After a good night’s sleep we caught the early bus bound for El Calafate, Argentina. The six hour transit included more than an hour spent clearing passport control and customs at the border. A model of inefficiency, all passengers exit the bus on the Chilean side of the border to clear passport control and then re-board the bus. A few minutes later we arrive at the Argentinian control point and once again everyone disembarks and files through the passport control office while dogs check luggage for illegal contraban. A single passenger with a soon to expire visa held up the line for over 30 minutes. When travelling in this part of the world you simply have to accept the fact that time tables are more like loose guidelines. We arrived Calafate by mid afternoon, checked into our hostel and made a bee line for Laguna Nimez Nature Reserve, a virtual gold mine for birders. Pictured below are but a fraction of the birds we discovered.

I asked Kyle to select the restaurant for dinner this evening and we were not disappointed with his choice. By far the best meal of the trip, I enjoyed a grilled salmon while Kyle sampled their best cut of beef. Also on his radar was a fine ice cream parlor which served as our final gastronomic destination of the evening where we indulged ourselves in our only frozen treats of the trip.