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Published: April 9th 2008
Day 3 and an unexpected Day 4 in El Calafate We arrived Sunday evening after a rather turbulent flight, in to land at El Calafate, after a short taxi ride on the 1 and only road from the airport we arrived at America del Sur Hostel, teeming with excessively friendly rasta style guys running the place. Fortunately it was large, clean and they served dinner and beer.
We headed into town to get our bearings for a quick stroll around given that it was after 10pm and we were pretty wrecked. Then back to collapse...
Perito Moreno Glacier After successfully managing to have our first lie in (8am) we got up and set off into town to hire a car to drive to the Perito Moreno Glacier, one of world´s only moving glaciers.
The drive took us roughly 1 1/2 hours through a landscape so similar to that of Kerry.
As we grew closer we could see the odd small iceberg floating within the lake but nothing could prepare us for the glacier that was to be presented to us around the next corner. The photos do not do it justice. It is so difficult to
describe the breathtaking sight of this immense glacier. We arrived on an exteremly bad weather day but even so it was what I can only describe as..............awesome....
The glacier which had recently (2006) just moved from one side to the other, blocking another Lake path was the most fascinating blue in colour and spanned a height of 50 metres above water (only a third of the depth that is below the water). Walking around we could hear the creaking and cracking sounds that were quite eery in places....every now and then you would hear splashes as the glacier broke off and tumbled into the water and if you were looking in the right place you saw it happen. You had to look quickly as the event occured before the sound...though the sound was like claps of thunder.
After trekking around the manmade walkways we took a 1 hour boat trip to the glacier to gain a greater understanding of the height. Immense....it was incredibly immense...... and unbelievely Thomas managed to capture a HUGE chunk of the glacier that went crashing into the water straight ahead of us about 50 meters away.....(don´t worry slide show night is on it´s way!)......
this sent a huge wave hurtling towards the boat and caused the Captain to turn the boat so as not to feel the effects too much....we caught the shock waves on camera of the waves hitting the shore line. We found ourselves feeling very lucky as we had nearly missed this particular boat trip.
An unexpected 4th day in El Calafate We rose early on Tuesday morning in anticipation of setting off to Puerto Natales to start our 4 night / 5 day trek in the Torres del Paine (yes....Towers fo Pain). Arriving at the bus station accompanied the whole route by one of the many, many stray dogs it was not long before we discovered that the tickets we purchased the day before were for the Wednesday morning bus. You may think we would have panicked but not so, we strangely took it in our stride and worked out a plan B for the day.
Plan B consisted of taking a leisurely walk around the local bird reserve.......accompanied by Bozo and his friends. There are an uncountable number of stray dogs throughout Argentina (or so it seems) very friendly dogs I am pleased to add.
So off we trotted with Bozo who enroute was bullied by a larger alsation that Thomas saw off. Shortly afterwards, Goldie, Scared Dog and White boy tagged along for our 2 hour walk around the Lago Argentino (Lake Argentina) the largest Lake in South America.
The rest of the day consisted of eating, sleeping and planning......and this brings me to now and where I will sign off for the night. Adios Amigos !
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Jaime
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Great Photos
Great photos guys, glad your having a super time and all is well. xx