El Calafate

We packed up and left Chile Chico, now thankfully without skinny cheese who had gone the previous morning- hopefully we never see his stalking, miserable face again. After a short half hour mini-bus ride over the border back into Argentina we reached Los Antigos for a quick pit stop before hopefully getting another bus down to El Chalten to see the towering Fitz Roy range. Before we could buy our ticket we needed to top up our thinning wallet and my rumbling stomach.

When we arrived back to the station with cash in hand we watched the lengthy queue in front of us book out every last seat on the bus bar one. When we were next in line we were told we would have to wait two days until the next one. We weren´t up for staying here for that long and after some translation help from some nice chaps from Brazil we found we could get a bus that day to El Calafate, the place we wanted to go after El Chalten and not only would it cost the same price but it would also take the same amount of time to get there despite being four and a half hours further away and we would have to change onto another two different buses. How was that possible? Instead of driving the crumbling, stony roads of the apparently beautiful route 40, we´d take another way and hit the smooth tarmac in which that alone would save all that time. It was going to be a night bus so we wouldn´t be able to see the scenery outside anyway but it did obviously mean cutting out El Chalten. With the thought of what was in store in El Calafate (The Perito Moreno Glacier) and the chance of a peaceful bump free night we booked up and headed off.

Three buses, twenty four hours later, having watched an entertaining marathon trilogy of Sly Stallone action films, a gruesome horror which must have scared the living hell out of the weeny kids on board and a seven hour stop off in Rio Gallegos where we spent our time sitting around the only thing that was open- the petrol station, making good use of their hot water making extra strong coffee´s and we finally made it to El Calafate!

It didn´t take long to find accommodation and we secured a lovely cabin with en-suite for a reasonable price. We headed into the main street where it was quite clear that this place had benefited extremely well from the amount of tourists pouring in each day with it´s endless amount of inviting cafe´s, restaurants that made me want to look through the window at the big clumps of juicy meat on people´s plates and some of the best gift and clothes shops we´ve seen in South America so far. If we weren´t careful then this town could gobble our pennies within minutes.

Laura had left her favourite and only hoody on the bus and with the weather getting colder as we move further south we needed to find her a warm replacement before her joints seized up. The more shops we explored, the more we wanted to spend but the prices were similar to back home so we had to resist most, but we did get a surprisingly cheap clay mask, a flash new hoody and spotted a T-shirt which would look so good on Laura that she was bound to buy it the next day.

My eyes were starting to play up to the light again so I made my way back to our cabin to drop some of my magical juice in whilst Laura continued to venture around more good looking stores. On my way there with my eyes fixed down at the pavement to stop them from burning from the sunshine above I saw a dark twig shaped shadow coming straight towards me bearing the presence of evil like the death eaters from Harry Potter. I squinted my eyes ahead and it was far worse than I had expected- it was skinny cheese. He asked me where I was staying and I pointed randomly down the road. He told me where he was staying and would you believe, it was right in front of our hostal. Laura caught up with me and tried not to gasp in disbelief that he had found us again. To make matters worse he too was planning to see the glacier tomorrow. Luckily he needed to go to town to book it so we walked off quick, snuck back into our room and shut the curtains. We consolidated ourselves with hot chocolate, I had my first shower in about a week and sleep soon followed.

There was something about the next day that felt like waking up at home on a Sunday morning, we couldn´t have been more relaxed and comfy in our double bed with the winds pelting outside bashing the branches over our sky-light window. One of the best breakfasts ever came next with us having every inch of our table covered with enough food for a small army. Everything was going so well until we reached the station to get our ride over to the national park. There he stood. We pretended we hadn´t seen him, got on the bus and peaked out to see if he was getting on too. A sweaty tense twenty minutes later and to our delight he got on the bus next to us.

A few hours into our journey and we stopped in a lay by where another bus had a flat tyre. Guess who was the first person off that bus and on to ours? Will this ever end. Thankfully we drove on and left him behind. A little while later and our driver put on some rather heroic and very cheesy music and all of a sudden every head on the bus turned to the left to look out the window at the iced beauty of the Perito Moreno Glacier which appeared in the distance. We could all instantly tell that this was going to be something truly magnificent.

When we arrived we were all given the option to pay for a one hour boat ride to get up close and personal to the glacier. It was any easy decision to make and within minutes of navigating past massive slabs of icebergs that would have given us quite a hefty dent we were face to face with the blue veined monster. We were reduced to the size of matchsticks, floating in a kids remote controlled toy boat. The Franz Josef Glacier back in New Zealand had blown our minds but the size of that would literally only be the tongue of this gygantuan 60m high, 30km long and 5km wide beast. We were positively shooting fireworks out of each and every one of our toes and both knew even without saying it to one another that this was the greatest thing our eyes have ever clapped apon.

Hundreds of photos later and we were back on dry land where we were driven to the main view point for the glacier. After finding a good spot we sat on a cold stone wall and things then became even more incredible as the glacier had a few tricks under it´s iced sleeve that would make us not want to look away for a split second. Not only was the ice changing colour with the weather shining above leading to every picture of the same shot looking completely different to the last but far more pant wetting was the fact that the glacier was actually moving. It advances up to 2m a day and boy could we hear it. The constant movement was causing ginourmous towers of ice to collapse in front of our very eyes generating mini tidal waves in the lake below and bringing with it some thunderous rip roaring sounds like the giant was actually trying to speak to us. This happened every hour or so but every few minutes we were all teased by loud creeks and cracks with the occasional shotgun like noise in the instance. We stayed glued to our cold wall with the wind whipping our faces for hours not letting our eyes look anywhere else and you can imagine just how bloody excited I was. We used our camera and video camera batteries to the last second capturing as much as we could and it took forever to tear ourselves away to eat our lunch and then we were straight back to our watch posts. The only thing that did take us away hours later was the last bus home. Quite honestly I could have built myself a little hut with a radiator in it and lived there happily ever after. Easily one of the biggest highlights yet. We went to bed felling like the luckiest couple of ducks ever.

The next day we went out for lunch and I ordered a steak in which when it arrived minus any vegetables or chips was equally as impressive in size. I had to take a photo. It was insane. Feeling more than satisfied we took a bus to Puerto Natales to continue our great start to the year. It seems the rumours about Patagonia´s beauty are all true and we wre off to explore more.