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Published: April 27th 2008
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El Calafate
We flew at 5am from BA to El Calafate, a small town in Southern Argentina visited mainly as a base for trips to the Perito Moreno glacier.
Upon arrival around 8am we were greeted with fine weather but a lot cooler in comparison to Buenos Aires. We took a mini bus to our hostel for 18 pesos each, about £3. This was booked right next to the luggage carousel.
Arrived at our hostel, the Marco Polo Inn and the place was dead, everybody on daytrips apparently. Unable to check in until 2pm we headed into town. The main street has been done in the style of an Alpine village and, while slightly artificial, was quite picturesque. The majority of shops sold either chocolate or outdoor gear.
For such a small town there was a huge choice to be had on the food front - Pizza Margarita, Pizza Napolitano, Pizza Quatro Quesos, Pizza Picante, Pizza Hawaii and even Calzone (for the Adventurous traveller maybe?). So we had some Pizza.
At 2 we headed back and checked in. The room, for a hostel, was out of this world. No different to a hotel room, everything brand new (which we found out
the hostel pretty much was). Not bad for £20 per night. Not only was the room good they also had a big screen with that nights Champions League games on.
Still being way over budget we had decided on a Supermarket tea. This one was much better then the usual cheese & ham sandwich though. They had a counter at the back where we bought a cold vegetable salad, some white beans in a provenzal style dressing and a rice dish that looked similar to Paella albeit without any fish or meat. After weeks of steak etc this was delicious, so much so we had pretty much the same for the following two nights aswell. All this came to less than £2 between us each time.
Although the hostel had been dead during the day it was heaving by 9pm and the atmosphere was great with a real mix of nationalities - Americans, Aussies, Israeli’s, other Brits, Argentinians and other South Americans. Had a great, and late, night. A little too late considering we had paid £50 each for a glacier trip the following morning at 10.
A coach picked us up the following morning and took us to the
Parque Nacional los Glaciares about an hour from El Calafate. There were 3 main tour options for the glaciers - a Boat trip for about £40, Mini-trekking for £50 and Big Ice for £70. We asked th woman in the tour agency what the diference was between mini-Trekking and Big Ice and were told you just spent longer on the glacier, therefore, we went for the cheaper option. The drive was scenic all the way and then after 45 minutes or so we caught our first glimpse of the Perito Moreno Glacier which was stunning. Upon arrival in the park we spent 2 hours visiting a number of platfoms showing different views of the glacier. From time to time a piece of ice would break off & crash into the sea making a gunshot like sound.
We had to meet back at the coach outside the parks cafe/restaurant but had time for a quick bowl of Pea & Ham soup washed down with a Chilean Beer called Austral which was nice.
After this we proceeded further into the park to catch a boat to go and walk on the glacier itself. Upon arrival we were fitted with crampons & given
lessons on how best to walk on the ice. This involved keeping your legs quite wide apart and pointing your feet outwards which coming from Manchester came quite easily to me.
Walking on the glacier was an experience. Parts of it looked just like hard white snow whereas in other parts it was almost see through. The colours ranged from dirt covered white to a glowing light blue. There were many pools of water which was perfectly safe to drink which we proceeded to try (where there was no dirt). At some points there were some decidedly dodgy sheer drops which the guides had to help people across. A few hundred yards away there was somebody climbing a steep face equipped only with ice picks, no safety harness.
At the end the guides gathered together a load of ice and we were given glasses of 8 year old whisky with 300 year old ice.
The following day we did not a lot and then headed off for Bariloche late at night.
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