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Published: January 12th 2009
I decided to have a 2 day excursion from Puerto Natales and after a 5 hour bus ride back over into Argentina, I arrived into the little town of El Calafate whose only attraction is the Perito Moreno Glacier. The glacier is 3 miles wide, 60m high and 170m deep and is one of only 3 glaciers in the area that isn't retreating.
I stayed at America del Sur hostel which was basically like a hotel. It had underfloor heating, gorgeous rooms, and the most delicious all-you-can-eat bbq. What made the trip even better was bumping into Rebecka who was in my dorm back in Buenos Aires and she was in the same hostel here too. She's a crazy swedish girl, alot of fun and great company, so we had a great laugh and shared the same view that Fede on reception was quite possibly the most beautiful man we had seen in South America. :-)). You would not believe the queues at reception when he was working.. literally loads of women asking really important travel questions like "what's a great bar to go out to here?" i.e. this is where we will be. haha.
The next day started
at 7am with me being picked up for my Glacier trip. I had booked the tour, a boat ride, and some glacier trekking since trekking the W was clearly not enough ;-) . God it was brilliant!! When you arrive at the glacier you can't believe how big it is. We got the boat over and as we got closer your jaw just drops. You feel so insignificant and very very small next to this. Makes you feel that nature is very powerful. We arrived at the south side, got fitted with crampons and started our trek. I was so excited I was practically running up the glacier and was told to slow down. The W trek must have given me newfound energy. It was a fantastic experience. The ice was so blue and I couldn't believe i was actually on the glacier. We found lots of nooks and crannys to walk into. We were given whisky at the end although couldn't drink it as I hate the stuff.
What i really noticed was how the weather changed from one minute to the next. Apparently the west side of the glacier always has snow as it creates it's own
weather. When we got over to the glacier it was very cloudy, but in the space of 10 mins we had clear blue skies for the trek. Then it was raining on the boat trip back to land., then rained for 10 mins while we were at the front of the glacier. I took about 100 photos from all angles, and then suddenly out of nowhere, the clouds parted and it was hot sunshine again. I must have looked like Challenge Anneka running down the gang planks, retaking all the photos I had first taken in the rain! It was so great to see the glacier close up and even better that there were only 20 of us there aswell. That's rather rare apparently, but then it was low season. It was massively impressive, unforgettable and another one of my argentina highlights.
That night Rebecka and I went out and sampled the El Calafate nightlife, rather too well I might add as we got back at 4am. My bus was at 8am and although I had set my alarm, I slept through it and woke up at 7.45am. The bus was a 10 min walk away and there was
only one bus a day back to Puerto Natales, so I couldn't miss it as i had a flight to Santiago the next day. I can't imagine what I must have looked like running around the dorm with last nights make up on and packing in 1 min flat.. in my underwear and shouting 'shit shit shit'. Thankgod I will never see those people again. I did notice a few people wake up and laugh to themselves. In the end i had to put last nights clothes back on and run like the wind to the bus stop. I arrived as the bus was pulling out and the driver eventually let me on. It was a long 5 hr journey back...
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