El Calafate - January 14th

Part of the reason yesterday was a hang around day in El Calafate is because we couldn’t get the trip we wanted to the local highlight, the Perito Moreno Glacier.  We could have been boring and got a bus and boat trip to view the glacier, but we wanted to walk on it.  The trekking trips are a bit more booked out, so we had to wait an extra day to get it.  Bad and all as that wait was it wasn’t as bad as the wait for the bus to pick us up from the hostel, which seemed to take an eternity to arrive.  It was a small minibus of about 14 people, which looked like a nice small group for trekking, until it pulled up next to a bus of about 50 who were all going to be doing the trek with us.

It took just over an hour to get to the boat dock inside the national park.  The glacier stretches across Lago Argentina, and so you can sail on the lake and look up at the cliffs of ice.  This is quite impressive, and even more so as you have to navigate through icebergs to get to the other side of the lake.  This is the side from which the glacier comes out into the lake, and therefore it is the point at which we start trekking.  The transition from rock to ice was easy, and walking on the ice wasn’t too hard as we had been given crampons.  Walking on the ice wasn’t too bad although one or two parts were steep as we climbed quite a bit above the entry point.  After an hour’s walking we descended into a valley where we were greeted with the sight of glasses and a bottle of Jameson’s.  The ice naturally came from the glacier itself.  So we had Irish whiskey and ice on a glacier in Argentina.  Honestly that part alone made the expense of the ice trekking worthwhile.

After we got back down onto solid land we had our packed lunch at a little picnic spot built for the tour groups.  Here we could see and hear the glacier ‘calving’, that is producing new icebergs, as bits of it fell off into the lake.  This is an amazing experience, as the sound is really loud, but like thunder and lightning it happens after the event.  So unless you are lucky enough to be looking directly at the place cracking up, you don’t get to see the splash, only the after effects.

After lunch we got the boat back to the shore.  This time we got even closer to the glacier and the ice so it was even better.  Then we went by bus up to a headland overlooking the glacier.  Here the national park has constructed a series of boardwalk balconies overlooking the glacier which give very good views.  This time we are looking at the north side of the glacier, where before it was the south side, so we get to see a whole new set of views, and hear a whole new set of icebergs being created.

Afterwards we returned to El Calafate, but not to our nice hostel.  Instead because this trip forced us to stay an extra day we have had to find another hostel.  But our original hosts have been so kind to transfer all our bags for us so it is an easy check-in.  This gives us time to go out to have a big pasta and pizza dinner in a restaurant on main street.