Friday, January 25, 2008

keeping Enda up ...

Here we are on the roof of our truck "Kinda" just outside El Chalten in Patagonia with Mt. Fitzroy in the background.

Since the last post, aside from driving (which there has been an awful lot of) we visited the stunning Perito Moreno Glacier with it's 60m high, 5km wide face spilling into Lake Argentina.

It was absolutely mesmerising just to watch chunks of ice calving off the front into the water, varying in size from "small", about the size of a portable TV, to "large", about the size of a HGV - all to the sound of thunderous cracks.

We've just spent the afternoon riding (and not falling off) horses here in El Chalten - due to a slight miscommunication with our horse guide aboput my experience level I have been full on galloping for the first time today - a bit scary, but brilliant fun.

And I'm sure it gets even better if you know what you're supposed to be doing.

As always the human element provides the greatest fun - the party atmosphere is continuing unabated. It is virtually guaranteed that a contingent of our group with be in a bar at 5am every morning, along with the ever-present Enda - a man whose inability to say no to "just one more ..." is becoming legendary.

Despite averaging just 2 hours sleep over the previous two nights, we managed to persaude him to stay in the bar until 5.15am this morning - even though he had booked a 28km guided glacier walk starting at 7am. What a trooper.

Of course it remains to be seen what state he will return in this evening, and whether we will be able to persaude him to take part in the Australia Day party our driver has planned for this evening.

If we can just keep him awake something tells me he'll be there ...