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| Edge of Torres del Paine | Guanaco in the wild |
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| Sheep and Rhea and Pampas | Sheep and Gauchos |
The road from Torres del Paine takes one over a dirt track across the Argentine to Chile border. You need all your paperwork in good order, otherwise delays. We ended up having to phone Hertz to get them to fax us more documents to satisfy the voracious appetite functionarios have for forms. You get a 4 part form from Chilean customs, on part for them one part for the Argentine customs, one part for Argentine customs leaving Argentina and the last part for Chilean customs re-entering Chile. In theory an easy exercise, but many of the small border posts, manned by conscripts in Argentina, have never seen the forms before.
An exotic mix of fauna, with abundant guanaco and rheas along the side of the road, interspersed with large sheep farms where the quality of the land improved.
The road to Calafate was a mix of asphalt surface, interspersed with long dirt stretches. The rented truck coped well with the conditions. I might add that I would not have wished to undertake those roads with a normal saloon car - we saw a few of those.
Eventually we got to Calafate, a large tourist town in southern Patagonia. It would be fair to say that Calafate, complete with airport, revolves solely round tourism. They fly in, stay a night, visit Perito Moreno Glacier, and they fly out. Basically you would not visit Calafate if the glacier was not here. Its is an artificial, but not unpleasant town, with a range of hotels. The Perito Moreno Glacier is a couple of hours rive out of town
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| Edge of Torres del Paine | Guanaco in the wild |
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| Sheep and Rhea and Pampas | Sheep and Gauchos |