Los Glaciares National Park - Perito Moreno Glacier

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After breakfast in our hotel we head to Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares Nation Park. The park is the largest park in Argentina at 2,806.68 square miles. In 1981 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. A giant ice cap in the Andes the largest outside of Antarctica, Greenland and Iceland feed 47 large glaciers in the park. Perito Morton Glacier which we will visit today remains stable in size because it is accumulating mass at the same rate it is losing mass. We will visit the glacier where it terminates into Argentino Lake. At the terminus the glacier is 3.1 miles wide and average height of 240 feet above the surface of the water. Many tour operators can be found in El Calafte offering boat tours and mini-trekking options.

We are not trekking or riding a boat. We drive to the glacier and park. Bathrooms, gift shop and a restaurant can be found at the parking lot. There are walkways at different heights and three color coded routes. The routes are all connected. We walk the different routes and are in awe of this huge glacier. Calving is when some of the glacier falls off into the water. The entire time we are here we hear the loud cracking sound and we saw a large piece fall off. We have a box lunch and we find a bench with a view of the glazier and we enjoy our beautiful view while we eat. After a couple of hours walking the walkways it is time to head back to the bus. It is an hour drive back to El Calafate. Our bus drops off some of our group at the glacier museum called Glaciarium. They will walk back to our hotel. Some people visit Laguna Nimes, it is a nature preserve with up to 80 bird species including flamingo and black-necked swans. Mark has a massage appointment back at our hotel. We walk downtown after the massage.

Tonight we have a group dinner at a local restaurant. Fish is on the menu and it is very good. Tomorrow we fly back to Buenos Aires so we partially pack tonight.

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