The drive to El Chalten in Argentina is stunning, the road is very good, the traffic very light and other than the odd guanaco or hare there is not much to worry about as you drive towards the Fitz Roy mountain range.

The mountains seem to be a constant as you approach El Chalten and even from 50 miles or so away it always seems as though 'around the next corner, or over the next brow of a hill' you will arrive into one of Argentina's newest towns.

The location of El Chalten, which is close to the Chilean border, really is picture perfect with the Fitz Roy mountain range towering over the town that sits on a flat piece of land next to the river. The place has a real frontier feel about it. It is a bit ramshackled, many of the buildings seem half finished, and most of the roads are gravel tracks. It does however have a rather relaxed backpacker feel about it - lots of people come here for walking/hiking so boots/fleeces amd waterproof coats are about as dressed up as you will get.

Our hotel, the El Puma, was situated just a few minutes walk north of the main central area of town and proved to be a good base for us.

We had booked on a tour for our first morning in town to the Estancia Cerro Fitz Roy. Andreas Madsen, who was of Danish descent, was one of the early settlers in what is now El Chalten started building this estancia in 1903. His small hand built estancia, where he lived with his wife and children, was made of whatever he could lay his hands upon at the time - the outside was covered in straightened/flattened tin cans (including some from a W M Morrison of Doncaster, possibly of UK supermarket fame?). The building has been restored by his great grandson (who is currently living in France) and the tour really brought to life the toil of these early pioneers. Our guide, Isabel from Walk Patagonia, was an absolute gem and really did make this morning very special indeed.

Modern day El Chalten however is around 50 years old and was built as a way to lay claim to the land by Argentina given the proximity of the border with Chile. We did see a photograph dated from 1968 that showed the town in its infancy and pretty much all that was there was the main road around the central core and a couple of buildings. Given that it was less than ten years since a paved road was built to the town development has been fairly slow.

In the afternoon we walked to the Mirador Condores, where we did see some of these magnificent birds flying above us. The climb up to the viewpoint was well worth the effort as we had great views over El Chalten as a result.

Considering where El Chalten is located - which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere - there are no shortage of eating establishments. Food is still very good value as is the fabulous Argentinian Malbec wine despite the distances that are needed to be covered to keep this remote place stocked.

Our second day was a fairly relaxed one with a walk to the Chorillo Del Salto (a waterfall that is about 3 miles out of town) before popping back into town for a leisurely lunch. There wasn't really enough time to do too much more walking before dinner!

So that was our visit to El Chalten pretty much completed. Our drive back to El Calafate - including a visit to La Leona for a toilet and coffee stop - took us around 3.5 hours.

El Calafate is the nearest stopping off point for the stunning Perito Moreno Glacier - and was the original reason for organising this trip to South America!