We´re in Tierra del Fuego, el Fin de Mundo: Ushuaia is the most southerly town in the world, and looks out on the Beagle channel, a stretch of water within which the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific merge, surrounded by Argentine and Chilean mountains. The town itself still has a bit of a frontier feel, but to be honest, it´s better described as a cross between a mid-range Alpine ski resort and a Cornish tourist village. The main street is packed with sportswear and gift shops, the latter´s windows filled with quartz (?) penguin figurines.

A lot of the activity is bloody exhausting. Today, we scrambled up a mountain to a glacier, which I trudged over in order to get as high as possible, while George admired the views, before a long woodland trek back to town. But yesterday was more leisurely. We took an old pleasure boat (the Barracuda) onto the channel, and were rewarded with a three hour cruise that took us past, amongst other things, rocks covered with cormorants and stinking guano. Other rocks were occupied by lounging sealions, flapping and belching as they crawled over each other. I was very proud of George resisting the impule to say, "Actually, I´m a zooologist" in the face of the woman who was trying to explain the difference between male and female sealions to her.