Patagonia Park Plaza Kempinsk El Calafate

... Not strays or pavement specials, but well looked after healthy mutts, hanging around as if they own the place - just like the yobs in London!

One of the constant highlights of this trip has been and will be the people we meet. Theres something very special about meeting strangers on a bus or in a hostel, hardly knowing their names, sharing a couple of bottles of great wine and swapping stories and having a laugh then parting as great friends a ...

... two had featured prominently in many of my recent dreams, making me realize how much I missed traveling and being around them. Perhaps these dreams were triggered by my time spent with Mary at Brad and Esther's in Sydney and the glimpse of home life that provided. I very much look forward to double dating with my sister and friends when I get back home. Trekking the W Circuit: PN Torres del Paine Torres del Paine is one of the ...

... in a very grotty room (Paris Hotel), which we vacated after the first night. Did find a good place to eat though (Restaurant Roco - absolutely heaving with people (must have been 200+ ...)). Desperately tried to find redeeming features ... to load a photo or two, but had real difficulty as you will see! Star attraction: the cyber café!

... worried that I had packed waaaaaay too many winter clothes but let me tell you that we have worn almost all of them (today´s temp, after taking into considration the wind chill factor was a lovely MINUS 4 dergrees!!). Every one has implied that we have brought the cold weather with us as it was 22 degrees last week!! Sam keeps going crook because he is sick of having to put on and take off his coat and hat every time he leaves the house! And as for the ...

Last night we were supposed to get some money out after dinner, however as dinner proved to be a bit of a drama and rather expensive (but very good), we forgot all about it.

Which meant that we had to wake up extra early today to walk down into town to get some cash out, so that we could pay for the glacier tour we were doing today, D'OH!

The 7am alarm was brutal, you should NEVER have to wake up that early on your birthday. It should be law or ...

... what can you do. the woman in charge told us there was going to be a party there that night with music until 5 in the morning. yeah. so we asked for a spot far from that. that night, however, we didn´t even hear a party, so i´m not sure if there really was one. the next day we grabbed a bus to the center of town. ours, however, must have been the one that takes the long route. 25 minutes ...

... Bolson with us, another Israeli hot spot we are told. How do they all know where each other is? They seem to like hippie areas, nature and pot. Israelis both individuals and in the large groups have become fascinating to us and we can´t seem to stop observing them and asking them questions and we are even considering going to Israel to take a look for ourselves, we have met so many. The young adventurers seem to dream of freedom for the whole time they are doing ...

... big town on the route. Half the passengers got off here and were replaced by new people. I was dozing at the time, not quite asleep but nowhere near awake either. At this point, one of the new passengers (Male, about 4-5 years old and very loud) decided to start running up and down the aisle yelling at the top of his lungs. Everyone, including his very embarassed mother was not very impressed, but the little guy was determined. That probably lasted about 10 minutes ...

... of the estancia. Then Boo and I took a 1 hour horse ride while the Spaniards hiked through the hills. It was a lovely setting. The estancia is in the national park on a branch of Lago Argentina. After the horse ride, there was a sheep shearing demonstration that the shearer did with manual shears. How he managed not to chop off parts of the sheep in the process of shearing is a mystery to me. After the sheep shearing ...