Glacierzzzzzzz

My dear sweet friends and family, you should email us more often. Well, me, anyway. I know I´m off gallivanting all day, running into half a lake full of flamingos, partying with new friends called Guido and Enrique and all that business. But in fact, as wonderful and startling and lovely as America del Sur has proved thus far, it seems that Nothing Compares 2 U, and there is nothing more depressing than spending twenty four hours doing incredibly fascinating and enrapturing things and then returning to an inbox full of nothing with no one to tell about it. And when I am sitting on a bus, or waiting in an interminable queue for the internet at a hostel with selfish people pushing in front of me, it is you that I entertain thoughts of.

Today we are in El Calafate, in Argentina. Tomorrow night we will be in Chile! Don´t worry, though, we are returning to Argentina for more adventures soon. I´m not sure what the internet facilities are like in Puerto Natales, our first stop, and we are planning to do a hike that takes about a week. So if you don´t hear from us, we are probably amongst the lagos and montañas, most likely replicating the opening scene from The Sound of Music.

Today we saw the Perito Moreno glacier! Far out, it was a big deal. But I don´t really know how to explain it to you. Maybe I won´t. Ro might though? You can ask her to if you like.

El Calafate is a very odd town. It is cold! After the mid-thirties temperatures of BsAs, this is thrillingly novel. Today I wore a singlet and a thermal shirt and a long-sleeved shirt and a merino jumper and a padded jacket! Not for very long though. Only while I ate lunch at the glacier. The main area of town is trying quite hard to be Aspen, I think, and indeed there are many charming woodsy chalet-style buildings and A-frame homes and chic French girls in quilted trenches and hoops earrings wandering around. But yesterday we went for a walk through town and wound up on the far end. It was sort of a wasteland, especially when you take into account how dry and stark El Calafate is in first place. There was garbage everywhere. We went into a general store and I was worried that a man was going to come out and serve us with a shotgun.

It stays light until around 10 in the evening.

On the aeroplane we watched a television ¨Just For Laughs Gags¨ which you may recall was made famous by Canadian cartoonist Kate Beaton! It was so good. I have never seen such an elaborately awful piece of television before. I couldn´t stop laughing. The best bit is that there was no sound, so everyone was in the same boat.

This is all I am going to write for now okay! I don´t want to be one of those using computer-for-ages people.

P.S. They seem to like Celine Dion in South America and also I have heard ¨Uptown Girl¨ by Billy Joel twice.