Big Ice

But I'm missing the point. El Calafate is the nearest place to Perito Moreno, a vast glaciar famous for its constant rupturas - or ruptures ie chunks of ice breaking from the mothership and crashing into the lake below. It's 18 km long, 684 metres high and moves 2 metres a day.

Clearly even I wasn't too humbug to want to see the sight. So I booked myself on the priciest of tours - a whole day out, maximum ice action. Big Ice, the trip was called.

First we drove to the National Park of the Glaciars. Right in the middle of the park there's a series of wooden walkways which run in front of the glaciar. All fairly tame stuff but, like many others, my first sight of the huge glaciar made me gasp. It's a massive frozen river of water, running down from the mountains above and coming to a halt with a huge jagged cliff. As we gazed in awe, there was a loud booming noise, like a roll of thunder, followed by the cracking sound of something splitting or ripping and then a large icy shard collapsed into Lake Argentina. Kerplunk. Satisfyingly this isn't a one-off event - it happens all the time.

Then, via boat, we crossed to a woodland clearing to meet our guides and start hiking to and on the glaciar. As we got closer we were fitted for crampons and in the distance I saw a tiny trail of walkers weaving over the ice. They were completely dwarfed. My heart began to thump.

It was really an amazing experience. True, Perito Moreno isn't glistening white - it is scarred by a layer of brown grime, like old city snow. But then the ice we were walking on is 300 years old. And walking with a large group of fellow tourists, chattering to each other and posing for endless photos means that it's not a genuine adventure anymore. However, striding for hours over the rough peaks and valleys of the huge icy expanse, with swirling gaps and wells down into the deep cerulean blue lake, with ice bridges and caves picked out in the sailing fields of the glaciar - I hate to say it but wow.

Our goat-like guides who ran and zig-zagged and slid over the ice as though it was an adventure playground showed us how to negotiate the monster and how to manage crampons. No delicate moves - stamping with force sticks. As a young American girl said, which made me laugh, "Trust the spike".

On the way home, we were given glasses of whisky with ice cubes hacked from the glaciar. Cool in every sense.