the air and the perch trying to stick to the bottom!!!...and of course there was the inevitable story of the big one that got away....

Again we were amazing lucky with the weather down there, we had sun, blue skies and only a gentle breeze the whole time....apparently this happens for about 2 weeks in the year that's all!!! Then it was off on a plane to Buenos Aires for what feels like the last little leg of our South American adventure!!!