Day 26 - El Calafate.

6am start, and that’s after four hours of sleep. The problem with sleeping in ‘the cave’ is that it’s right next door to the kitchen, and the three obnoxious British lads kept making a racket for hours after the party.

Give Bill all the food left over from the hike, lest my contraband raisins and almonds be confiscated at the Argentina border. Chilean border guards are more strict; last time, when I got off the bus at Los Antiguos – Argentina’s cherry capital – and purchased a kilo of cherries before trying to walk across the border to Chile Chico, the border guards pinched my dried chilli flakes (brought all the way from the UK), even though there’s no way they’d contaminate the local fruit and veg, and gave me the choice of either eating the cherries or throwing them. So I methodically ate my way through a kilo of the best cherries I’ve had since my Soviet childhood.

The border crossing is uneventful; it seems to have gotten simpler since last time - there’s no paperwork to fill in and they don’t check our luggage at all.

Argentina is brighter, but there’s snow on the ground. I’m completely unprepared for the cold: my fleece-lined trousers and four top layers offer little protection from the icy blasts of wind.

The road to El Calafate runs mostly through the pampas that stretch as far as the eye can see – flat plains, covered with hardy tufts of grass and dark bushes. When I was banned from the United States in 2005, I was absolutely devastated, because roaming the wide open spaces of the Midwest was an addiction that I sated on an annual basis. Then I came to Chile and Argentina and I fell in love with the seemingly limitless wilderness there, the feeling of space and freedom you get when you take in the pampas. I can imagine galloping through them for days without seeing a single soul.

The sunrise is spectacular, with the dark clouds seemingly lit with red flames from underneath. The bus stops suddenly so that we can have a look at the two condors that have landed near the road. These ones are quite old: there are white feathers in their wings. On the ground, they look like what they are - huge vultures – but in flight, they are magnificent. One of my favourite childhood books was ‘Captain Grant’s Children’ by Jules Verne; after finding a partially-dissolved message in a bottle, a motley crew of adventurers set off from Britain to find a shipwrecked boat captain – the father of two teenagers. Their adventures take them across Patagonia, and one of the teenagers is knocked unconscious and carried off by a condor. That actually isn’t possible, because their feet are like chicken feet: they can’t grip or carry anything heavy.

We pull into El Calafate, a tourist hub on the banks of a massive glacial lake. I’ve been here before, and I’ve already visited the Perito Moreno Glacier, so this is purely a business stop. I’m here to catch the bus to the less glamorous Comodoro Rivadavia (or ‘Condom River’, as two of my friends call it), in order to catch a twice-weekly bus to Coyhaique in Chile, which in turn will take me up the Carretera Austral. However, since I’m here with a day to spare, I’ll make a day trip to El Chaltén, hiking centre extraordinaire and home to my friend Zoe. But today is purely for rest and catching up on my notes and correspondence.

Check in into Hostal Buenos Aires, then hit the main drag for late lunch. Settle on the old classic: ‘Casimiro Bigua’ – a posh steak house. There’s no better lunch than grilled sweetbreads and lamb intestines. The portion is so big that I shan’t have to eat dinner. Find a bank (luckily here there’s no danger of cards being swallowed because they’re never inserted all the way into the machine), get some pesos, buy a bus ticket to ‘Condom River’, confirm El Chaltén departures. Even though I don’t have to write about Calafate, I’m still in research mode and keep an eye out for any changes since last year. Am hoping I’ll get to cover half of the country guide to Chile again, so this will all be useful.

The rest of the day is spent typing, putting my notes in order, Skyping family members to try and persuade them to forge my signature on the postal vote (they won’t) and to hear about the Gordon Brown gaffe, Skyping Subo for a catch-up chat, and doing a Skype/video call to Mike in Lima. Remind myself that this is the kind of stuff I used to read about in Soviet science fiction novels. Mike happens to have a guest over – Captain Carlos, with whom I was rather smitten two years ago – and who will be leaving on his ten-year around the world odyssey before I make it to Lima. It’s the same tanned face, though there’s more grey in his moustache now. Chat to him briefly.

Early night to make up for last night and because the bus to El Chaltén departs early. There are two buses to El Chaltén and they both leave for, and depart El Chaltén at exactly the same time. What’s the logic here? Why not stagger the departures?