El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier..

Crashing glacier..
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We  flew from BA to El Calafate and were informed by our hostel that is was actually a public holiday in Argentina, when asked why we were told "they won some war or something...". Upon arrival at the airport we were greeted with the holiday rush alright,what seemed to be a school tour and parents were of course in our queue,just as well we were in good time.Our flight was via Ushuaia which is the most southern most city in the world. It was certainly an eventful landing, as we were admiring the views below we wondered if we were going straight for the water as the landing strip is literally just off the coast!We eventually arrived safely in El Calafate and made our way into town with a new friend, a Japanese girl travelling on here own with no spanish and very little english.We got to our hostel which had chalets across from the main building and was definitely one of our nicer hostels.We booked our trip to the Perito Moreno glacier for the next day and just wandered around the town buying some essentials.

Having a well earned scotch on the rocks..!
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Up bright and early the next day to book our bus ticket out of El Calafate to Puerto Natales. We made our way down to the town and were followed by about ten dogs who proceeded to follow us all the way around town. We were getting funny looks but could not shake them off. In general in Argentina there are dogs roaming the streets everywhere!!We boarded our bus to Perito Moreno National Park and spent a few hours wandering around getting pictures from all angles and watching the pieces of the glacier collapse into the water. The noise was similar to an explosion. We were then transported to the lake where we boarded a catamaran and sailed out the lake towards the glacier, the views were unbelievable.We eventually landed on the Island and were escorted to the glacier by our guide for the trek. We had to put 'crampons' (ice grips..)onto our shoes an away we went up the glacier. This was a brilliant and surreal experience and would strongly recommend it to anybody. After a four hour trek we were rewarded near the end with scotch on the rocks and chocolates so needless to say we mastered the final hurdle with much ease..!! We headed back to our hostel in El Calafate quite content and packed up our stuff for the next leg of our trip..Puerto Natales.