As I travelled south along the lonely Ruta-40, passing hundreds of miles of steppe, I began to wonder if I had now passed the point where there are more penguins south of me than people. Probably! This was one of the most desolate road journeys I've ever taken, the only entertainment being provided by sightings of small ostrich-like rheas and Patagonian hares darting away from the rare sound of a passing vehicle, and very occasional lakes where black-necked swans were afloat. Armadillos live on the steppe too, but they are much more elusive, sadly.

I knew I was tempting fate by mentioning raindrops in my last post. After 18 hours on a dry, dusty road on which we only encountered one small village and a very remote cafe, the heavy rain appeared just half an hour before I was due to get off the bus. Typical! A day and a half of wet weather followed, but fortunately El Chaltén was no bad place to be stuck. It's a town of 600 residents that sprung up just 30 years ago to service the high number of hikers and climbers wanting to get into the mountains. It now has a microbrewery, and cafes and restaurants with much more on the menu than I have been used to. There is no shortage of tourists here either, mostly European, and most of them having used the arguably more sensible aeroplane as the mode of transport for getting here.

But what am I doing? I'm rambling on about a fairly insignificant village when really it is Monte Fitz Roy and other spectacular mountain peaks that I and everyone else have come to see. Giant pinnacles like sharks teeth pierce the sky, and are so steep that even the snow and ice can't stick to their sides. Not surprisingly, there are only a handful of people who can tell you what it is like to stand on top of one of these summits. I find it hard to imagine what that must be like.

Once the blue skies returned, a four day hike on a semi-circuit of Monte Fitz Roy took me fairly close to these pinnacles on very pleasant paths through forests of lenga trees, with side trips to huge glaciers and turquoise lagoons. But along with the blue skies came the famed winds of Patagonia. Beyond the mountains is Hielo Sur (South Ice-field), which is the largest block of ice on earth outside Antarctica. Being on the leeward side of the it means two things - incredible cloud formations that look like puff pastry, and relentless icy blasts that rip through every layer of clothing like it isn't there. I had plans to climb high enough to get a glimpse of the ice field, but on the days when I was close enough to attempt it, the conditions were never quite right. And it actually started to snow as I left my last campsite!