Merry Christamas from the bottom of the world! Sorry about the amount of photos but these represent just a small selection of the snap-happy amount I took! The bus journey from Rio Grande was what you hope every journey will be like - short (3 hours), comfortable and beautiful scenery. It’s just a shame that the city of Ushuaia didn’t quite impress us as much as we had hoped. Perhaps we hoped for a quaint pioneer frontier town or something like Bariloche, but anyway, the place is very functional and generally very expensive. Even so, we have thoroughly enjoyed our stay. On Christmas Eve it was hard to find places open and charging prices we were prepared to pay. It seemed that every restaurant upped its prices fourfold, and even the tenedor libres (buffets) wanted 100-120 ... read more

What to say about the Perito Moreno glacier? We decided to do a “mini-trekking” tour rather than simply make our own way to the viewing platforms. It turned out to be a good move, and the prices are the same (250 pesos) no matter who you book through. Our day began with a bus journey into the National Park and then a boat trip across part of the lake. The views of the glacier were spectacular, but they got much, much better. Once back on dry land we had a short lecture about the formation of glaciers before being fitted with crampons. Then we took to the ice. For almost 2 hours we trekked up and down crevices (or were they crevasses?!) and had breathtaking icy scenery all around us in every shade of blue you ... read more

La Ruta 40 (Route 40) is a long, long, long, long road stretching from the North of Argentina to the very South. It’s the equivalent of having a road going from Liverpool to Timbuctu! Our journey from Bariloche to the town of Perito Moreno took us on only a small part of the road yet was 12 hours or so on the bus, a great part of that being on ripio (gravel) roads and therefore not the most comfortable! The town of Perito Moreno itself is the archetypal one horse town! Other than tourists travelling the Ruta 40 (or a handful going to or from Chile) there is nothing much there. A tourist map takes you to “Swan Lake” or “El Lago de los Cisnes” but it’s rather an over glamorous title. The plaza looks like ... read more

Twenty minutes from Las Grutas on a local bus was the town of San Antonio Oeste. We had an impressive glossy brochure from the Tourism Office which must have taken some imagination to put together! The sights are really a collection of ram shackled old buildings left over from the early days of the railways. Still, we wandered around and saw everything the brochure “offered” before passing a few hours in a café and a bar. Then we ate a wonderful fish supper in the Alca restaurant. We may have been the only diners but the Patagonian wine was wonderful, and my abadejo (Argentine Cod) and Trish’s fish stew were fabulous. Then it was time to go to the train station to wait for the Tren Patagonico to Bariloche. The 9pm departure eventually left at 10pm ... read more

Puerto Madryn is a nice little seaside town and we stayed in a terrific hostel, the Viajero, who were so popular we were unable to extend our stay! The sunset was terrific and we relaxed soooooooo much. The Ecocentre was an excellent place to visit to learn about the marine wildlife before a trip to see it. The sofas in the lookout tower were a little too comfortable so we left before outstaying our welcome! The main point of staying there is to go and see the whales, and to visit Peninsula Valdes, home of various fauna of the region. The whales were not as numerous as we had hoped, in fact we only saw three or four of them. Even so, it was wonderful to see these graceful creatures in their natural habitat. Whilst none ... read more