I see a Glacier

---

Our bus journey from Ushuaia to El Calafate was going to take a detour back through Rio Gallegos, as apparently there is no direct route. The ride back to Rio Gallegos went pretty smoothly through the four border crossings- no nonsense of having to take all our packs off to go through various control points like last time on the way down. However, Luke was extremely disappointed that he had to throw away his new packet of olives, and we had to mess around declaring our asparagus cup-a-soups. Talk about hard feelings. The Chileans certainly don't like people having to pass through their country to get into Argentina. So four more passport stamps later we were at the final hurdle and on the home straight just forty minutes from Rio Gallegos when something had to go wrong. We were transferred without reason onto another bus where we waited for around 4 hours while there was a 'problem' with our new driver's passport and he couldn't get through immigration. The teasing smile on the face of our previous driver as he spun away had told us something was up. We eventually arrived in Rio Gallegos around 10pm, just 5 hours later than planned, the jouney having taken 17 hours. However, considering that we were one of the first buses to even make it into Chile with all of the strikes, we had a pretty good journey. When we arrived our connection to El Calafate was waiting for us (the passengers already on the bus weren't looking too happy) so we were thrown our packs and hurried along. Katie managed to run inside and grab a pack of Lays and some M&Ms for the journey, as the only thing we had had all day was 'powdered egg soup' which we had got at a time-warped social club we stopped by in Chile.

We arrived in El Calafate around 2am and caught a taxi to Che Lagarto, where we had scooped a bargain of a deal. We had been given a 20% off voucher back in Paraty for the next time we used one of their hostels, so we had been planning to stay there anyway. We decided to make a reservation online a few days previous and had seen they had a January deal of 4.99 USD a night. Bargain. Obviously we had booked. When we arrived to the hostel luck was on our side again as they had overbooked the dorm, so we were given a private room with en suite for the same price. This was the second time this had happened at Che Lagarto. Che Lagarto was a really lovely hostel inside a pretty building; it had a really modern eating area, a kitchen, and an open fire.

We went to bed with the intention of having a rest the following day, as we had spent 21 hours on a bus, and the night directly previous to that had had a 4 hour sleep in a tent in minus figures without the correct gear. However, we woke pretty early (around 10am which is early by Argentina) and headed into town. The town was similar to Ushuaia with it's beautiful architecture; their preference for timber structures and interesting shaped houses was evident everywhere. As we had found earlier on in Argentina, we were still not too late to take a day trip. The weather was warm and perfect for what we had come to El Calafate to see, the Puerto Moreno glacier. We decided to book onto the 2pm bus which was a completely last minute decision, with little time to spare. This ended with a sprint down to a local shop to purchase a boxed lunch and we were first properly introduced to the Patagonian love of freshly grated carrot.

We arrived at the national park after a quick bus swap somewhere in the middle of nowhere. There seems to be some kind of operation going on in Patagonia where all small bus companies herd the tourists together to one spot where they are loaded onto one big bus. Effiecient for them, and means you don't get ripped off- prices for the same journey are the same, no matter where you buy your ticket. So we arrived to the park and bought our 'alien price' tickets, and this time stayed on the bus to the viewing point (unlike at the Tierre del Fuego national park where we had been so eager that we got off the bus early and ended up doing a hike we hadn't planned on). The glacier was really something different. Neither of us had seen a glacier on this scale before, it was huge and so beautiful, aqua blues and bright white, really impressive in the sunlight. Because it had been a sunny day this was a particularly good time to visit if you were looking to be awestruck. Huge cracking sounds enveloped the whole sky then indescribable sizes of ice would fall away from the glacier and hit the surface of the freezing water. The effect was really amazing and we were both surprised at how impressive the sight was.

We were in a bit of a puzzle as to where we would go next. We decided to spend the following day relaxing and booking a bus ticket to our next destination. We agreed on El Bolson, a renowned hippy town just south of Bariloche in the lake district of Argentina, where the scenery was said to be green and beautiful. As well as making this big decision we used our day doing one more notable thing- we had Argentinian ice cream which was the best ice cream we have EVER tasted. Lemon pie and banana were the favourites of the day. As we had only booked 2 nights at Che Lagarto, we had had to move hostels for our third night in El Calafate. Fortunately the hostel across the road had availability so that went quite smoothly. We went out for a pizza libre (all you can eat) and headed to bed, excited for our next destination the following day.

---