We picked the girls up from their hostel and it turns out they had an awful nights sleep and the hostel was basically a pile of shit. However today was not going to another one of those days, so we spoke about the days plan. There were a few options but decided to head to the glacier where you can do a 2 hour walk for free along it and then drive up to the national park. The other plan was to see the Penguins which would of been amazing, however it was a rip off and with our trip almost over we just could afford it.

 

The next day we started early and then we had finally reached our most southern destination, Ushuaia. In fact It's is the most southernly city in the whole world, where we stood below 99.999% of the human population. I get very excited about this fact as its not something someone does every day.

Today is a new day. Were all wearing clean clothes, Mandi had her cyst drained and Dusty has finally had the clean she needed inside and out. The next destination is just shy of 10 hours away and we are ready to rock and roll...

 

Things are just getting rediculous. Last night was bloody freezing and for some reason everyone's stuff is soaking. Oh wait yep, I remember why, it only decided to snow the whole night didn't it. My first reaction to when I saw the snow was instantly snowman!, but that was before I realised it meant we couldn't do any of the treks we had planned and there wasn't a chance we were spending the day in a dripping wet tent. We had also left all our crackers out because the wine got to us again, and now all the packets were open and being scoffed down by a giant hawk and his mates. 

 

Before we had even arrived at the park, the scenery began to change from flat landscapes to mountains met by bright turquoise lakes. We stopped by one lake for a quick toilet brake, but soon realised that it was surrounded by perfect skimming stones, which meant only one thing...A skimming competition. Rock skimming had become a thing back in Bariloche, with me and Reanne absolutely killing it with our perfect skims and outstanding technique. Where as Mandi and Jordan just basically sucked ass and were generally shit. This is also totally not true. Me and Reanna could not skim stones for love nor money and so the competition was handed over to the professionals. The categories came under how many bounces and the longest distance, and things became pretty intense when the pressure was put on. However Jord won in distance and Mandi in bounces, so both had the title of Patagonia's undefeated skimming champion. 

 

Today is the day were going back to Chile! Ok Argentina, not that I'm not enjoying you, but there is something about Chile that just makes me happy. I loved it from the moment we arrived and to be honest, so far Arg, you've been pretty challenging to say the least.

 

After our previous day from hell had taken up so much time it meant we had to miss out on the glaciers of El Chalten. So we made our way to our next destination, El Calafate. It's actually just around the corner and also has a glacier, so it wasn't too bad. I do feel like Patagonia had really tested us though, kind of to see if we were worth seeing its natural treasures. Did we pass, hell fucking right we did.

Sometimes you forget where you are when your camping. Especially considering we set up camp in the dark, so we had no idea what our surroundings were. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I popped my head out in the morning. I guess driving through vastness and waking up as the sun rises over it are defiantly two different feelings. 

 

As we had spent the last 2 days trying to get south but not really covering much ground, today was a day that would basically be spent in the car until we reached our next point. Cuevas de las Manos (The cave of hands).

 

The next morning we woke up and made some scrambled eggs on toast before packing up and hitting the road. Our first stop wasn't too far. About an hour after driving, we came up to the town of El Bolson. There is a nice 40 minute walk to do called Bosque Tallado, which is about 15km out of town and at the top of Cerro Piltriquitron. We didn't do this as we wanted to get as far south as possible, we did however drive to the top of the mountain to look over the town and check out Rio Azul with the mountains in the background. Not a bad view.

 

Today is a new day and everyone is super pumped, because it's road trip day !!!. We went to the bank that we knew we could get money from, paid for the car and then headed to the shops for some extra supplies. As I mentioned before, me and jord didn't have any camping matts or a gas fire as we were just roughing it between hitch hikes, but considering this was going to be our home for the next 2 weeks and we would potentially be camping in the same temperatures as Antarctica, we figure this kind of stuff was going to be essential. We had checked out the camping shops but they were crazy expensive (it's like Argentina just put the prices on their stuff, so you don't buy their stock), so we found a local hardware store. I'm glad we found it because they literally had everything in there and sold them at normal human being prices. They also had second hand mats which they gave us to for almost nothing, and gave us a big discount of the total price. It was already past lunch time, but at least today we knew we would be on the road. All that was left to get was 2 weeks supply of camping food and with that, we packed up the boot and began our road trip down south.

Ok things have got exciting and a little crazy. We have decided to hire a car and road trip the south of Argentina ! Mandi and Reanne went to check out Chiloe, whilst me and Jordan headed to Bariloche as we had a workaway there, and also to find a car for our new adventure.