There's a Five Peso Tax for That

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One I've my favourite characteristics of travel is the random and extraordinary things that can happen. And as far as crazy coincidence goes, I think I have topped that category on the flight to El Calafate.

I sat down in my window seat and got myself set up for the three hour plus flight, and I ended up chatting with the couple next to me, who were also (coincidentally) from Canada. Actually, they were from Calgary(coincidentally)... and actually it turns out he's one of the Vice Presidents of the company that I work for!

So in summary, on a domestic flight in Argentina, over 10,000 km from home (and work), I'm sitting on a plane with over one hundred other total strangers on it, and the person seated right next to me is not only also from Canada, not only also from Alberta, but also works for the same company. And his wife could have very easily been seated between us, but no, right next to each other. I don't know how to calculate odds, but I would guess they're pretty astronomically low in this case.

The company that we work for is large enough that I didn't know him beforehand. Him and his wife are on vacation doing a three week tour of Argentina. They had realized what I had also realized, which is that Argentina is huge and the distances are great. They have wisely chosen to fly around the country to see what they need to see. I'll probably just end up not seeing everything that I wanted to.

After chatting about our trips, and trading travel advice (mostly they gave me some, since I've only just started my trip) we got to talking about work. Which, yeah, was the thing I took this trip to escape, but it was a rare opportunity to speak casually with someone who had a lot more experience and more knowledge of the industry as a whole. Kind of a bonus impromptu mentoring opportunity.

And since he had been the VP of Green Energy at our company, I learned more than I ever thought I would about the emerging green energy sector, how far it's come, and what challenges are still out there. It was actually really inspiring. After four plus years working in the oil industry (though I try to brand myself as working in the “energy” sector) I've forgotten about my old ambitions to work in green energy (some of the lustre came off when talking to other former classmates who went down that road and were less than satisfied in their careers), so it was uplifting to have reassurance from someone who's been involved in it first hand that it is, in fact, the future. There's certainly challenges and opportunity, and maybe when I'm ready for my next challenge, I'll have to give it a closer look.

When we approached El Calafate, my colleague commented that it looked exactly like Montana, and I can understand it. Miles of endless yellowish grazing pastures end at some pretty huge granite mountains. We'd all flown a long way to come to a place that looked like Montana, but I'm sure it'll end up being totally different in almost every other way.

Before the three of us Albertans parted ways at the airport. My VP's wife (who's maternal instincts had kicked in since they have a son who's roughly the same age as myself) gave me some leftovers from her snack box on the plane.

Wait, I should explain. I'm not sure if it's just Aerolineas or if it's all airlines in South America, but they give you food on domestic flights! It feels incredible, even though it's just granola bars, cookies, a juice box, and some packaged snacks, but still you don't get frills like that in North America.

So I had a few extra snacks to take to the hostel, and we said goodbye and carried on with our vacations. I don't think I talked my way into a promotion, but I didn't get fired, so that's a success in my books.

On the shuttle ride to the hostel that I hadn't booked (fingers crossed) I got my first impressions of El Calafate. Given the fame of the Perito Moreno glacier, I expected this town to be like Banff, and be a neat and polished town who's sole purpose was to cater to the throngs of tourists that come through every year. But I think because of how it's so far south and far away from a major centre of population it has a very different feel. For one, it seems much smaller, and less dense than I expected, and it isn't lined with hotels. Most hotels that we stopped at were quite small, more like B&B style places. Other than the main street, almost all roads in town are gravel, and there aren't too many trees to speak of (again, think Montana). Don't get me wrong, it's nice enough for sure, but I really expected this to be a classic tourist hub, and it doesn't have that feel at all. That's not a complaint, just an observation. It is sort of off-season, and overall the place seemed a bit empty, so that may contribute to my impressions. But the draw here is the glacier, and not necessarily the town anyways, right?

I successfully checked into the hostel I was dropped off at and was given an introduction to the attractions in the area, and it really does sound like there's not much to see here besides the glacier. There's not really even any hiking. Glacier trekking sounds interesting, but even the person running the desk at the hostel told me that if I was planning to head up to El Chalten that it was better value there. So I'll keep that in mind.

I went into my room to put my bag down on the bed and met Brett from New Zealand, and had a good chat with him. He's been travelling for the better part of six years, working on visas as he goes. He generally works as a guide, and spent the summer working as a raft guide in Chile. He's also lived in Canada.

Later I met John from Chicago, and we split a basic pasta meal that we cooked for dinner. I now know how to use the can opener on a Swiss army knife thanks to the French travellers in the kitchen. I also chatted with Alejandra from Buenos Aires who is actually planning a trip to Canada in June, so I did my best to sell her on the rocky mountains.

So far so good. No trouble meeting people in this hostel! And since they had local craft beer on tap in the hostel, it was a pretty easy place to spend an evening.

The next morning, Brett, John, and myself headed down to the bus station to head to the famous Pertio Moreno glacier. We had vouchers for the bus that we had purchased at the hostel, but when we tried to board the bus (one minute before it wad supposed to leave) we got sent back to the ticket office to have them validated and a seat number put on, and pay a surprise 5 peso tax.

We have no idea why this tax wouldn't be built into the cost of the ticket, or why you would have to pay it at separately at the bus station, but this this tax became our inside joke for the rest of the day. For the bathroom, for taking photos, for saving a seat for someone on the bus: "There's a five peso tax for that".

It's also noteworthy that as a non-Argentinian citizen, you pay quite a lot more to get into the park. And the park fees are paid individually at the park gate, and it's not built into the bus ticket. I knew about this beforehand, so just a heads up.

Now for the glacier itself. The thing is huge, in all directions. It's about seventy feet tall where it meets the lake, and grows two meters a day. So it's not receding, and I actually didn't know there were any glaciers on earth that weren’t receding. Pretty wild stuff. And the middle part advances quicker than the edges because of the friction of the ice against the edge of the valley which gives the glacier a spectacularly jagged appearance as the ice buckles. The big attraction with this glacier (as though it's monstrous size and wildly jagged appearance wasn't enough) is that huge chunks of ice calve off of daily into the lake. So hopefully we'll get to see some today.

The bus stopped part way into the park and they gave us the option of taking a boat ride (at an additional fee, of course) to get in close to the glacier before boarding the bus again and going to the visitor centre and main viewing platforms. It was pretty reasonable, so the three of us decided to go for it, particularly since we had to make it until two o'clock in the afternoon before bus back to town. So we had some time to kill anyways.

The boat trip was pretty cool, and getting up close to the ice wall you really get a sense of how huge the thing really is. I took a bunch of pictures, saw a rainbow, and even an ice tornado...

Ok, it wasn't a tornado... and it wasn't made of ice. It was more like a dust devil, but over the lake. So a water devil? I don't know.

But I do know that ice rainbows and ice tornadoes are a distraction, and while watching the ice tornado as the boat began to return to the dock, we missed a big chunk of the glacier calving off right behind us. We turned around just in time to see the wave and to watch the big chunk of ice pop back up out of the water.

And that's how icebergs are born.

We met Lucy on the boat trip, who's from England and has been teaching English in Santiago. So now there were four of us to explore the viewing platforms and catwalks by the visitor centre.

And you really get a sense of how far back the glacier goes from these catwalks since you are up higher than the front face, and can see the jagged ice stretching way back up the valley.

So we settled in to spend a few hours glacier watching. Glacier watching is a tricky event. You've got to stay vigilant. If you take your eyes off the glacier for a second, you might miss the ice calving show. So don't let rainbows and ice tornadoes distract you. The glacier is most active in the afternoon, after it's heated up a bit. It's also better on sunny days, so we had the grey overcast sky and the cold morning working against us. We'd hear cracking, and we'd examine the ice looking for what looked like weak spots, mostly deluding ourselves. Patience is key to glacier watching, but you can trigger ice calving on your own if you don't feel like waiting.

Let me explain. We observed that after seeing some small ice calving, if we said “that's the most spectacular thing we're going to see, so we might as well head back”, or “I think that's it”, or looking down and eating sandwiches, or walking away, or getting distracted by rainbows and ice tornadoes that we had the power to trigger ice calving.

Despite how easily we'd distract ourselves, we did manage to see some ice calving, including a huge piece that launched out of the lake after it fell. And we saw some other huge chunks fall off the front face as well, but I'm sure the best one's were the one's we missed, including at the end when we were heading back up the catwalk to the visitor center. We heard a thunderous crash and ran back, but only saw the last small piece of this event. That seems typical for our glacier watching experience. I'm sure it was a piece we'd identified as weak and ready to go too...

We'd seen enough, and the weather was pretty poor, so we retired to the visitor center where Brett and I got ourselves a glass of whisky with glacier ice in it. We did it because it seemed a bit tacky, but it was actually really neat. The glacier ice is full of air bubbles and crackles as it melts in the whisky. I don't always drink whisky with ice in it, but when I do, I prefer glacier ice...

It's funny how five hours sitting outside doing very little except staring can really wipe you out, and I had a pretty good nap on the bus ride back to town. Brett and John grabbed a late afternoon bus to El Chalten, and we made plans to meet up there the next day.

I went on a laundry mission, and packed up all my dirty clothes (which now encompassed just about everything I packed) and gave them to the laundry service that came around to the hostel. The only clean clothes I had were board shorts and a long sleeve thermal shirt, and my rain coat. So I dressed up in this totally weird collection of clothes, put on my flip flops and headed into town. I probably looked about as silly as I felt, walking around town in shorts and flip flops in ten degree weather, but having just survived winter back home I was able to manage, and headed down to the hardware store and grocery store.

I went to the hardware store to get an adapter, which is a small story in itself. The short version is that I'm an idiot. I knew I needed two adapters for this trip (one European, and one Australian, because nothing makes sense here), and I packed two adapters for this trip... but I threw in the North American adapter instead of the Australian one by mistake, so that's how I'm an idiot. So far, most outlets I've encountered call for the V-shape prongs of the Australian plugs, so I have been having some trouble charging my camera and my phone.

The hardware store was very small, but still seemed to somehow have at least one of everything. I took a number on the way in, and waited for it to be called. I got to watch the local handymen (obviously regulars) come in and chat it up with each other and the store owners while I stood in the corner in my shorts and flip flops trying to figure out how I was going to explain in my extremely limited Spanish vocabulary that I possessed, not only that I needed an adapter, but which adapter I needed. It worked to pretty well, and they figured out what I needed before I really had to try to explain.

That night I met up with Lucy for a drink, but after a streak of long days and not enough sleep, I don't think I was the greatest of company. But we found a nice place on the main street for a pint, and she gave me some advice on travelling into Chile. I hadn't planned on going to Chile before this trip, but it's looking more and more intriguing the more I hear about it, so maybe I will...

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