El Calafate - Moreno Glacier, Argentina

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The Moreno Glacier, El Calafate

We arrived in El Calafate, a small but growing, tourist oriented town near several glaciers. The glaciers are the main attraction, and numerous companies offer glacier tours, glacier treks, boat trips up to the glacier, and other similar packages. Occasionally I would see an American, but mostly the tourists were South American or European, and most seemed pretty affluent.

The restaurants and shops reflected this affluence. Souvenirs are priced double or more what they cost in the other cities we have passed through, and restaurant prices are generally double what we are used to paying.

Having said that, you can still get a superb steak dinner for about $16.00 US, and the one night we ate in town we found an all you can eat “Parilla” with a big charcoal fire grilling meat. We had pork, lamb, beef and chicken; along with an assortment of salads, deserts and ice cream for 40 pesos (about $11.50 US) plus drinks.

From our hostel in El Calafate we signed up for an all day guided tour of the Moreno Glacier, including entry into the National Park, a hike (supposedly to see the glacier), entry and access to walks and trails to view the glacier, and finally a boat trip up to the face of the glacier.

The hike was a totally bogus waste of time. We drove to a parking area with a great view for picture taking. Then we walked for a while along the glacial lake to another parking area with a great view. The walk was ok, but we didn’t need to pay a tour service to go on a walk from one scenic area to another.

Then we drove to the National Park entrance where they have constructed metal walkways along the face of the glacier. You can walk along and enjoy the view of the glacier and the mountains, and once in a while a giant piece of glacier will fall into the lake, making lots of noise and a big splash!!

The glacier is about 600 feet high at its face, with about 140 feet below the lake surface. The face must be about ½ mile wide.

Our guide explained how from time to time the glacier advances and blocks the flow of water from one of the lakes; then finally creates a tunnel that lowers the lake and eventually collapses the face of the glacier, which then retreats until the process starts all over again.

Apparently this sequence of events is not predictable—the time intervals vary by several years. He said they were also perplexed about the failure of the glacier to recede faster than it does, based on their assumptions of global warming.

After viewing the glacier from the walkways, we got back on our tour bus and drove to a tour boat which drives up and down in front of the glacier face. Of course we are all hoping for a giant crashing piece of ice to fall, and we saw several.

This pretty much ended our El Calafate adventure. Back to the hostel to do some laundry and head to another hostel in El Chalten, another tourist town in the Los Glaciares National Park.

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Photos

Crossing the border into Argentina
again and again we cross back and forth!

Gas prices in Argentina
at $3.35 per dollar, this works out to about 70 cents per liter; or $2.60 US per gallon

Moreno Glacier
From our walk

Glacier face
from the metal walkways along the face of the glacier

Tunnel in the glacier
Created every few years, washes out

Face of glacier collapsing
Look closely on the right side, you can see the face falling