El Calafate is a three hour flight south of Buenos Aires and when coming into land at the airport the Patagonian scenery looks very stark and you get a real feeling of remoteness.

Once landed we collected a hire car and made our way into the town itself and our accommodation, the Miyazato Inn, which was more B&B than hotel and located a short walk from the actual centre of town. The owners were really friendly and we have stayed here again on a further visit to El Calafate in 2013 so it must have been pretty good.

El Calafate is a little hub of busyness and the setting off point for seeing the Perito Moreno Glacier which is about 80km (about a 1 hour drive) away within the Los Glaciares National Park. The town has everything you need from banks, restaurants to suite all tastes, shops, supermarkets, bars, coffee shops and of course great scenery too. It is a nice, but just a bit touristy, stopping off point in a fairly remote part of the world.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is however the key draw and nothing can quite prepare you for seeing this massive ice sheet that seems within touching distance. You can hear it moving with large cracks that sound like gunshots going off around the valley as the ice compresses somewhere in the massive flow. As it is constantly moving you are always looking for pieces falling off the front edge, although as it is three miles (5km) wide and 240ft (74m) above the waters surface that is a lot of ice to be watching. The whole length of the glacier as it comes off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field is 19 miles (30km) long.

The Perito Moreno Glacier still ranks as the best natural wonder of the world that we have seen - we spent hours there just watching, listening and waiting. If you get a chance to go you really should do so as you will not be disappointed!

Our next stop would be Ushuaia, a further one and a quarter hours south of El Calafate by plane with us travelling with Aerolineas Argentina on this next leg. The end of the world, here we come!