El Calafate, Argentina

Day 469.

After expecting a very thorough search of the camper as we passed across the Argentinan border we were pleasantly surprised when we were simply waved across, no inspection necessary into Argentinian patagonia! Granted Limbsters casual obliviousness tried to over confuse matters by assuming everyone and everybody was the help, but we got there in the end.

Fortunately for us Argentina have invested in the one road which connects the mountain towns in this part of the world, which meant a paved road for us - all the way to El Calafate, an absolute treat. Only incident was during Limbsters turn at the wheel when she kindly offered to give me a well needed rest, forgetting to watch out for those pesky ostriches - in all fairness it was only 4 foot tall..

It was 200km after crossing the border line of pure nothingness, only mountains, rivers, the odd game of spot it and plenty of sing alongs to maintain our attention on the empty roads. The first sign of life in terms of a gas station was well welcomed. WiFi, great empanadas and coca cola all on the menu!

After not long we arrived into El Calafate, a town nestled into the mountain side, full of trekking stores, souvy shops and plenty of gourmet resturants. Although baffling prices here seem great, cash is king and you might as well throw the Google fx rate out the window - still don't understand it after a heated discussion with limbster, but we put our differences aside and headed out to enjoy ourselves.

Spitroast patagonian lamb is famous here so we picked a nice resturant and dived right in, arguably a tad more than necessary. Free from the confines of cooking out the back of a camper we enjoyed table service and malbec on tap, a life we could certainly get used too. Our over indulgence however was much to the benefit of a local street dog later than evening, this was after being swiftly rejected by an evidently already well fed street companion.

The over consumption of the local wine meant we would be parking up and sleeping in town tonight, it was loud and bright but we certainly didnt regret it, and we were quick to pass out - at least one of us anyway!

Up bright an early to beat the crowds and tourbuses to the Moreno glacier - the real attraction of this town. Still half asleep we clambered into the front seats and headed off at sunrise. The drive was beautiful but nothing on what the glacier had in store for us. As planned we arrived first and managed to have the entire glacier to ourselves - we had nailed it.

Totally blown away by the size of the glacier, including popping back up to the van for scrambled eggs we stayed a good 5 hours here - totally in awe at the retreating ice. Spent the morning trying to spot huge falling blocks of ice - totally unpredictable but regularly breaking away from this 70ft giant. Took one video and captured the biggest break of the day - absolutely chuffed.

Before heading off treated ourselves to a local liqueur - with glacial ice of course, freshly carved off some fallen glacier, with the wine headache still looming from the night before this was difficult to swallow - but how could we say no to glacier ice!!!

As the clouds swooped in we made our way down to Lago roca, a scramble back down gravel roads - finally reaching camp with a perfect view of the surrounding glaciers. Wasted no time in catching an afternoon nap before watching the sun come down. The ice seems to have brought chilly weather and its the first time we've cracked out the wooly hats and gloves to make dinner - wonder if this will be a theme for Argentina as we head further into the mountains...Read more