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Published: January 28th 2008
We arrived in El Calafate on a mission to see some ice, the bigger: the better!
After traipsing around town and coming to a realisation that this is truly an expensive place, we settled on a one day tour to the main attraction in town: the Perito Moreno Glacier.
The Perito Moreno Glacier is located in the Los Glaciares National Park and is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field located in the Andes system (this icefield is the world's third largest reserve of fresh water behind Antartica and Greenland). Interestingly, the Glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that are not retreating.
The Glacier is 5 km wide, with an average height of 60 meters above the surface of the water. At its deepest part, the glacier has a depth of approximately 700 m. The Glacier advances at a speed of 2 m per day, although it loses mass at approximately the same rate, meaning that aside from small variations, the Glacier has not advanced or receeded in the past 90 years.
OK enough with the Wikipedia facts and figures...
Needless to say, we were not disappointed when we set
eyes on one of the most amazing blocks of ice in the world! Our first glimpse of the Glacier, visible far off in the distance when arriving at the Park, was enough to warrant a dozen or so pictures.
Upon our arrival at the balconies situated about 100 m from the enormous north face of the Glacier, we rushed around with bus loads of other excitable tourists, cameras at the ready hoping to catch on film (if anyone uses that these days) the breaking of ice and the enormous splashes which inevitably follow. We were not disappointed and were able to witness quite a few large chunks break away from the face of the Glacier and fall into the waters below. We took dozens of photos, which i´m sure our families will love, of the beautiful blue ice that stretched out in front of us almost as far as the eye could see!
Not satisfied with merely seeing the Glacier from above, we jumped on a ferry to get a perspective of how enormous it really is from water level. Unfortunately, the ferry is unable to get too close to the face of the Glacier due to the
danger involved with the falling ice, however, the view from 300 m away was still breathtaking.
We arrived back in El Calafate with sore shutter-button fingers, but completely awestruck at having seen such a wonderful sight. It´ll be hard to beat that one for sure, but we´re gonna give it a crack in the Tierra del Fuego region, our next stop. Bring on the most southern town in the world!
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