Well it has been a couple of action packed weeks since the last time I wrote and hope everything is good back wherever you are.
After leaving Puerto Madryn, we took an apparent 16 hour bus journey to El Calafate. However, the bus company that we used were probably the worst one of the trip so far - within 50 kilometres the bus had broken down twice and it made an unexpected 7 hour stop in Trelew (haven't heard of it? Neither had I). At 2am, they decided that everyone could have a free meal of bread and chicken bones, which went down like a ton of lead bricks. What made matters worse was that we were the only tourists on the bus and had absolutely no idea of what the situation was and because of travelling down to the south and being warned not to say that we were from England (as people would change their attitudes to you, due to the Falklands and all), my Spanish in an Australian accent was quite difficult to perfect. Eventually, after 36 hours and a stop off in Rio Gallegos (again not much to mention about that place), we arrived in El Calafate at about 2am and finally made it into our hostel (after being chased by a pack of wild dogs).
The entire purpose of going to El Calafate was to go to the Moreno Glacier and we hired a car with a couple of friends we had met in Buenos Aires for the journey. The Moreno Glacier is an advancing glacier that is 15 kilometres long, 6 kilometres wide and 50 metres high, which advances at a rate of 2 metres per day in the centre. Obviously, it was extremely impressive and the sounds of the ice crashing down frequently was unbelievably loud (one of my personal highlights so far).
After spending a couple of days in El Calafate, we moved onto to Puerto Natales in Chile. The only reason that this town exists is as a stop-off point on the way to Torres Del Paine National Park and after spending a night there and renting some gear (tent, stove) and buying food for the 3 day trek (at ridiculously over-inflated prices), we went to Torres. Over three days we walked about 40 kilometres up some unbelievably hilly terrain and had real issues, as we under-estimated the amount of food that we required. Unless walking is your thing, it wouldn't be something that I could ever recommend, as even though the views were beautiful - the reward for the hard work didn't seem to be that great. I'm sure some of you ramblers would disagree..
From Puerto Natales, we had to go back to El Calafate for a night and then had a 45 hour bus journey from El Calafate to Bariloche (via Rio Gallegos (again) and Comodoro Rivadaria). By the end of the bus journey, I felt like I would be glued to the bus - however, it was quite comfortable and I managed to finish another book on the way. We arrived in Bariloche on Friday morning and checked into our hostel (which is extremely strange - we have a log cabin with a couple of bathrooms, but the place has lots of slides in it made out of wood). Bariloche is set in the Lake District and is surrounded by beautiful crystal blue lakes, the Andes mountains and could be the nearest place to Switzerland in South America (wonderful chocolates and fondues are all the rage here). Yesterday, we went paragliding from the top of a 1500 metre high hill. The views were amazing and I loved every minute of it - did a few stunts and even drove for a while on the way down. Superb fun and something to maybe get into when I get back to the British summer. Today, we hired a couple of bikes and went on a 65 kilometre bike ride around the area, which was beautiful and saw some beautiful scenery around(even though my neck and bum are killing me as I am writing the e-mail).
And, that brings everything up to date. We have now been in Argentina for a month and I am absolutely loving it - we've only got a couple of weeks left here, so I'm off to get my 500 gram steak for 2 pounds in a moment. It has been really cool staying in the hostels here and meeting literally hundreds of people and still having a superb time (even though I know the end is approaching far too quickly).
