Patagonia pt 2: El Calafate y El Chalten

Once we arrived in Calafate we were again impressed by the grace of the airport which only used one terminal and I think my bag was the first one out which has never happened to me. We took the bus to our hostel, America del Sur which was a great place to stay. The moment we walked in they kissed us on the cheek and asked our names…and actually remembered them for our entire stay. We had a wonderful, breathtaking view of the mountains and a glacier-fed lake from the common area which was perfect to relax in after a long day. Once again we arrived too late to do an excursion for the day but that was to our wallet’s advantage. We explored around the town, which consisted of one main road and also bought our groceries for cooking our lunches and dinners. We officially could not afford to eat out again for our entire trip because paying for excursions and our hostels was first priority. We actually met a lot of other travelers this way and ended up acquiring lots of good food to add to our meals.
After our classy granola lunch we went for a walk to the lake; however, we got seriously lost in the only sketchy part of the town and decided that it was going to get too dark before got to the lake and back. After arriving back we made our pasta dinner with some ground meat we got from another traveler and relaxed with people in our hostel. In these sleepy towns there really isn’t much to do but relax so that’s just what we did. The next morning we woke up to a typical Argentine breakfast of toast with jam, corn flake cereal, café, and tang and then headed out for our excursion to the Perito Moreno glacier.
The entire hour drive to the glacier was magnificent and beautiful. We made a few look-out stops along the way and enjoyed using our visas to get discounts on park entrance. Thank God for my visa, its saved me a lot of money thus far at national parks including at Peninsula Valdes. As we got closer and closer to the glacier I saw my first iceberg which was super exciting and I was completely in awe of the mountains and geography. Its crazy to me how different mountain ranges are in appearance because the Andean range is much sharper than the Rockies in Colorado. Once we arrived at the glacier everyone went nuts with their cameras, including me, and we headed down to the boat to cross the lake. The boat was freezing but we got some great views and it was overwhelming to see the glacier’s size so close up. Once we got off the boat on the other side of the lake we put on gripper gloves, crampons on our shoes, heard a climbing briefing and headed to it. At first it felt a little weird to be walking with the spikes under our feet, especially going down a steep hill of ice, but after a few ups and downs we all got used to it. We walked and climbed around on the glacier for about two hours and stopped frequently to take pictures and just stare in awe. It was kind of scary to walk next to parts where there were huge holes full of water going 70 meters deep, but we all survived. At the top of our trip we stopped for some whisky…yes whisky served on glacier ice and bon bons (a chocolate candy). That was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity and we enjoyed seeing the small round wooden tables they had set up in such a vast white sea of ice. We cheersed with our guides and drank up and then headed down the glacier. The Perito Moreno glacier is officially the coolest, most incredible site I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It is so big and makes incredible, loud noise when it moves. This particular glacier extends for 250sq kilometers from the Andean mountain range and records show that it isn’t melting yet do to global climate change, yay!! However, the neighboring Upsala glacier lost a huge chunk of ice for the first time in recorded history the day before we visited Perito Moreno which made the boat tours impassable.
Once we retreated back to the lake we ate our bag lunches and enjoyed soaking in our last few moments of complete awe. All of the lakes around this area and El Calafate are a blue, milky color because it takes so many years for the sediments in the ice melt to settle.
After having walked on the glacier I didn’t think the viewing points would be that impressive, but I was seriously wrong. We were able to see both sides of the glacier extremely close and even got to watch a few large chunks fall into the lake. The cracking sounds were so loud within the glacier and the falling bergs made HUGE splashes. I really didn’t expect to see such a big splash but its hard to get a full perspective on the massiveness of the ice. Once we headed back we met up with our German friend from Puerto Madryn and shared our pasta dinner with him. He told us he didn’t think the glacier would be as cool as we made is sound because apparently he skies on glaciers in Europe. Well, after seeing it, he was just about as excited as us…its that cool!
The next day we took the bus to El Chalten where we were supposed to see the Fitz Roy range and Cerrito Torre, two famous mountain peaks, but the weather was awful. We had a beautiful drive there with impressive Patagonian scenery but we arrived in El Chalten to a mountain storm. El Chalten is the youngest city in Argentina and was built in the 80´s to keep the Chileans out after settling a border dispute. The Argentine government pretty decided to build the town just to keep out their neighbors which is why its so small and remote. The wind, rain, and snow were still too strong we couldn’t go hiking, but we did brave a 15 minute walk to the store to buy our lunch and dinner. The store was literally made of one small room with minimal grocery options. To top off our grocery experience, they didn’t offer bags for us to put our groceries in, and we didn’t bring our backpacks, so we had to put as much in our jacket pockets as would fit and carry the rest in our hands back in the storm. I just laughed at our ridiculous situation as we fought the harsh winds and were pounded with rain in the middle of nowhere Patagonia with our groceries in hand, but I don’t think my friends though it was quite so funny at the time.
We spend the rest of the day napping and writing post cards until we ate dinner and actually met up with a few other people in our study abroad program. Internet cost 3 pesos for 15 minutes which is only $1 a minute but I was feeling too cheap and enjoyed spending time away from technology for a few days at a time. During dinner we heard so many horror stories of people getting lost and stuck in the storm during their hikes that we decided to get an early start the next day, but the storm was still too strong for us to leave the hostel at 6am. Later, around 10am things calmed down outside so we ventured for a hike which was beautiful with snow from the night before. It was fun to see my friend Carrie see snow for the first time…she’s from Texas. We hiked for about an hour and a half and then the weather changed so we had to head back, but we still go to see some great views. I´m still a little bitter though that we didn´t get to see the Fitz Roy and Torre because of the clouds, oh well, another trip I guess. After we got back to the hostel we again met up with our German friend Christian and had lunch before heading out again for a shorter hike. We hauled up a 50 minute hike in 15 minutes, but once again, the bad weather reached us and we were pelted with wind and rain our whole way down. We decided it would be best considering the weather to head back to El Calafate that night instead of taking the early morning bus so we spent one more night at our favorite hostel, America del Sur and then headed off to Bariloche and Villa la Angostura for the last part of our trip.

PS: Sorry these entries all so long but its my journal

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