Sleep...

It is now just after 6h. We are at Buenos Airport after having spent the night here trying to sleep on the hard, cold floor, which was, needless to say, not very successful. We finally checked in at about 5h30 only to discover that our plane has been delayed by a few hours further delaying our sleep. At least they gave us some meagre scrappings for breakfast and I get to update my blog!

Sunday was a relatively quiet day which we spent walking around Ushuaia, taking photos and going into the icy waters of the Beagle Channel for a swim (which turned out to be not so cold, pretty much on par with the West Coast of South Africa). We were still having a great time with Kessie, who decided to join us all the way to El Calafate.

Monday morning we had to get up very early to catch our 6h bus, which we almost missed. The 16h bustrip ended up taking 20h. Included in the ticket was: two border crossings, a ferry trip over the ocean, scenery that looks like a mixture between the Karoo and Free State on Valium (it is absolutely flat, with nothing of interest for hours on end, dotted with the occasional sheep, llama or, if you´re lucky, a tree) and moving to another bus because of mechanical problems or something. The trip was not as bad as it sounds, we had good company, and the highlight of the trip was definitely the ferry ride. Midway through the channel we noticed we were being followed. By a pod of Cephalorhynchus commersonii (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerson%27s_Dolphin), a beautiful species of small dolphin! We finally arrived in El Calafate at 02h30 and got in bed at 3h.

Luckily for us, Kessie´s skill as conversationalist and her bubbly personality got us a free ride to the Perito Moreno Glacier (the whole reason for coming) with a very nice Argentinean guy whose name we just couldn´t pronounce. Once again it is difficult to describe the amazing sight of another natural wonder in this continent. The glacier towers 60m above the water and stretches up into the mountains. You can hear the cracks of the ice from far away. After taking LOTS of photos from the view points we got up nice and close by boat and we were lucky enough to see a HUGE chunk of ice break of crashing into the water before us! For more technical information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perito_Moreno_Glacier.

Yesterday the three of us decided to make a big Valentines brunch. Lloyd and me whipped up some french toast (impressing the locals and getting a few weird stares), we had great sandwiches, muesli, orange juice, fresh fruit, yoghurt and, because I finally cracked and had to buy some, coffee. After that we had to take leave of Kessie. Something we weren´t very eager to do, we will surely miss her!

The long roads and travel time are finally taking their toll on my reading material. I have to get something new before crossing into Bolivia!

Now it is almost time to fly to Bariloche and the Argentinean lake district and there get some SLEEP!

Adios,

Neil

P.S. I will post the photos later, this PC doesn´t detect my camera...