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Published: June 26th 2006
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Glacier Moreno slides down the valley The bus to El Calafate was an arduous journey, 34 hours in a new but not particularly luxurious bus. Luckily we reserved the front seats which allowed us a little extra leg-room.
We arrived at El Calafate at 1am having lost lots of sleep but gaining two friends: Robert from Austria and James an Ex-Pat living in Spain. James had booked a place at a hostel so we just jumped in a cab with him and stayed there too. We were asleep within minutes.
We woke the following morning at about 11am, we had missed breakfast. The whole town is surrounded by mountains and looked very much like the Northumberland, wet and windswept. I believe the area is on the same latitude as the UK, but at the other side of the world, obviously. It is winter here so the temperature rises to a max of 6 degrees c and it doesn't get light until after 9am, which isn't a bad thing as it encourages us to lie in.
The hostel was very nice with heated floors, fantastic views of the surrounding mountains from the communal area, and very clean. We were getting quite used to the high
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Tasmin freezing on the boat standards of Argentinian accommodation.
The purpose of our visit here was a trip to Moreno glacier, the most accessable glacier in the world and one of the most theatrical. We booked our visit for the next day and headed off into town to get our bearings. On our way we noticed a huge lake so we took a walk around it. In the lake were many flamingoes, I thought they were hot country birds, but apparently not! The town centre was similar to Bariloche in the fact that it was geared for tourists and their need for technical sportswear, as we were visiting a glacier the next day and it was going to be cold I had to invest in a new coat. Tas wanted one too but they didn't have her size, never mind. Before we knew it, it was 5pm and we had seen the last of the daylight, so it was time to head home for beer and hostel cooked pasta.
The next day was our visit to Glacier Moreno. We took an early bus which allowed us to watch the sun rise above the surrounding mountains before dropping us off at a jetty where
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The side wall of the Glacier we caught a boat. The boat took us for a closer view of the Glacier, not too close though incase a bit of the Glacier fell off causing a huge wave that would sink us. The glaciers face stood about 20m high, tinted blue and very jagged. We were dropped off near the western face Glacier where we were briefed about Glaciers in general, but particularly about Moreno. Such as
1. Moreno is one of the few Glaciers that is not shrinking, its size is currently static.
2. It appears blue because of the refraction of light in its very dense centre
3. The top moves faster than the bottom.
4. They use ground stones as a lubricant which colours the lakes they melt into
.. and much more
Next on the agenda was a walk on the Glacier so we donned our crampons and off we went. We saw the edge of the Glacier which looked like a massive frozen wave about to break. We looked down very deep cravases into the blue abyss. The cravasses are caused by the top of the glacier sliding down the mountain faster than the bottom, when this happens at the face
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The blue heart of the Glacier of the glacier huge lumps fall into the lake below. Ice caves are also a result of the movement of the ice but mixed with erosion caused by the melting water, we stood in one for the obligatory photo. The end of the tour was in the Scottish Valley, where they chip some ice off the Glacier and add some Scotch to it. I am not normally a Scotch drinker but I thought it would be rude not to. We walked back to terra firma where we ate our packed lunch gazing at the Glacier's magnificance. There was a thunderous crack, and a huge piece of ice fell off into the water, causing a massive wave. It was really quite scarey, the power of the thing was awesome.
After lunch we went to the eastern face of the Glacier, infront of which walkways give fantastic views of the Glacier and the valley it is sliding down. Seeing the whole thing from this angle revealed how magnificant the thing was. We stood and watched for quite a while in total awe before getting cold and having to run for the bus home. It was only three weeks ago we were
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Tas and the rest of the group trekking in crampons in places where the day time temperature was never below 25 degrees c, so we were glad to get back to our fluffy duvet in the hostel.
The next day we both woke up with snotty noses so we popped into town to buy some menthol sweets and get some fresh air. The rest of the day was spent chilling, reading and watching the sun set over the snow capped mountains. We also planned our next jaunt, the W trek, a five day walk around the Torres Del Paine National Park. The base camp for the trek was Puerto Natales, so the next morning we got the bus - easy this time at only 4 hours and probably our shortest journey in nearly six months.
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The Daughter
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wow
wow! thats so cool!!! (get it??)