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Making our way down through the south of Argentina is absolutely beautifull. Spent a lot of time in the car though as distances over here are enormous. It was great though passing through all this roughed countryside - you can be driving for hours without having a car pas you. Travelling in this part of South America is not done very quickly neither as most of the roads are dirt roads.

Perito Moreno Glacier
This glacier, next to El Calafate is an absolute miracle. An enormous river of ice comes right at you, with big chunks of dark blue ice falling of constantly in the icy cold water. Iīve never ever seen anything like it!!
Now weīre at the end of the world - my sister Merel and Kristianne started there long trip home today. My mom, dad, Pepijn & Cathy will catch a flight back to Rio Gallegos tomorrow and make our way back up the country via the East coast this time. God, Iīm really, really hungry now - so much more to write but what do you know... the stomach should be filled first. From the freezing end of the world, I wish you all a beautifull day. Floris

We spent the night in Mendoza and the next day we hired a huge four wheel drive and set off south. Our first stop was San Rafael - we spent 2 days in the Saint Catherine of Sienna convent because my cousin is the head nun of this particular order. It was actually fun as the nuns and priests looked after us. The priests even put on a comedy night for us in English which was truely great. From here we continued south to Bariloche for 2 nights. It is a truely beautiful city and the mountians and lakes are so picturesque.

In a southernly direction still we travelled another 8 hours in the car to the town of Perito Moreno where we crashed for the night. The next morning we headed off again to El Calafate for two nights to see the Moreno Glacier - one of the earthīs few advancing icefields. It was a specatular sight and the explosions of huge chunks breaking off while we were watching was amazing. Still south we travelled to Rio Tubio where it snowed quite heavilly (approx 30cm over night) and we discovered that the tread on the tyers of our four wheel drive was nonexistant. So it was probably a sight for all the locals to see us all out trying to push the car up the hill to our accomadation on the boarder of Chile. Here we left our car and crossed back into Chile to Puerto Natales to see the Torres del Paine National Park. Unforunately, it was over cast so we couldnīt fully see the famous 3 granite pillars soaring almost vertically above the Patagonian steppe, luckily these are only one of the features of this miniature Alaska of shimmering turquoise lakes, roaring creeks and rivers, cascading waterfalls, sprawling glaciers, dense forests and abundant wildlife. We were even lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a puma which is a very rare occurance.

Back into Argentina and still further south to Rio Gallegos to catch a flight to Tierra del Fuego and the city of Ushuaia which is known as the 'Worldīs End' because it is the most southern city in the world. So hicking up to see yet another glacier when it was snowing was not my wisest idea especially when it was so shroaded in cloud that it wasnīt visiable anyway. Otherwise the end of the world was a pretty cool place to be. We even got up close and personal on a boat trip which was returning an Emporer Penguin who had lost itīs way and ended up on the streets of Ushuaia - which made a great photo shoot. On the second day my sister and Kristianne headed back to work in Holland so now we were 5. After another 2 nights we headed back to the mainland. Arriving in Rio Gallegos we were met by a flat tyre on the car which turned out to be a real dillema as the jack wouldnīt lift the car high enough to get the tyre off, so we were busy for hours with bricks and all sorts of stuff until we could get the spare tyre on. Of course being a hire care the spare had big chunks out of is so we anly trusted it as far as the nearest service station where we had the tyre fixed. Finally we were back on the road heading north to Caleta Olivia were we would spend the night before heading up the coast to Punta Tombo visit a Magellanic penguin reserve. where we would spend two nights. On our day of rest we headed off to Peninsula Valdes to see the sea lions. Well, enough about all that. Itīs time to get back to Chile!!