El Calafate

---

The bus to Rio Gallegos wasn't the best. The films were in Spanish, the landscape is pretty flat and dry and dinner was served at 22.30. We had also been held up by 2hours by protests on the main road just outside Puerto Madryn. At first we thought it was a really bad accident because we could see a pretty big fire burning, clouds of black smoke billowing, but the police were going pretty slowly back and forth and we couldn't see any firemen or ambulance so we should have realised. After an hour or so we got past and as we were going past a series of hand gestures were exchanged between the protesters and the passengers on the bus. This delay meant we had missed our connecting bus from Rio Gallegos to El Calafate, so we were even more annoyed. Luckily we made up some time and the bus had waited for us so we got off one bus and straight onto another. There was only cama available for this 4 hour bus, which cost AR$240. The Dark Knight Rises was on in English so I was happy and it was some entertainment to pass the time. The last hour or so we were getting a bit fidgety as we'd been on buses for 24 hours, but you do get used to it surprisingly.

We arrived in El Calafate about 1pm and walked 10 minutes to our hostel, Nakel Yen. Nice hostel, 6 bed dorm with all the standard facilities for AR$130 per person per night. El Calafate is a nice town. A bit like a ski resort in summer. We walked to the Lake which, although it was pretty, was a bit disappointing in all honesty. The main draw of El Calafate is its proximity to the Perito Moreno glacier. We booked on a bus through the hostel for AR$200 each return for the next day.

The bus left at 8am so we were up at 6.30am and had our first taste of cold weather so far. Thermals and fleeces were the order of the day and we warmed slightly with a brisk walk to the bus station, but it was cold. At least it wasn't raining. The bus took an hour and a half and stopped for us to take photos a few miles away from the glacier and at a small jetty if anyone wanted to go on the boat. We didn't go on as we had heard it wasn't worth the money.

The glacier itself is anything but disappointing. It's absolutely massive, something like 3 miles wide and 55m high. There are loads of steel walkways to stroll around which afford you different views, all amazing. The weather was again on our side and the bright sunshine and blue skies made the whole scene look even better. There are loud cracks and cannon esk booms coming from the glacier regularly and around midday the real action started.

Big pieces of the glacier just fall away, crashing into the water spectacularly. Alex got a good action shot of a big piece half way down (after a well timed prompt from me) which is the best you can hope for really unless you happen to have your camera focused on the exact bit that is falling. It happened a good dozen or so times. Even with 5 hours or so at the glacier you don't really get bored. We were constantly trying to predict which piece would fall next.

We spent the night cooking and resting in preparation for the hiking to come in El Chalten.

---