El Calafate, Patagonia, S Argentina

The flight from BA was not too bad we had lovely views from the plane window of the changing landscapes. We new that S Argentina would be cold but we didn't expect it to be quite as cold, it was freezing!
We arrived at our hostel which seemed nice enough, we were in a 4 bed dorm with me and Brett being the only ones there. Every one else must have been out on trips as there was no one around.
We headed in to town which was a lovely little town, all wooden shops and bars and cafes. It reminded me of a ski resort. We headed for the shops to buy some thermals and a new woolly hat for Brett as his had been stolen. We headed back to the hostel which was about a 15 mins walk and after a strenuous day of flying and shopping we had an afternoon nap!
When we awoke it was pitch black outside and snowing heavily, when we came back from the shops there wasn't any settled snow. By the time we woke up there was a good few inches. So, like the kids we are we went straight out side to be in the snow. Hours of fun!!!
Our hostel was so quiet it was only us and a couple of others staying there so not the fun hostel we had expected! We booked our excursion for the next day and arranged to change hostels for the following night.
We were picked up the following day bright and early at 7am for our trip to The Upsala, The Spegazzini and the Perito Glaciers. It was freezing and had been snowing all night. We were driven in a tiny van for about an hour to the side of the road where we swapped buses and got on a bigger coach to take us to the boat. We stopped of at about 930am to pay our National Park fee and it was still dark which was very strange, it didn't get light until after 10am. We boarded our boat and headed out towards our glaciers. The scenery around us was just beautiful, we were on an ice blue lake with mountains covered in snow as the back drop. Once we'd been on the water for about half hour we were greeted by some spectacular ice bergs. They were huge and all shapes and sizes...see pics on flickr. We stayed outside for as long as we could to see the ice bergs surrounding us but it was so cold we retreated to the warmth of the in side of the boat!
We arrived at the first Glacier and it was as tall as a ten storey building and bigger then 10 football pitches... amazing! As every thing around us was so huge it was hard to take in the size of every thing surrounding us.
From the first glacier we went on to see three more, each one being as spectacular and amazing as the last. We headed back on about a 2 hour coach trip back to our hostel for our last night there.
We switched hostels the following morning and headed to America Del Sur hostel which was on the other side of town, the moment we walked in we knew it had been a good move, they had heated floor and an open fire, it was fab! We had a lovely double en suite room over looking the town and mountains in the distance. We chilled for the day and began to arrange our transport for the next destination...some thing which we thought would be a simple task we were wrong! Due to the weather lots of the buses and planes had been cancelled. There were no buses to Puerto Madryn (our next stop) for 3 days and no flight leaving. The bus trip was 28 hours from El calafate to Puerto Madryn or an hour on the plane. The flights were so expensive until we were told of a small company that fly once a week. After finding the office in the bus station we enquired and were happy that they had a plane going in 2 days and was pretty reasonable, this was our best option so we booked. As we booked he told us to call on the morning of the flight to make sure it was still going as some times due to the weather they have to cancel the flight, we told him that we hoped it wouldn't be cancelled as there were no buses, we had lots to do and flight to New Zealand booked for a few weeks ahead. He assured us it would be fine.
So, back to the hostel where more and more people were coming back from there trips we arranged a trip for the next day to go on one of the other glaciers called Glacier Moreno, this was a smaller glacier but well worth a visit. So we headed there the following day and again this was another spectacular sights once we finally got there. The staff in the National Park were on strike and wouldn't let us through for three hours so we had three hours to spare in the freezing cold. We entertained ourselves in the snow and wandered round the area. Once we got through the strikers we headed over to the Glacier where we had another boat trip right up to the Glacier and then a walking trip around and on to the Glacier, it was fab!
On arrival back to the hostel one of our friends we had met in Brazil walked in, so nice to see a familiar face. So we spent the evening with her and her new found friends which was fun. She was heading in the same direction as us but she was off on the bus we were flying so we said our goodbyes and arranged to meet at the same hostel in Puerto Madryn.
El Calafate had loads of stray dogs, they used to hang out outside the hostel and pretty much escort you in to town and back again. Brett felt sorry for them and used to save a roll or some food from our meal to feed them on the way back. Making sure that each of the 50 dogs or more got something to eat. When he ran out he went in to the hostel to feed this tiny little dog some crisps. The hostel had an Alsatian and once this poor little dog got to the hostel it was obviously in the Alsatian's territory and was chased all the way back in to town...you'd think this would be where it ended but oh no...brett went out in the thick snow with some food to find the little dog to make sure it was OK. It was OK but didn't learn and followed Brett all the way back to the hostel to be chased out again!
After one day of not doing a lot our departure day came round. The hostel called the airline for us to make sure the flight was going ahead, it was! YAY Great news for us we'd be in Puerto Madryn by the afternoon. So our airport shuttle arrived and we headed fro the airport. we checked in with the same guy that we had booked the flight with back at the bus station and waited for passport control to open (it was a small airport). As we were in the Que to board I kept thinking I heard Clark in the over head announcements Brett told me I was going mad so we carried on in the que, when suddenly the guy we checked in with and bought the tickets from came over to us saying Clark Clark we said yes he said the plane is no longer going to Puerto Madryn. This was news we didn not want to here!! Our option was to get a refund or board the plane and go to BA. There was no way we were going back to BA so we got our luggage and our refund and headed back to the hostel wondering what we were going to do next.
The girls in the hostel were fab and called around for us to try to get us on a bus to Puerto Madryn. So we'd already wasted a few days waiting for the plane and had missed the bus we could have got if we had waited the three days. The bus was 32hours and they could get us on one the next day the only thing was we had to go further south to be able to go North again to Puerto Madryn. We had no choice and booked the bus for the following day!
The following day we boarded the bus for our 32 hour trip ahead...next stop Puerto Madryn...