Well the alarm went off at around 06.20 which is just after midnight as far as we are concerned and far to early to raise one head.
Anyway we did and hit the shower and had our packaged breakfast as the main restaurant would not open until at least 08.30 and so we shared half a yoghurt and bit on some biccies. Not great but will do.
We departed for the Airport on time and our previous days recce paid off and we arrived some 35 minutes later and parked the hired car and walked in to the terminal which was pretty much empty apart from a couple of cleaners and one young lady behine the Airline check in desk.
No problem she said your seats are allocated but the flight is late…. Oh well and we went for a croissant in the café with a coffee and not bad really.
On the way to the Airport there are many double yellow lines in the centre of the road which I guess are the equivalent our double white but there is a slight difference in that a double white says do not cross or you will go to jail but in Argentina it means its ok to overtake and try to avoid oncoming traffic if you can, and this practise was very noticeable on the way to the airport. The flight departed 45 minutes late and was an old B737 with the old type of water flushing toilets, boy those were the days, but we arrived in El Calafate some one hour and forty minutes later and it was windy as the aircraft was all over the place.
They scan incoming hand carry here for some strange reason and if your check in cases are too big for the X-Ray machine then they wave you by, what this is all about I have no idea and I asked our driver and he said it’s a disaster when more than one flight arrives and nobody has been stopped anyway in the last few years???
The driver was supposed to advise on trips but seemed more inclined to sell us his own personal driver services at twice the price of an organised trip and so we told him we would call him which we did not.
The Hotel is on the side of yet another lake and the room overlooks the lake and although the room is warm, to open the window would mean that everything would leave the room with the strong winds, let’s hope the winds drop.
We took the Hotel shuttle in to town, well I say town but it is much more of a hick town really and with dogs everywhere as usual chasing cars and causing general havoc.
We had a light lunch and then found a travel agent who could fix our glacier visits at less than half the cost the driver wanted and then headed back to the Hotel for a quiet afternoon as we were both a little jaded after early morning.
We tried the Hotel restaurant tonight an both had the Patagonian Lamb stew which was really good indeed and of course washed down with water and and another red substance.
The trip tomorrow, would you believe leaves at 07.15 and just in time for a quick brekkie but we need to take lunchtime food as the boat we are on for some reason only sells drinks and not food and an eight day without food will not be good.
The wind is still blowing like crazy as I write this at 10.30 pm and we shall try to open the window to see what happens and if there is no blog tomorrow it means we are in the lake somewhere holding on to chairs and bed and perhaps two red suitcases.
No photos today… but hope to have some nice shots of the Glaciers tomorrow
No photos today… but hope to have some nice shots of the Glaciers tomorrow
