Glacier Watch - Part Two: Perito Moreno.
Managed to hire this absolute bucket of a car right at the end of yesterday (Patagonia seems to be where all the little white cars come to die), so we were up early and away to squeeze in a trip to Perito Moreno glacier before our bus journey to Puerto Natales. I think this car was probably the most rickety, wretched thing i'd ever driven - i think the mud was pretty much holding it together, the door lock bits came off in your hands, the wing mirror was smashed and needless to say power-steering was non-existent! It was just so crap, i was actually quite fond of it, in a root-for-the-underdog kind of way.

So pretty easy and straightforward drive to P.Moreno glacier - its situated in the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, some 85km from El Calafate. This is the second-largest national park in Argentina, extending along the Chilean border for over 170km; almost half of it is covered by ice fields from which 13 glaciers descend into 2 great lakes: Lago Argentino in the southeast and Lago Viedma to the northeast. After driving through what was to become known as Condor Alley, then along the shoreline of Lago Argentino on the Peninsula Magallanes, we reached the car park (not yet quite stuffed full of tourist buses) where we parked up and began the descent down a series of wooden walkways (pasarelas) to see the glacier slightly from above and then, as we got lower, head-on. It was just a truly unforgettable sight - an immense expanse of ice, with deep crevices and folds shaped by the wind and time. You just stood, open-mouthed, watching in awe, listening to the huge roars of the ice moving and cracking, and waiting with baited breath for the next big chunk to go crashing into the icy waters below. I had the camcorder running, as well as taking pics, but singularly failed to capture anything exciting! Caught one little chunklet falling off - sounded far more impressive than it looked!! After 2hrs of patiently waiting, though, our patience was rewarded when this large hunk of ice along a bottom bit of the glacier fell away with a mighty crash! Huzzah! Unfortunately, by this stage, the camcorder had run out of juice and film, but we managed to get a couple of pics!

Condor Alley - much better than Sesame Street!
Defrosted with a cup of tea in the cafe before heading back out for more condor-spotting in Condor Alley, on Ruta 40 towards El Calafate. Also spotted loads of geese called cauquen and some big eagles called caracara.

Phase 2 initiated! On the road to Torres del Paine!
So, back in town by 3pm where we did some food shopping at La Anonima supermarket for the next stage of our trip, before returning to collect and repack our bags at Glacier Libertador hostel and returned the car. Took a taxi to the bus station as had loads of heavy bags and bought our tickets for the El Chalten leg of our journey, just to be on the safe side and have that sorted in advance. Got on bus at 5.30pm, ready for our 5hr journey down through to Chile (whoo-hoo! I get to tick off another country!) and to Torres del Paine. We'd bought supplies for the bus journey and suddenly realised, as we approached the Argentinian/Chilean border that most of the stuff we'd bought to eat on the bus, we wouldnt be able to take across, as no dairy products or fruit was allowed. Thus commenced a rather heroic effort at rapid cheese sandwich and yoghurt consumption to save it all having to go straight in the bin! The border crossing wasn't too bad - first through Argentinian one, then entry into Chile. Fortunately I'd kept the bit of paper i'd been given at BA airport - a couple of girls ahead of us in the queue didnt have theirs and were stuck for ages!

Casa Cecilia
Finally arrived in Puerto Natales 5hrs later, at 10.30pm and walked from the bus drop off point, across a plaza to our hostel, Casa Cecilia. Was a great place and they had sorted out all our TDP arrangements for us, including the nights at the refugios, plus the bus transfer tickets. We went and got some Chilean pesos and Sam also went to find petrol for our camping stove (almost freezing to death in his flip-flops and shorts on the way to the garage!) before having to repack the bags (again!) to take just the stuff we needed for TdP and stowing the rest in Casa Cecilia. Finally collapsed into bed, knackered, at just gone midnight, ready for yet another early start in the morning!