ice, ice baby continued....

Very good pasta dinner, now where did Ben get to?

From Bariloche we flew down to El Calafate, we got the 1st bus to the airport at 6.40am, it was a little creepy being the 1st people there!

Arrived here at about 13.30 and had a well earned siesta! Then had a wonder around town. Booked our bus out and an tour called the 'mini ice trek' for when we returned.

The following day we went to Estancia Cristina, the ranch that we booked ages ago at fairly significant cost, but totally worth it!

You can only reach the Estancia by boat across Lago Argentino, the boat does a slight detour to the iceburgs from the Upsala glacier which are very beautiful. The place itself is pretty much a 5 star hotel with all food (except alcoholic drinks) and activities included in a stunningly beautiful mountain setting by the lake.

So we did a couple of lovely guided hikes to a view point of the Upsala glacier and up one of the smaller hills, a short walk to a waterfall and a couple of horseriding trips. Ben's first time on a horse, and yet I was the one to fall off, not fair! I am fine tho, the horse fell and winded me, but no other damage. Oh, and of course we ate a lot!

Back in El Calafate today we went to the Perito Moreno glacier, it is really amazing, you can get really close to it so it is the main attraction here. We did the 'mini ice trek' where you get to walk on the ice with crampons for about 1 1/2hrs which was really cool. But even if we hadn't the size of the thing is just amazing, you can't get any perspective on the size of things as it is so big. I shall attempt to add a picture of the North face below. The ice is 40-50m high and about 5km wide here! We were about 800m from the ice when we took the picture.

Pretty exhausted now so we'll head to bed. Tomorrow we go to Torres del Paine to do a 4 day trek so will let you know how that went when we get to Santiago!

Thank you for all the news from home, it's great to hear what you are all up to.

Lots of love,
Kathryn and Ben