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Published: March 22nd 2013
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We arrived at our next destination El Calafate by plane which was a nice change from getting an exhausting overnight bus journey. We had been told that it was pretty cold in El Calafate and as soon as we stepped outside the airport me and Jon both looked at each other and laughed as the freezing weather hit us immediately. We had acclimatised to the hot and humid weather of Brazil so 5 degrees was quite a shock to our bodies! We began joking on how Jon was probably going to freeze to death due to only having one jumper with him and no coat! After coming out of the airport we jumped on the shuttle bus and made our way to our hostel huddled together. It was around 10pm at night and completely pitch black. I looked out of the bus window and noticed the stars. I have never seen anything like it before: hundreds and hundreds of stars taking over the sky and so low down on the horizon almost. I was completely mesmerised by them and it absolutely fascinated me (so much so I didn't speak to Jon until we got to our hostel). Whilst I was sat
open mouthed staring at the stars Rihanna's "shine bright like a diamond" came on the radio which was rather spooky.
We arrived at the hostel (America del Sur) quite late so dropped our bags off into the dorm and headed to this cheap little restaurant over the road for a bite to eat and a few drinks. I went for the lamb stew as Patagonia is supposed to be renowned for its lamb and Jon had a traditional Argentine stew, locro. When the food came out he had total food envy and I was happy with my choice as some of the things that were supposed to be pork in Jons dinner had hair coming out of them. No thanks!! Jon tried out a few different beers and I had my new favourite cocktail called a pisco sour which was cheaper than a beer! Hopefully I won't be sick off this one. After dinner we went back to the hostel and attempted to go to bed. I say attempted as it took me a good few minutes and a push from Jon to get me up to my top bunk due to there being no ladders. All good fun
and games....for everyone else in the room watching and laughing.
The next day it was a similar story trying to get down from the bed and Jon had to help me down again like a small child. A girl in our dorm suggested swapping to one of the lower bunk beds as someone had left. Good idea....so I thought! After breakfast we got changed into the only warm clothes we had got and headed off out to explore. We spent several hours trying to look for warm clothes and some proper trainers for me and Jon but as everything was so expensive (double the price from home) we gave it a miss and Jon carried on being freezing. We went wondering around the Lago Argentina (lake) taking pictures and it was so windy I nearly got blown back to Brazil. The Lago was really pretty though and appeared to changed in colour from dark blue to turquoise in some places. After being blown here there and everywhere at the Lago we went back into town to hire some walking boots for the glaciers we were going to see the next day. There was no way we wanted to buy
any as they were so ugly. Mine looked like my dads work boots and smelt like them too (sorry dad) but Jon's were pretty fresh. Later on in the evening we made sausage and mash which was delisioso and had an early night. The sheets had been changed so instead of another night struggling to get into the top bunk I moved down to the lower one. Much easier and more dignified.
In the morning I woke up itchy with some suspicious bites so I went to speak to reception. I asked if you could get mosquito bites where we were but they said no as it was too cold. I then showed them the bites on my arms and they soon changed their minds and told me you could get bitten by mosquitos and to buy some repellent. I thought it seemed a bit dodgy but we were in a rush as it was our last day so we made our way to the bus station to go and see the Perito Moreno glacier. After an hour we arrived and it was lashing it down but we were getting on the boat first anyway to get as close
as we could to the glaciers so we didn't mind. The boat began pulling up as close as it could to the glaciers and everybody began racing from inside the boat to the outside to take pictures. The rain was coming down hard and the closer we got the more colder it got and our hands felt like they were going to drop off. The view of the cool blue and crisp white glaciers almost took your mind off the impending frost bite. There was this towering sheet of ice which just protruded out into the sea like a cliff face and the colour of the face changed from white to blue in places. It was so impressive and definitely worth the freezing temperatures. After taking several pictures me and Jon couldn't hack the cold any longer and went back inside the boat to warm up.
When we got back to shore we jumped on the bus again which took us to the viewing points of the glacier. There were different treks you could take and each one took you to different view points. When we got there the rain was still coming down pretty hard so we went
into the cafe for a coffee and hoped the rain would stop so we could see the glaciers clearly. Eventually the rain stopped and we managed to have a good few hours at the different view points. The glacier were incredible and so vast, they went back up the mountain for miles and looked like they were never ending. You didn't really get that feeling seeing the glacier up close on the boat. We ended up taking so many pictures of the same view as they were so beautiful to look at and the light kept changing making the colours of ice flicker from blue to white. Every so often a chunk of glacier would break off and come crashing down into the water below making a loud thundering noise - it made me jump every time. After several hours our time was up and we had to go back and get the bus.
On our last night we went out for dinner as the kitchen hostel was pretty gross. We had another really nice dinner, Jon had an incredible pork dish which sweet, sticky sauce and had a seafood risotto along with the biggest glass of red wine
I've ever seen. We had to have another early night as we had to be at the bus station the next morning for 6.30am to leave for El Chalten, we didn't think we would have any trouble in sleeping after such a big glass of wine and food. Unfortunately this wasn't the case as I woke up at 1am itching like hell with more bites. The guy on reception couldn't speak any English and our Spanish still isn't up to much so we were having to use google translate to communicate. That didn't work out too well so me and Jon ended up sleeping on a sofa. We left at 6.15am and got on our bus to El Chalten. I was definitely ready to leave.
Even though I got eaten by some sort of insects we both had a really great time in El Calafate. It was such a nice change from the scorching heat and we got to see some incredible sights that I'm sure we will never forget. On to El Chalten though now to explore more of Patagonia. Lets hope the bugs are a bit friendlier there.
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