Patagonia - El Calafate, El Chalten and Ushuaia

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We arrived in El Calafate from BA. Originally we had a flight booked from BA to Rio Gallegos but after about 2 minutes of research we realised that there is nothing in Rio Gallegos and had no idea why we had booked a flight here (I´ll admit it was my fault as I didn´t read the book properly and thought the glacier was here, but shh don´t tell Ian!).

El Calafate is a nice town mainly built for the Perito Moreno glacier. It tries to be like an Alpian town but one Frence girl we met said she hated it!! As an aside she was the third Stephanie that I have met in about 2 weeks in South America. One was an Aussie, one German and one French. Very strange and I didn´t realise how common my name really is!!

El Calafate is really expensive so we didn´t stay for too long and decided not to walk on the glacier here, especially as we have already done that in NZ. Instead we did a tour of the glacier where you walk around some of it and go on a boat trip. The glacier was amazing! It is HUGE! Makes the one in NZ look tiny. The glacier also moves 2 meters a day so it is constantly changing. You can hear it moving and cracking which is fantastic. Then, all of a sudden a massive bit of it will fall into the lake. I have never seen anything like that before and loved it. It all happens so quickly though, means there is no chance to take a photo and if you blink you will miss it!

The boat ride was funny as the boat was fairly busy and for some reason people got a bit overexcited and were pushing each other out of the way to get a photo as soon as we got to the glacier. Ian was right in the thick of it holding onto his spot but I was at the edge laughing at everyone! The funny thing was that we spent an hour at the glacier but after the initial 15 minutes most people went inside the boat so we could pretty much go anywhere to get a good photo anyway! Stupid tourists!!

We left for El Chalten after the glacier as El Chalten has better walking and is much cheaper (no national park fee). It was my birthday on the day we travelled which was annoying (even though it was only 3 hours) as I said I didn´t want to go on a bus on my birthday. Ian made the trip better though by giving me some chocolate cake, and letting me eat both slices! We stayed in a nice hotel this night and took the day easy as the weather was pretty bad. Found a lovely pub called La Cervecia where we spent most of the day and then went back to for dinner! It was so nice and was very sad when we had to leave it!

We spent the next two days doing some walking. On the first day we went to Lake Capri and to the waterfall. The weather was still a bit rubbish so we were walking in loads of wind and the view from Lake Capri wasn´t that great. The following day we woke up to blue skies and so decided to walk to Lake Torre. The walk was quite difficult and very long but the lake was worth it! It was so beautifal and the blue skies were around all day so we had fantastic views! We were so lucky.

After El Chalten we made our way to the end of the World - Ushuaia. This was another day and a half of travelling made annoying by the fact that we had to wait in El Calafate between 9pm and 3am! Luckily our hostel said we could hang around there again and we treated ourselves to some amazing lamb and lovely red wine for dinner to prepare ourselves for the jouney! They have BBQ restaurants here where they roast a whole lamb over an open fire for the entire afternoon. It is amazing! The lamb mealts in your mouth. So good!!

The jouney to Ushuaia was funny as we had to get on a boat, leave Argentina, go into Chile and then go out of Chile and back into Argentina! We get to do the same thing on the way out of here too.

We have been really lazy in Ushuaia. Yesterday we were recoverying from the journey to get here so just walked around town, sorted out our next bit of the trip and that was about it! Today we did a boat trip into the Beagle channel. Saw the lighthouse, sealions, some birds and some more penguins. Have seen so many penguins now but I still love them! The boat was good and really smooth which was good.

Ushuaia is ok, but not as nice as El Chalten or Calafate. It is really touristy and the shops are really expensive. I had my first submarine here - which is where you get given a cup of hot milk and you melt chocolate into it. It is so good! And what you need to warm yourself up! Lots of people come here to do cruises into Antartica. I wanted to do one but the season has finished now. Probably a good thing as even a lastminute deal is about US$3k each!

The next bit of our trip is going to be a bit random as we have decided to take a ferry/cargo ship up the Chilian Florelands. We have to get a bus all day tomorrow from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, then another bus the next day to Puerto Natales where we get a ferry to Puerto Montt (I hope all these names are correct!). We are going to be on a cargo boat for 4 days I think. This could either be one of the best things we do or one of the worst, depending on lots of things like weather and boredom! It isn´t a tourist ship and you don´t get off at all! I have no idea what to expect but am looking forward to it!

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