Hello from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world... We just arrived, after 19 hours on the bus, well, two buses... and we had to have a beer, in the most southerly (everything is prefaced with this here so that´s the last time I´ll use it, until the next time) Irish pub in the world.

We haven´t explored yet so before I get down to the Tierra del Fuego stuff (yup, we crossed the Straits of Magellan... they were straight) I just want to mention the Parque Nacional Glaciares.

From El Calafate we did a couple of trips, the first to the Perito Moreno glacier. This is where the Argentine president brings heads of state when he wants to impress them.

Numbers don´t do it justice but here they are anyway. The glacier is 5km wide and 70m high... that´s a 12 floor building. It´s 30km long which makes it bigger than Buenos Aires. It isn´t retreating, quite the opposite, it´s advancing and losing 2m per day... this means that all the time there are massive chunks falling off. We stood on the mirador (if you haven´t followed the link, do so. The mirador is on the peninsula opposite the glacier) and watched for a few hours. You´d see a piece and think, that´s not so big, then hear a huge crash as it hit the water and realize, it´s the size of a car, or a bus, or a house. Every two years or so, the glacier forms a dam between the two lakes and in March it usually bursts... we saw it on TV earlier in the year but didn´t realize the scale. The photo is taken, without telephoto, from almost half a mile from the glacier.

Unbelievable.

Then, just as we were about to leave, three pieces of deep blue ice the size of trident submarines surfaced, just popped up twenty metres into the air and bounced around for a while eliciting much ooohing and aaahing.
  ¶ 4:02 AM