Argentina in ten photographs

Argentina in one trip is two countries. We did both: Patagonia in the south, then a four-hour flight north to Mendoza, where the point is wine.

Fitz Roy is the reason to go to El Chaltén, and it hides. Cloud sits on it for days at a time and people wait a week for the view. We got one clear morning at Laguna de los Tres, which is the sort of luck you do not deserve twice.

Perito Moreno is the other one. You walk on it — actual crampons, actual guide, actual ice several thousand years old cracking somewhere underneath you. At the end they pour whisky over a chunk of the glacier, which sounds like a gimmick and is completely worth it.

Then Mendoza, and the trip changes character entirely. Tupungato has vineyards with the Andes directly behind them, close enough that the mountains are the fence. The Malbec grows about two hundred meters from the table you drink it at, which is a fact that improves it.

Lunch in Mendoza takes four hours and is supposed to. There is a dog in most vineyards and it will follow you down the rows.

La Consulta does sunsets like that one most evenings, and it never stopped being worth stopping for.

Ice at one end, wine at the other, and a long flight in between. Both halves are on the same badge.