Having spent Saturday visiting the Perito Moreno glaciar in Los Glaciares National Park near El Calafate in Argentina we took the bus to Puerto Natales in Chile on Sunday & booked in for 3 nights.

Monday was spent touring the national park which covers 181000 hectares. It has one of the most impressive mountain areas on earth. As well as the spectacular mountains the surrounding forest with lakes , glaciers & open country is really magnificent. Thre are 15 peaks bove 2000m , many oddly -shaped & multi -coloured , the highest of which is 3243m . Wonderful wildlife again , guanaco & rhea which here are almost tame , being so used to human visitors , and yet more condors ! We saw a chimango caracara sitting on a sheep's back . Apparently they peck out the sheep's eyes . Ugh ! Poor sheep !

The guides we have on these day -trips are excellent . Full of information & humour . They speak varying degrees of English but try really hard to communicate with us even if we are the only non-spanish speakers present. This was a particularly long day , about 14 hours . We found out the bus drivers are paid less than a pound per hour. They also are all so accomodating & pleasant.

On Tuesday we took an all-day boat tour to see the Serrano Glaciar & the Balmaceda Glaciar & a cormorant breeding colony in the fiords . Another lovely day. We were treated to pisco on the rocks , the rocks being over 50 years old (part of the glaciar ! ). Pisco is Chile's national drink , like a strong brandy. We like it mucho ! Usually drunk as a pisco sour.

On Wednesday we bussed to Punta Arenas & spent Thursday visiting Isla Magdalena where we saw over 120000 penguins. The sheer number of them was fascinating but the smell was overwhelming !

That's it for Chile for a few months. But we plan to visit the northern section later.