25th-28th February 2010

Location: El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina

On the 25th we took the 3 hour flight from Buenos Aires down to Calafate in Patagonia so take the trip to the worlds largest active glacier outside the Arctics, The Perito Moreno Glacier. As soon as we landed we knew we were somewhere unique somewhere so different to anywhere we'd been. Our driver Julio was waiting at the tiny airport to pick us up and drop us at our hotel. We got settled there, played with the friendly hotel dogs for a while and made our way out to explore the town. We went out for more steak at a restaurant Julio had recommended and obviously enjoyed it very much! The next morning we were collected by minibus at 8am and taken to the National Park to visit the glacier. We were blown away by what we saw as well as the wind! The glacier cut its way through two mountains while large chunks of ice occasionally broke off and crashed the 60m ( 18 storeys ) to the freezing blue lake below. We took a boat trip up to the south face of the glacier for some photo ops before getting back on the bus and driving around to the north side to walk the various manmade walkways. It was a spectacular day. The next day we decided that after two straight weeks of activity we were due a down day, which conveniently coincided nicely with the Ireland England six nations match which was being shown on ESPN Argentina! We got some snacks and beers in and flaked out in the hotel room for the afternoon shouting like mad men and women at the screen! Jaysus that Tommy Bowe is some man! Still buzzing we headed out to soak up the post match atmosphere which nobody else in the town seemed aware of but I got the closest thing I could find to a Guinness and saluted the boys in green! That night after some dinner we just had to stop for ice cream at "Tito's"...not because it was particularly well known but because Tito spelled his name with a smiley face instead of an "o" and it was a once in a lifetime photo opportunity that I could not pass up!