Ice, Wind, and Fire.
The Perito Moreno Glacier
Being a thoroughly romantic kind of guy I decided that I would pull out all the stops for valentines day this year, and treat Kim to a long day and night sitting on a southbound bus paid for from our joint account. The fairy-tale journey was made complete when the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere at 4 in the morning and we were unceremoniously transferred onto another passing bus which, luckily for us, was heading to the same destination.
It was also fortunate for our travel-weary spirits that our hostel in El Calafate was great, boasted a friendly and laid-back atmosphere, and happened to be hosting an Asado for the guests that night. So, together with our fellow travellers we congregated by the fire and watched huge chunks of beef, chicken, and sausage roast slowly over the coals. As we tucked in to our carnivorous feast and began exchanging stories from the road, large penguin-shaped pitchers of wine were placed on the table. We found out later this wasn’t a quirk unique to this particular hostel, far from it. It turns out the ‘the penguin’ is a relatively common way to serve wine, indeed several restaurants we visited offer either a ‘jarra de pinguino'(Penguin Jug) or ‘media de pinguino’ (Half a Penguin) as part of their wine list.
The next morning we woke at a rather relaxed hour due to overindulging in penguin the previous night, and made our way down to the Laguna Nimez Reserve, within which a huge array of bird life can be observed. Upon reaching the reserve we were introduced for the first time to the famous Patagonian winds, and while mild by the local standards, they were enough to cause difficulties to the airborne denizens of the park and convince us to zip our waterproofs up tight so as to avoid them becoming rudimentary kites and disappearing across the city.
A Caracara in Laguna Nimez Reserve.
Very early in our trek around the small reserve we were struck both by the sheer array of birds which make their home there, and also how tolerant they seemed to be of human visitors; at one point an eagle flew no more than two meters in front of us. We also saw Ibises pecking at the ground be the lake with their long curved beaks, flamingos wading in the shallow waters, hawks and vultures gliding high above our heads, and geese and ducks of more varieties than we could count.
View from an Estancia near Lago Argentino.
The main reason to visit El Calafate however is to see the famous Perito Moreno Glacier, and the next day we joined a tour to do exactly that. En route our bus stopped intermittently to observe the Patagonian wildlife, and in addition to the Guanacos, Foxes, and eagles we had become used to seeing, we also got our first glimpse of Condors perched atop a rocky hilltop.
After a brief stop at an estancia (Argentina ranch) to take in views across the wide glacial valley, we were deposited on the shore of Lago Argentino. From this rocky, windswept beach we could see the glacier far in the distance, and much closer, evidence of its existence in the form of large icebergs slowly floating down the lake. We trekked briefly along the shore before reboarding our bus and heading on to see the glacier up close.
Part of the Perito Moreno Glaciar
The viewing platforms have been set up opposite the terminus of the ice sheet so that we stood only 200 meters from it. From here the view is awe inspiring, the sheer scale of the glacier is overwhelming; it stretches into back to the horizon and 5km laterally, it ranges in height from 60-80 meters. The colour of the massive ice wall ranges from brilliant white to deep blue, and far from being a static feature every 10 to 20 minutes large chunks would calve off from the face and plunge into the waters below accompanied by a sound like thunder. At one point as we looked on a chunk of ice the size of a house began to lean forward with a loud groaning sound before breaking off from the glacier completely and fell, as if in slow motion, into the lake. We watched the glacier from various platforms for a few hours, seeing several more icebergs being born, transfixed by the strange shapes formed in the disintegrating ice.
Our next destination was to be the small town of El Chalten within Los Glaciares National Park, where we had heard some of the best trekking in South America could be found.
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